Category: atlanta

Woodfire Grill

It would be lovely if every restaurant was as ready to serve vegans as Woodfire Grill. And not something half-assed either. This was a full 5 course tasting menu every bit as complex and interesting as the meaty one looked to be. If you need a fancy special occasion option in Atlanta, give it a try. It’s expensive, but worth it. Be sure to call first and ask to make sure they can do a vegan menu for you.

Amuse: pickled cherry, avocado, oil cured olive

First course: local cucumber and athena melon, avocado, crispy bread, aged sherry, olive oil

Second course: local tomato salad, fennel, oil cured olive, marcona almonds, micro basil, olive oil

Taste: white gazpacho with golden raisin puree, espelette, and lemon oil

Third course: roasted mushroom and dried fig risotto, fresh fig compote

Fourth course: roasted spaghetti squash, toasted pecans, local peaches, smoked emulsion, green beans

Dessert: rich chocolate pudding and a blueberry/cherry sorbet (the dessert was different than what they had on the nice sheet they gave us with the menu, so the description isn’t as accurate or nice)

Oh, and if you’re like me, clean your car so the valet doesn’t feel the need to wear a hazard suit to park your car. 🙂

Vegan Drinks Atlanta III

Finally I made it out to a Vegan Drinks event AND got to eat. This month’s gathering was at The Graveyard. It would’ve been criminal if I didn’t show up considering that’s 2 miles from my house. I even tried to ride my bike up there, but got a flat a block away and ended up driving. I am an asshole though and didn’t socialize and instead hid at a table with friends.

The Graveyard put out a nice menu with some great options. I got the in ponzu sauce over soba noodles w/ julienned carrots and bok choy.

My only complaint is that the tofu could’ve used a little marinating. The only flavor I could get off of it was the sesame seeds and maybe sesame oil. I love sesame oil so that’s not a terrible thing. The amount of food was perfect and left a space for dessert. We had the choice between a duet of sorbets or coconut cake. CAKE.

Lovely, dense, coconutty cake. No complaints.

Kevin had to fly out of town and came by for a quick scarfing, so I ordered him some food in to go boxes. I had one of his wings and it was tasty as always. Get ’em Tuesdays during wing night. You’ll have a few vegan sauce options. And as an entreé he had the BBQ tempeh w/ chipotle rice and sautéed spinach. I ate his leftovers the next day for lunch and they were really good, especially the chipotle rice. Looking forward to the next installment!

Oh, look, another Mexican potluck…

Apparently we can’t stop with the Mexican potlucks. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. This time we crammed everyone into my house. It’s so not set up for entertaining. Weren’t those 50’s folks having cocktail parties and serving various things in aspic? Well, they didn’t consider that when building this house, for sure.

Albondigas soup? Oh, yes.

Starting at noon, Mexican deep dish pizza, street corn (in the foil), mango jicama salad (peeking out under the chips), tamale, diablo enchilada (butthurt special!) and guacamole.

Ice cream and cinnamon fried yum. Holy crap!

Hiram to Rockmart

Time for another 44 miles on the Silver Comet Trail. This time I started at Hiram and continued west to Rockmart. After passing Rambo, the next trailhead is 11 miles away. So it’s pretty much out in the country. It was hard to get going this time. Within the first 5 miles my saddle came loose and then I had a flat. No fun! It was my first time using a CO2 cartridge which went okay I guess.

Rockmart. There’s apparently a downtown area but I didn’t go there.

 

 

 

The trail around Rockmart follows this river/creek.

Tunnel

It was not just wet but muddy in that tunnel. You could tell who on the trail had been through it.

Sheriff’s office caboose at Hiram.

No victory pizza.