400 Miles To Dinner

Here's the food rundown from Atlanta.

Pura Vida Tapas & Bar. We love tapas. Winners were the organic local pork special – pork liver on a homemade cracker with a piece of lettuce and sliver of chipotle pepper. Even Mr. Loaf liked the pork liver. One of the few (if any) dishes I've had where the flavor of the lettuce added to the overall effect. And the bacalao – the texture was unexpected, but delicious. It came with crunchy fish flakes that you add to taste. Yum. Also, the cheese plate was perfectly paired with accompaniments. Not so exciting was the coconut goat, and the mussels that were a little fishy.

Euclid Ave. Yacht Club. We ate almost nowhere we planned to on Saturday due to the unexpected blizzard. We ducked into this place to get warm. But it has a good relaxed old-school bar vibe, nice bar staff, and hearty lunch fare for a wintry day.

Aurora Coffee. Another let's get warm for a minute stop. Excellent coffee and cheap by today's standards.

Baraonda Caffe. Wary to eat at a place so near the Fox Theatre (tourists), but hungry at 4:30 in the afternoon, we sat down. Eating at an Italian restaurant without recommendation is the scariest to me, because Italian is so easy to get wrong. And there are so many bad Italian chain restaurants out there. Fewer and fewer people know what good Italian is in this neck of the woods. But we had an excellent wood-fired pizza with proscuitto and arugula. No worries.

Atmosphere Bistro. We ate brunch here and it was really good. It's run by, surprise, French people. We had the escargot. I know, I know, it just tastes like butter and garlic. So what's wrong with that. I had an excellent onglet (hanger steak) and frites that give Les Halles a run for their money. I'd love to go back and have a really long dinner.

While I'm on the subject of French food, it reminded me of the Marling Menu Master. Essential for anyone traveling to France. Easily decodes long and descriptive French menu entries discreetly. And it has good info on restaurant hours, tipping, and much more.