Sweetwater Brewery

While Sweetwater Brewery is not a restaurant and does not produce any kind of food, I figure I can still blog about it as part of a wider food and drink theme. The brewery is a great deal and a really good time.

We showed up at the brewery about ten minutes before it was set to open and a long line had already formed. We were probably thirty people back in line. But we quickly got in and were able to get a beer. The place does get packed on Saturday afternoons. Packed to the point of bumping up against people and having people pushing past you. The excessive crowd is the one downside of the brewery tours. But fortunately the large crowd does not cause excessively long beer lines.

For $8 you get six beer tickets, each of which entitles you to one half pint of beer. You also get a pint glass to drink out of and to take home. Tours are run throughout the period the brewery is open. I think that three pints worth of Sweetwater beer and a pint glass is a great deal for $8.

The brewery has all of Sweetwater's beers on tap and has additional beers not available in stores. I personally am partial to the IPA and the Georgia Brown. The IPA is pictured below. It has the best floral and hops smell and taste. But the floral notes are deceptive because it is not sweet. It is more of a spicy, dry, hoppy, floral taste. The dark background behind the picture causes the picture to not show the consistency of this beer. It is actually rather clear with a very light brown color.

The brewery also had a delicious porter, the Exodus Porter, on tap. The porter had a deep chocolaty, nutty, and burnt smell and taste. The dark color seen below and the chocolate smell did not prepare me for the consistency of the beer. I expected a thick, rich porter. The beer was rather smooth and thin for being a porter and so dark. While I would prefer that the beer be a little thicker, it was not too thin. It is an excellent porter for those who want the big, bold porter flavors but don't want to eat their beer with a fork and a knife.



In addition to sampling the delicious beers, you can take a brewery tour. I found the brewery tour to be a little underwhelming. Of course, that could be because our guide admitted at the start that he was hungover from the night before. It was interesting to see all of the equipment and how the process works. It was also amazing to see the giant stack of kegs and cases of bottled beer.

Due to the cheap price and tasty beers, I highly recommend a Saturday afternoon at Sweetwater Brewery as a great way to spend a relaxing afternoon in Atlanta.

Sweetwater Brewery

195 Ottley Drive

Atlanta, GA 30324

404-691-2537
http://www.sweetwaterbrew.com/

The brewery offers tours on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday starting at 5:30 PM and on Saturdays from 2:30 to 4:30 PM. The brewery accepts cash or credit cards for tours and merchandise.

Poutine at Hobnob Neighberhood Tavern

I recently learned about Quebec's most ubiquitous dish: poutine. Poutine in its simplest form is french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. It sounded odd enough to pique my interest. A quick internet search revealed that a bar not far from my house serves poutine. We made a trip to try out poutine for the first time.

While gravy and cheese on fries sounds rather odd, it tastes great. It is an excellent bar food and would be great to eat when you have a hangover. It is no culinary masterpiece, but I recommend it.

Hobnob's poutine is the usual and simple fries, gravy, and cheese curds. These cheese curds were mozzarella cheese curds. Cheese curds taste similar to cheese but are much chewier. The gravy had a delicious rich, meaty, and peppery flavor. The gravy combined with the warm, salty fries and the chewy and creamy cheese produce a nice combination.

I had the poutine with the recommended High Seas Loose Cannon IPA. While I understand the recommendation and think it was a fairly good one, the Loose Cannon IPA does not rank high on my list of IPAs. It just does not have enough hops or flavor.

We also tried an order of the Belgian endive boats. The endive was filled with warm goat cheese and prosciutto topped with fig slices and Tabasco honey. While the boats were tasty, they were a little too simple. They had no novelty factor or complexity to them. They were not a bad snack, but not really worth the money.

Don't rush out to Hobnob, but if you find yourself in the area with some free time to spare, it is worth dropping in for a beer and some poutine. I would recommend giving poutine a try whenever you get the chance.

Hobnob Neighberhood Tavern
1551 Piedmont Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30324

Don Pepe's Taqueria

Don Pepe's Taqueria is an excellent place for a dirt cheap and delicious meal. I had four different tacos: cabeza (beef head meat), lengua (beef tongue), barbacoa (barbecued beef with the meat usually from the head), and al pastor. Al pastor is made by taking marinated pork and putting it on a vertical spit with a pineapple at the top of the spit. As the spit slowly turns and cooks, the pineapple juices run down the pork. An enzyme in the pineapple helps to break down the protein and produces tender meat. Each taco consists of two tortillas, the meat, onion, and cilantro. I love warm corn tortillas. They have a delicious sweet, earthy taste. Fresh lime slices are provided and then squeezed over top of the tacos.

The al pastor is in the top left of the picture and the bottom right is the lengua.

All of the tacos were delicious. The al pastor was particularly delicious. We also had a lime Jarritos with our tacos. Jarritos are a popular Mexican soft drink. The lime Jarritos tastes like a slightly less carbonated and slightly less syrupy version of a Seven Up. The fact that it is less syrupy and sweet makes it much better in my opinion and makes it an excellent accompaniment to the spicy and salty tacos. You can see one of the lime Jarritos in the picture of the tacos below.

In the above picture you can also see the free side of pickled jalapenos, carrots, and onions that come with any order. The carrots and onions were delicious, but the jalapenos were fiery hot. I can handle hot foods. I eat hot sauce on practically everything except dessert, and I order the fresh sliced jalapenos on my banh mi. But Don Pepe's jalapenos were too hot for me to handle.

My wife ordered a taco combo which consisted of two tacos, beans, and rice. She said that the beans were not the best she ever had, but she thoroughly enjoyed her meal. A friend accompanying us who also ordered the combo enjoyed her meal as well. Three out of three approving indicates this is a great spot. The combo meal is pictured below. The taco on the left is the al pastor and the taco on the right is pollo (chicken).

Each taco costs $.99. That is my kind of price. The lengua tacos are a whooping $1.50. That extra $.51 really breaks the bank!

The staff at Don Pepe's speaks a sufficient level of English to make ordering easy or manageable. Once again we were the only non-Hispanics in the restaurant and the only people speaking English. That is a sure sign of good, authentic food.

While Don Pepe's food is excellent, the price is just right, and the food is super fast, this is no fine dining establishment. It is essentially the Mexican version of fast food. The place even has a drive-through window. Orders are placed at the counter and you have to pick up your own food and throw away your trash. The tables have small stools to sit at. The door to the restaurant is a sliding glass door which was a first for me. The restaurant is situated in the middle of a strip mall parking lot.

But you don't go to Don Pepe's for the fine dining experience. You go to Don Pepe's for dirt cheap tacos served fast. You should go to Don Pepe's Taqueria. It is worth the fortune you will spend on tacos.

Don Pepe's Taqueria
5215 Buford Highway
Atlanta, GA 30340

The Iberian Pig

The Iberian Pig was phenomenal. The waiter informed us that it is a "modern Spanish restaurant." The majority of the menu is tapas and we made our meal tapas.

First, make a reservation. Second, go to The Iberian Pig. We arrived around 8:15 and had to wait an hour to an hour and a half for a table. It was well worth the wait and congratulations to the restaurant for doing that volume of business. The place was packed with people eating, people drinking and eating at the bar, and people standing waiting. The interior of the place and the energy of all the people gave the restaurant a great ambiance.

But the ambiance was not what made the restaurant amazing. It was the food! The restaurant is named after jamon Iberico, the famous Spanish ham. The pigs according to the waiter have an acorn diet. According to wikipedia though jamon Iberico just refers to the black breed of pig and when only labeled jamon Iberico it is from grain fed pigs. We started with some jamon Iberico, serrano ham, and manchego. The jamon Iberico and serrano ham are both cured ham.

I am glad we ordered both. The jamon Iberico is up top. There was about twice as much but we ate some before I remembered to take the picture. The serrano was delicious but it was amazing how much better the jamon Iberico was than the serrano. The Iberico is slightly sweet with a nice fatiness. It almost but not quite melts in your mouth. The jamon Iberico is pricy at fourteen dollars a plate. But I would recommend spending the money to try it once in your life. Manchego is a famous Spanish cheese. It is made from Manchega sheep. It is a firm cheese, firmer than your regular cheddar but softer than a parmesan. It has a delicious creaminess to it. The sauce below it is a pomegranate caramel. The sweetness of the sauce paired perfectly with the salty creaminess of the cheese. The olives were also excellent with the cheese or the meat. The sauce was an aioli that was great on the bread. It was great to combine the bread, the aioli, the manchego, and the serrano for a decadent bite, but it seemed a waste because everything was so good by itself.

Next we had pork cheek tacos.

The pork cheek meat was incredibly tender. It had a delightful sweet aftertaste. The restaurant needs to check their limes though. I have never had a lime so hard and dry before.

Next was asparagus with serrano ham, Manchego cheese, olive oil, and a Moscatel wine reduction.

The asparagus had a pleasant grilled taste, the smokiness from the grill, which paired excellently with the sweetness of the asparagus, the saltiness of the cheese and meat, and the umami of the meat.

Then we had eggplant fries with a spicy red pepper aioli dip.

The fries had a hard exterior which gave a nice crunch and a smooth interior. The flavors were a contrast of the sweet eggplant and the spicy aioli.

Then we had albondigas which were wild boar meatballs. The meatballs were stuffed with piquillo peppers, dates, and roasted tomatoes. They came in a pimenton cream sauce with oyster mushrooms.

These were the best meatballs I have ever eaten. They were amazing. They had a spice blend that gave a kick to them. The spices were similar to the taste of a peperoni. Almost indescribably good.

We also had barbecued octopus over potatoes, pork, and shallots.

The octopus was good but it was the weakest dish of the night. The octopus is cooked all day and then grilled. The long cooking process made the octopus tender and falling apart rather than chewy. Of course, it was still somewhat chewy. I'm not sure if it is possible to have octopus not be at least a little chewy. The barbecue sauce was very mild, unlike a strong Southern barbecue sauce.

Finally, we had tortoloni. The tortoloni was stuffed with goat cheese, manchego, and paprika. It was topped with a pistachio cream sauce, raisins, pine nuts, and olive oil.

It was incredibly rich. But here the tapas format was a major advantage. Because it was just a small dish, the richness was enjoyable rather than overwhelming or uncomfortable.

I would highly recommend The Iberian Pig. This was one of the best meals both I and my two companions have had in quite a while. I was worried that my never-ending hunger combined with the multitude of delicious sounding options would cause me to over order and spend a small fortune. Even with multiple glasses of wine the meal was still reasonable for the quality of the food and the efficient and friendly service. Just remember to make a reservation when you go.

The Iberian Pig
121 Sycamore Street
Decatur, GA 30030
404-371-8800
http://www.theiberianpigatl.com/

As a bonus, here is the tapas portion of the menu.

Bhojanic

Bhojanic describes itself as "Fusion, Homestyle Indian, Tapas." It is tapas in the sense that there are a series of small, appetizer sized dishes that can be ordered to make a meal. But there are also entree sized dishes and an option called thali.Thali is a plate of several different dishes plus rice with peas and carrots, a yogurt dip, and a small salad. I am not quite sure why it describes itself as "fusion." The dishes all seem to be straight Indian to me.

We started out with an order of samosa chat.

The samosas were warm and filled with a spicy blend of pureed lentils and whole peas. The spice blend gave a warming quality to the dish. Then there was a sauce over top made of yogurt, mint, and cilantro. The sauce was amazing. I could drink the sauce, and I have to admit that I did eat a few spoonfuls of the leftovers. 

For our entree we chose the thali option. Thali means "plate" and is literally a plate full of many small dishes. The menu has three different meat thali options and six different vegetarian thali options. It is really the Indian version of meat and three. You choose a meat and two vegetable dishes to make up your thali or three different vegetable dishes. We each ordered three of the different veggies so that we could try all six.

This is the first thali plate. On the top left is the chili paneer which is the best of all the dishes. It consists of paneer with a spicy tomato sauce. The tomatoes are cooked about two steps above becoming chutney. They are cooked down to the point where they have a concentrated flavor and are sweet. The spiciness is not hot but instead gives the dish a warmth. I feel that I am going to overuse the concept of warmth but many of the dishes did give you a feeling of warmth from either the spices or the heat. Then the other half of the dishes were excellent counterpoints to the warm dishes and provided a cooling sensation. The paneer is a dense cheese with a clean taste. It is like tofu but a little more dense and has a cheesy taste.

The middle dish is potatoes and cauliflower with, of course, a complex blend of spices. My wife thinks that she hates cauliflower, but she loved this dish. This dish was the spiciest of all six.

The dish on the right side is what I would call Indian creamed spinach. I apologize for my limited knowledge of Indian cuisine. For years my wife swore that she hated Indian food based on some experience years before I met her where someone gave her spicy curry. Since then she has resisted the idea of trying Indian food again. A few weeks ago I convinced her to give Bhojanic a try. She was extremely reluctant to try it. After the appetizer she admitted that she loved the food and was already talking about coming back. Back to the creamed spinach. It really was like creamed spinach except with Indian spices.

The rice is on the middle bottom. The yogurt is on the bottom left and the small salad is on the bottom right.



The second plate had a garbanzo bean dish on the top left. The dish was an explosion of spices in your mouth. There were too many spices for my limited palate to comprehend.

On the top middle are onion dumplings with a creamy sauce. On the top right is a lentil dish.

Not only is the food delicious but while not cheap, it is fairly reasonably priced. The appetizer was seven dollars and the thali plates are twelve dollars each.

I would highly recommend Bhojanic for delicious Indian food.

Bhojanic

1363 Clairmont Road

Decatur, GA 30033

404-6339233

Carniceria Hispana

Carniceria Hispana is a grocery store/meat market/internet cafe/cellular phone store and restaurant. They also have one child's bicycle for sale, but I'm not sure if that alone is enough to add toy store to the list. One corner of the store is a small restaurant with a few tables tucked back in the corner. The menu consists of tacos, tortas, burritos, and tamales. We were there for a good thirty minutes and were the only non-Hispanics and the only people who spoke English the entire time. That is when you know the experience is authentic.

We ordered one carne asada torta, two carne asada tacos, and two lengua (tongue) tacos. Carne asada is thinly sliced beef coated with spices and grilled. A torta is a Mexican sandwich served on soft round bread. The carne asada torta had the carne asada, lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream, and pickled jalapeno.

The torta was not impressive. The meat was great but the sandwich was uneventful. The iceberg lettuce and unripe tomato did not add much flavor or texture to the sandwich. The pickled jalapeno was not crisp, the cheese had little taste, and the sour cream was excessive. I will admit that at first I thought the sour cream was mayonnaise and I have long had a fear of mayonnaise which probably turned me off to the sandwich at first. Overall, the sandwich really was uneventful except for the carne asada. The carne asada was delicious. The spice combination or marinade used on the steak gave it a great flavor.

The tacos were where Carniceria Hispana shines. The tacos are simple affairs. Two corn tortillas per taco, the meat, cilantro, and onions with a lime on the side to squeeze over top and some salsa verde to dribble over everything. The flavor combination was delicious. The meats had a nice saltiness to them that contrasted perfectly with the slight sweetness and the starch of the tortillas, the spiciness of the cilantro, the onion, and the acidic pop from the salsa verde and the lime juice. The carne asada as mentioned before was delicious. The tongue was also good. The tongue meat melts in your mouth as you eat it. It was my wife's first time eating tongue and she even approved. I find it hard to describe tongue other than that it has a very pleasant soft texture that melts in your mouth and a clean, light flavor. It is a sharp contrast to the chewy texture of the carne asada.

The tacos were delicious and I think we will return soon for some more tacos. They also had barcado and carnitas tacos which I would like to try. Plus at $1.99 each, the tacos were a good deal. Three or four tacos would be more than sufficient for a meal. Two may even suffice if you are not particularly hungry. Conclusion: Carniceria Hispana is an excellent stop for tacos but the torta does not come highly recommended.

Also, while the cooks, who also run the register, did not seem to be fully conversant in English, I had no trouble communicating my order to them. Some ethnic restaurants can come across as unfriendly when the preppy white guy comes in. You sometimes get the feeling like you are invading someone's turf. While we were definitely something of a curiosity here, the staff and the customers were all pleasant and friendly. In other words, go get some tacos and don't be intimidated by the look or feel of the place.

Carniceria Hispana

3258 Buford Highway

Atlanta, GA 30329

404-315-9400

Banh Mi! - Lee's Bakery

I recently became obsessed with a delectable Vietnamese street food - banh mi. Literally banh mi means biscuit (banh) flour (mi). It is a sandwich made on a baguette of the same name and made of both wheat and rice flour. The bread is only the beginning. Banh mi traditionally has Vietnamese mayonnaise. Vietnamese mayonnaise is very different from the traditional American version. It is almost like a cross between butter and mayonnaise. I know this sounds gross but it really is not. I wouldn't want to eat it alone, but as a condiment on the sandwich it is perfect. It has a very sweet taste to it. Banh mi also traditionally contains do chua which is pickled daikon radish and carrots. The radish and carrots are pickled in vinegar with ample sugar. The result is a sweet and sour condiment for the sandwich. Then thinly sliced cucumber and jalapeno are added followed by cilantro. Those are the standards. From there the filling varies depending on what type of protein you want in the middle.

I have visited two of Atlanta's banh mi establishments out on Buford Highway. One is Quoc Huong Banh Mi Fast Food and the other is Lee's Bakery. I have only visited Quoc Huong Banh Mi once and while it is good, I prefer Lee's Bakery. I will admit that Lee's Bakery is much closer to my house, accepts credit cards, and is open every day of the week, which gives it an advantage independent of taste over Quoc Huong for me. But I think the taste between the two is fairly similar, and Lee's Bakery may even have the edge on taste.

My favorite banh mi from Lee's Bakery is the special banh mi. It comes with all of the usual fillings plus head cheese, Vietnamese pate which is similar to liverwurst with a little less of the liver taste, and sliced pork.


Special Banh Mi

The sandwich is so good it is unbelievable. The sweet and sour from the pickled radish and carrots, the spiciness of the cilantro, the heat of the jalapeno, the sweet and creamy of the mayo, and the salty flavor and creamy and chewy textures of the different meats with the added richness of the pate combine to make my favorite sandwich. These sandwiches are also unbelievable because they are so cheap. Each sandwich is only $2.50. One can easily be satisfied by eating just one sandwich. I often eat two, but I suppose that I am something of a glutton.

The reason I often eat two is because I also like to order one of the grilled pork banh mi in addition to a special banh mi. The grilled pork banh mi contains little bits of pork grilled with a light addition of some type of sweet sauce. The little pork bits have a nice chewy and crunchy texture to them. However, I was a little disappointed last time I ate one because the pork was a little dry and tough. I believe that Lee's Bakery cooks the pork in advance and then has it sitting waiting to be added to the next sandwich ordered. I am beginning to wonder if the quality of your pork banh mi doesn't entirely depend on when the last time the pork was grilled.

Grilled Pork Banh Mi

Another option is the tofu banh mi.

Tofu Banh Mi

I highly recommend Lee's Bakery. Go out and try a banh mi. The restaurant is nothing fancy. But you are not going there for fine dining.

The fact that every time I visit there are more Vietnamese people in the restaurant than any other group and the television is often tuned in to a Vietnamese station, yet there is also always a smattering of people of other backgrounds should let you know that this is a good place to go. Judging by what others order, they also have decent other dishes. I do not yet have an opinion as to their other dishes because I can't get beyond the banh mi.

Additional important information is that there is a ten dollar minimum on any credit or debit card order but they will let you use your card for a smaller order if you are willing to let them tack on an additional $1.75 to your order. Also, if you order five banh mi you get the sixth banh mi for free.

Lee's Bakery
4005 Buford Highway NE
Atlanta, GA 30345
404-728-1008

Hank's Seafood

Over Christmas Break we visited one of my favorite restaurants in Charleston, SC. Hank's is the place to go for seafood in Charleston. It isn't the nicest restaurant in Charleston, but it does, in my opinion, have the best seafood. The billboards on the way into the city want you to think that Hyman's is the best seafood place and is where all of the locals go. Don't be fooled. While other restaurants have great seafood options, if seafood is your number one interest, then go to Hank's.

I started off my meal with a dozen oysters on the half shell. I love oysters on the half shell. They are one of the most delicate, sensual, and tasty foods in the world.

The dozen oysters were  a sample of four different oysters from three different locations. One group of four were from Apalachicola, Florida. These were your typical Gulf oysters. They are good, but nothing special. The other two groups of four were from the Pacific coast. While all of the oysters were delicious and I would recommend the oyster sampler, I did have a couple of complaints. First, I had to ask the waiter where the oysters are from. I would appreciate it if the waiter, as has happened at other restaurants, informed me of their source upon giving me the plate. Second, I asked if the pacific oysters were pacifics or kumamotos. I recently read a fantastic book on oysters, The Geography of Oysters by Rowan Jacobsen. It turns out that there are four different types of oysters grown in the United States: eastern, pacific, European flats, and kumamotos. The pacifics and easterns are native to the United States. The European flats are native to Europe but are apparently quite rare in the US today. The kumamotos were imported from Japan and account for a huge share of the oysters grown on the west coast. When I asked the question, the waiter was clearly befuddled. Perhaps this was not a fair question of my waiter because as an oyster nerd I am not a typical customer and perhaps I should have further explained myself. Thus, perhaps my complaint is not a fair complaint. However, I feel that the proper response would have been to go back to the raw bar and ask for clarification. My third complaint is that my oysters had an unusually large amount of shell bits in them. Despite having just claimed that I am an oyster nerd, I'm not sure if this is preventable with skill and care or just a random and unavoidable occurrence.

My wife had she-crab soup for her appetizer.

For all of you not from Charleston, she-crab soup is a delicacy often imitated and rarely perfected. She-crab soup requires crab roe and a good she-crab soup should have a generous helping of crab roe, sherry, and portions of crab meat. As you can see from the picture, she-crab soup is a creamy soup. It has a sweetness from the crab and a slightly sweet kick from the sherry. Hank's she-crab soup was above par. Both my wife and I gave it our seal of approval. It was not the best we have ever had but it was worth ordering. It had roe, sherry, and nice large pieces of crab meat.

For an entree, both my wife and I had the tuna. We have ordered the rare seared tuna almost every time we have visited Hank's.

As seen above, the tuna has several pieces of tuna with a nice rare/raw center. It is accompanied by caramelized onions, goat cheese, black olives, basil, sweet reduced tomatoes, and a puff pastry. It seems like it wouldn't work. I always imagine, and most chefs seem to think, that rare seared tuna is a dish to be created in an Asian style. But the sweetness of the caramelized onions, the creaminess of the goat cheese, the spice of the basil, and the salt of the olives all combine to create one of my favorite dishes. The puff pastry has never really done anything for me, although it can be useful to mop up whatever is left at the end. The rare seared tuna entree runs around twenty-eight dollars.

My in-laws and the rest of those with us all ordered a fried seafood platter.

I love fried seafood, but with the other options I couldn't bring myself to order fried seafood. Fried seafood, to me, is more of a meal to be ordered at your local hole in the wall. I don't want to get dressed up (see below) and pass up on the tuna in favor of fried seafood. I will say that Hank's does have excellent fried seafood, as it well should for the twenty dollar plus price tag on the fried seafood platters. The platters offer excellent fried oysters, shrimp, scallops, fish, and deviled crab. In addition, Hank's has excellent fried sweet potato chips that come with the platters.

As I indicated above, I like to dress up to go to Hank's. I consider it to be one of Charleston's nicer establishments. It is no Cypress or Peninsula Grill, but it is still a nice restaurant. As for all of Charleston's nicer establishments, it really grinds my gears when tourists and others lacking sufficient class visit such places while donning their most comfortable t-shirt or jeans. Do yourself and all of those around you a favor and at least put on a collared shirt of some type and some type of pants nicer than jeans. Or at the very least, wear your best designer jeans.

Conclusion: if you find yourself in the Holy City with a hankering for seafood, stroll on over to Hank's. You won't be disappointed.

Hank's Seafood
10 Hayne Street
Charleston, SC 29401
843-723-3474
http://www.hanksseafoodrestaurant.com/