Bistro Niko

I am usually a little wary of Buckhead Life restaurants. They are all good, but they often come across as pretentious, unauthentic, and trying too hard. Sort of like Vegas. Sort of like Buckhead generally. I have eaten at, and enjoyed, Bluepointe, Atlanta Fish Market, and Buckhead Diner, but I was never blown away. Bistro Niko raised the bar.

Bistro Niko, as the name should give away, is Buckhead Life Group's upscale French restaurant in Buckhead. The restaurant did have a cheesy mural of Paris with all of the typical landmarks one could possibly fit in. Otherwise the space was warm and welcoming, although a little loud. But to get to the heart of the matter, the food had its ups and downs but was all above par, and our service was excellent.

We started off with an order of gruyere cheese puffs. They were good, but not amazing. Imagine a small ball of lighter than air pastry with a warm, sharp gruyere center.

I then ordered the grand charcuterie platter as my appetizer.

I thought the platter was an appetizer for one, but it was intended for the whole table. Fortunately, there were three of us and I received some help. I think my arteries would have shut down had I consumed all of this delicious, fatty goodness by myself. At $14 for the massive platter, this is an excellent deal. The platter consisted of two types of salami, prosciutto, a "faux gras terrine", a rillette, and an almond country pate. All were excellent. Salami and prosciutto are Italian, not French, but I guess I will let that slide. The meats were served with toast points, a tasty whole grain mustard, and cornichons. The terrine was excellent. It was like rich, meaty, air and was deeply satisfying. Rillete is meat, usually and in this case pork, cooked in fat until it can be shredded. It is then cooled surrounded by fat to form a meaty paste. The rillette tasted like the richest, fattiest, most melt in your mouth barbecue you could ever imagine. The country pate with almonds, the salumi, and the prosciutto were also delicious.

I also ordered a salad course of frisee, bacon lardons, and a fried egg. I forgot to take a picture of this course. The egg yolk broke over the greens and bacon to make a delicious rich, salty, crunchy salad.

As an entree, my wife ordered beef tenderloin tips.

The beef was perfectly cooked and had an excellent flavor both from the meat and the peppercorn crust. The mushrooms and jus served with the meat were a great accompaniment.

My mother-in-law ordered a shrimp special. It essentially consisted of tempura shrimp with a funky coleslaw in the middle.

The shrimp had an Asian inspired taste. The coleslaw was unusual. It had a very earthy taste I couldn't quite figure out. After asking the waiter, we discovered that the main component of the coleslaw was celery root. Overall, this dish didn't wow me. However, my mother-in-law seemed to like it so it might just be me.

I ordered the skate wing which is served sauteed in brown butter with capers, spinach, and steamed potatoes.

I had skate wing once in a bistro in Paris. I remembered it as one of the lightest, most delicate, and most delicious fishes I have ever had. The skate here was cooked well but was saturated in brown butter. The richness from the butter was overwhelming. The dish was served with two tiny lemon wedges. I squeezed the lemon over the fish, and the bites with the lemon juice were much better. The acid from the lemon nicely cut through the richness of the butter. Overall, I was a little less than impressed with this dish. French cuisine is intimately tied to butter and richness, but the chef should know that this much butter kills all other flavors and renders the fish nearly unpalatable. The fish should be the star and the butter should only serve to accent its delicate flavors.

The highlight of the meal was the excellent service. I wish every waiter could be as good as our waiter that night. He was there when needed, answered every question, was a wealth of information, and yet managed to be there only when we needed him. Some waiters are never around and neglect the diner. Some waiters are overly zealous hovering over the table and making themselves an uninvited dinner guest. Our waiter struck a perfect balance.

Bistro Niko is expensive, although the prices are relatively appropriate for the ingredients and quality of the food. Bistro Niko also suffers from a bit of the make-believe gourmet. But overall it was a pleasant experience with decent to above par food. I would recommend it to anyone looking for French food in Atlanta served in a fine dining setting. But I wouldn't put it on a top places to eat in Atlanta list.

Bistro Niko
3344 Peachtree Rd NE
Atlanta, GA 30326
404-261-6456
www.buckheadrestaurants.com/bistro-niko/

Carver's Country Kitchen

Good food and a unique atmosphere. Carver's Country Kitchen is a unique place that serves up some tasty Southern cooking.

The atmosphere is unique because it is like eating lunch at a convenience store. You walk in, walk back to a small area open to the kitchen. They take your order and make your plate. You then carry your plate and drink to one of the tables in the middle of the room. It is very similar to a barbecue buffet but rather than being a buffet you choose a meat, two vegetables, and your choice of bread. The clientele ranges from college students, to construction workers, to well-dressed office workers. Don't be scared by the clientele or the odd location. It is all part of the experience.

The food is not the best example of Southern cooking I have ever had, but it is good. I ordered the fried chicken with collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and jalapeno cornbread.

The chicken was moist and flavorful on the interior with a crunch, greasy fried exterior. The chicken was a little greasier and heavier than the perfect fried chicken that I remember my granny making when I visited my grandparents as a child. But I can't really fault them for failing to meet the standard of my granny. The fried chicken is good and worth ordering. The macaroni and cheese was creamy and tasty. The collards were fairly good but lacking a little bit of flavor. The jalapeno cornbread was excellent, but by the time I got around to it I could barely do more than take a tiny nibble.

My friend ordered the same plate except he had the hashbrown casserole instead of the macaroni and cheese.

The jalapenos on top of his chicken are from the free offering of pickled peppers.

The plate of food is enormous. The amount of food you get for your money, plus the quality of the food, makes this a real value. I recommend going to Carver's for the experience alone, the fact that the food is rather good is a nice bonus. Be sure to bring a big appetite.

Carver's is only open for lunch from 11 to 3 on weekdays.

Carver's Country Kitchen
1118 W. Marietta Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30318
404-794-4410

Cafe Lily

Horrible. Utterly disappointing.

I went to Cafe Lily for brunch. I ordered the lamb with potatoes and eggs. I thought the $14 was a little high, but not ridiculous, for a lamb brunch item. I asked for my eggs over easy. No dice. The chef is busy and can only do the eggs scrambled. While refusing requests is no reason to hate a restaurant, a brunch place should be able to accommodate eggs however you like them. But that was only the beginning of the disaster.

I received my food. I was shocked.

Five tiny nuggets of lamb. Where does a lamb nugget come from? No cut of lamb I can think of yields lamb nuggets. Was I being served the trimmings from someone else's piece of lamb? The potatoes had way too much garlic. I put heaping spoonfulls of minced garlic in nearly everything I cook. I love garlic. The garlic on the potatoes made them unappetizing. The eggs were just "blah." They had no distinctive taste and no redeeming qualities. They reminded me of the eggs served at a cheap hotel's breakfast buffet: poured out of a container rather than made fresh. The tomato slices were from the tiniest, most unripe tomato. Not only that but one of the four slices was the end of the tomato with the hard stem portion intact.

I would not pay a penny for this food when I can go elsewhere and receive much better. Much less would I pay $14 for this plate. To top it all off, the service was lackluster at best.

My wife ordered the french toast.

It is hard to screw up french toast. She said it was decent but not amazing.

She also ordered a side of sausage.

I have never seen sausage served this way before. It is a large sausage link cut several times so that it would lay flat. It wasn't bad with some syrup over top. However, the additional charge of, I believe, $4 for this one piece of sausage was excessive.

Overall, avoid Cafe Lily. It is a waste of money and time.

Cafe Lily
308 W. Ponce De Leon Ave.
Decatur, GA 30030
404-371-9119

The Porter

Maybe the best way to sum up The Porter is a line I used to describe a dish later in this post: "I would never have expected to find something this good and this exciting in a bar in Little Five Points."

Food in America has changed. We have gone from a not so distant past where the majority of neighborhood bars served Budweiser, Coors, Miller, french fries, hamburgers, and nachos, to today where you can find a bar serving beef hearts, mussels, deconstructed caesar salads, and creme brulee. Are we in the midst of a food fad, a food bubble? I'm not really sure, but I sure hope not. I find this to be a happy or tasty state of affairs.

The Porter is the new breed of bars. It has a beer list that goes on for pages. You will not find any Bud, Miller, or Coors products on it. You will find Belgian Trappist beers, German weizens, barleywines, IPAs and every other variety of beer you can imagine. More heady adventures than any one man could possibly hope to sample. I had one of my absolute favorite beers, a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. I also had a Smuttynose IPA because it was the suggested beer pairing for my mussels and a Smuttynose Wheat Wine Ale for dessert. The wheat wine ale was a combination of a wheat beer and a barleywine. All were good, although I am still a little unsure about barleywines.

For food we sampled a number of items thanks to our friends, a couple who invited us out and suggested The Porter. A hat tip is owed to R and E. We started off with the goat cheese fritters.

There were five to start. This picture was taken after two were consumed.

We had a small debate at the table about these. They were decent and could have been a little warmer, but should they really be called fritters? We concurred that "logs" or "sticks" would have been more accurate. I understand that a fritter is any food coated in batter and fried, but it just didn't seem to accurately describe the dish. Maybe that is a trend at The Porter. See the description of my wife's salad below. The fritters were battered and fried logs of goat cheese covered with a honey sauce. Anything with goat cheese or fried will be good, and you can't fail with the combination of the two.

We also tried the salt and vinegar popcorn. This was a very interesting dish and a great idea for bar food.

I often find popcorn to be a little bland and boring. The vinegar gave it a welcome kick. It almost tasted like salt and vinegar chips. One bite had such a strong vinegar kick that I felt it in my nose, but other than that the popcorn was delicious, and I love the idea.

For my appetizer I ordered the beef hearts. Of course I ordered the beef hearts, it was the weirdest thing on the menu. The beef hearts were shaved with red wine blueberries, pickled scallions, and radishes.

The beef hearts were excellent. The meat was super tender and had a taste I can't describe. Everyone at the table agreed that it was good but also was unable to describe the taste. The taste is a little bit organy but not in a strong, overpowering way. The blueberries, pickled scallions, and radishes added some sweetness, tang, and crunch that paired well with the deep, rich taste of the meat. Overall, this was a tasty, bold, and inventive dish that worked well. I would never have expected to find something this good and this exciting in a bar in Little Five Points.

My wife had the macaroni and cheese as an appetizer.

It is hard to have bad macaroni and cheese, and this was good, but far from the best macaroni and cheese we have ever had. The dish consisted of shells with white cheddar cheese. It was super cheesy and very creamy, to the point of being a little soupy.

As an entree, I had the mussels appetizer.

The mussels were cooked in a broth with carrots, onions, some other vegetables, and sriracha. I am a huge fan of sriracha, and liked the idea, but I wish the sriracha was a little stronger in the broth. Overall, the mussels were good, but not amazing.

My wife ordered a caesar salad as her entree. The menu stated caesar salad and then something like "parmesan, anchovies, egg, . . . "  But nowhere did it give a clear indication that the salad was a deconstructed caesar salad.

The lack of clear description on the menu was more than a little annoying for several reasons. First, the dish brought to the table was not what was expected. Second, it required significant work to get the salad to be anything close to a caesar salad. My wife had to spend several minutes mashing up the egg and anchovies and slicing the romaine and cheese. This would not have been a problem if it was expected. It is not that we are lazy diners, but one would like to know that the diner will be doing all of the work. Finally, it was a little annoying because the dish didn't totally work. Caesar dressing requires a thorough mixing of the ingredients. The resulting salad was not gross and had some interesting taste, but it wasn't really a caesar salad. This one dish was a bit of a failure in my judgment. I would award and A+ for inventiveness and thinking outside the box but a B- for execution and taste.

Finally, I had one other complaint. We were seated at a table in a small passageway between the front bar and the back room. Our table was directly across from the bathroom. I could almost reach out and touch the bathroom door. While I would find this to be a problem in almost any establishment, in an establishment that is just as much a bar as a restaurant this is a real problem. There were frequently lines of people waiting to use the restroom. For a while there was a long piece of toilet paper on the floor outside one of the bathrooms, and at one point a waiting patron thought it would be perfectly acceptable to rest his drink on our table without asking. I understand that The Porter is a small place and tables have to be placed where there is available space. But no one should be seated across from the bathroom. Give up one table and take the small hit in your ability to turn a table. Don't try so hard in terms of beers and food and then squander it all away by seating someone next to a bar bathroom.

Other than the bar bathroom table and the deconstructed caesar salad, I was rather impressed with The Porter. I would definitely go back. However, I would make clear that I would gladly wait any additional time necessary to not be seated next to the bathroom.

The Porter
1156 Euclid Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
404-223-0393
http://www.theporterbeerbar.com/

Thien Thanh

I left Thien Thanh disappointed. While it could have just been the dish I ordered, I don't think I will be heading back to Thien Thanh anytime soon.

I ordered the hu tieu dac biet. Hu tieu is a vermicelli rice noodle soup and dac biet just means that it is a combination soup. It comes with all of the available proteins: shrimp, squid, pork meat, pork heart, pork liver, and eggs.

The soup broth had a taste reminiscent of ramen noodles from my high school days. Overall, there was not a strong flavor in anything, and it was just sort of bland the whole way through. The one exception was the strong taste of celery.

The pork meat was a little overdone. The eggs consisted of one quail egg softboiled. It was tasty and interesting when it popped in my mouth and let out the runny yolk. The shrimp and squid were okay. I am not sure which component the pork heart and liver were or if they were even present. There were some unidentified protein bits in my soup that could have been them, but the bits looked more like the meatballs you usually find in pho. Whatever they were, they were slightly odd tasting but good.

Other than the lack of any distinctive or appealing flavor, the one thing that struck me about the dish was the stinginess with the proteins. There was one egg, two shrimp, maybe two or three pieces of squid, and a small portion of pork meat. You can easily go to a different Vietnamese restuarant on Buford Highway, or anywhere else, order a bowl of pho and receive a generous helping of protein.

The best thing about Thien Thanh may be the cheesy Vietnamese karaoke videos playing on the giant screen in the center of the restaurant.

My final verdict would be to take a pass on Thien Thanh. At the very least, put it down at the bottom of your list and give it a try after you sample all of the popular Vietnamese restaurants on Buford Highway. I was excited to try a new, odd Vietnamese dish, but I was let down. Be wary of suffering the same fate.

Thien Thanh
5219 Buford Highway
Doraville, GA 30340
770-676-0512

Buckhead Bottle Bar

Terrible. This may be a fun place to grab a drink if its your crowd, but don't come here to eat. The food is bad, the service is mediocre, and the atmosphere is not conducive to dining.

I ordered a salad and a charcuterie plate. The charcuterie plate did not deserve to even be labeled as such. The plate mostly consisted of cold cut meats. I'm talking sliced ham. The best thing it had going for it was some salami and serrano. Basically, they take the meats that they use in sandwiches and such, slap them on a plate, and call it charcuterie. I guess that's fine if that's what your customers want. But I was more than a little perturbed when I was duped into ordering it. Let your customers know what they are ordering. Don't serve frozen french fries and call them pomme frites. Don't serve deli meat and call it a charcuterie plate. I mean one of the "cheeses" on the plate was Swiss cheese. Was this a joke?

I also ordered a salad. A basic frisee, apples, blue cheese, and walnuts salad. It was ok, but nothing more.



My wife ordered a salmon pasta dish. The salmon was cooked well. But other than that it was pretty bland and boring. Likely pre-made alfredo sauce, penne noodles, and a block of salmon. Snooze . . .

Not only was the food boring to deceptive and terrible, the space was horrible. While I delighted in my ham and Swiss cheese plate, I was surrounded by bar patrons standing around. The space was tight with our table essentially in the middle of the room and surrounded by people drinking and talking. Always nice to nibble at your salad with butts in your face and people knocking your chair.

If you want to go eat bland, boring food while surrounded by cougars on the prowl and the trendy crowd, then have at it. Otherwise, I recommend you stay away.

Buckhead Bottle Bar
268 East Paces Ferry Road
Atlanta, GA 30305
404-474-9892
http://www.buckheadbottlebar.com/

Taqueria Del Sol

Taqueria Del Sol is another spot in our usual rotation. The Decatur location is directly across the street from Farm Burger, and Taqueria Del Sol is in our usual rotation for the same reason Farm Burger is: it is quick, cheap, easy, and tasty.

Taqueira Del Sol ("Taqueria") is a Mexican-American restaurant specializing in tacos but also serving enchiladas and other items. The food is not necessarily authentic Mexican but instead blends and features authentic Mexican fare combined with the California taco style, some Tex-Mex elements, a dash of Southern fusion, and plenty of style all its own.

My go-to taco is the fish taco.

The fish taco consists of egg washed, masa and bread crumbed breaded, and fried tilapia with pickled jalapenos and a poblano tartar sauce. The fish comes out perfectly with a light breading exterior despite being deep fried. While the fish tacos alone are good, they are amazing when jazzed up with some of the jalapeno coleslaw available as a side.

The fish tacos are light years better with the coleslaw. So much better that I can't believe the restaurant doesn't put them on the menu that way. Each taco costs approximately $3. That is a great deal for a taco this good.

The other regular tacos are the Memphis with "chopped smoked pork with a spicy jalapeno coleslaw and tequila BBQ sauce." The brisket consists of "shredded beef brisket with pico de gallo." I have ordered the brisket on several occasions. The amount of flavor packed into the meat is amazing. The first bite serves up a sucker punch to your taste buds. The fried chicken consists of "strips of fried chicken breast, lime jalapeno mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato." The carnita consists of "twice cooked tender pork with salsa frita, cilantro, and onions. The veggie contains "veggie jalapeno refried beans, queso blanco, and roasted tomatillo salsa." Don't be scared off by the regular mention of jalapenos. I have yet to try anything that made my mouth burn.

Taqueria also has at least one taco special every day as well as one or two other specials. On this trip there were two special tacos. The first consisted of fried shrimp with lettuce, jalapenos, and a sauce which I know was a mayonnaise based sauce and I believe was a spicy tartar sauce. While my memory is fuzzy, I do remember that it was delicious.

The second was a, I believe, slow-cooked pork taco with a salsa. I waited too long to write this review and cannot remember the exact contents. I do remember that it was messy, a little greasy, and super tasty. The meat was extremely tender and the grease and juices from its cooking combined with the tender meat and the cool salsa made an excellent combination.

Three tacos will suffice as a meal for an average person. If you are less hungry two may do. A growing boy (or girl) may want four, but that is pushing it. As mentioned above, Taqueria also serves enchiladas and other items. I have never actually made it past the tacos to order anything else off the menu, with one exception. However, dining companions and friends have assured me that the enchiladas are tasty. The one exception is when I ordered the chile poblanos. The chile poblanos are apparently only offered for a short period each year when the restaurant gets fresh chiles from out West. Of course this is just a rumor I heard. I actually have no idea why they make a brief appearance on the menu each year and then fade away. I do know that if they are on the menu you should scramle to order them. They are delicious.

In summary, the food at Taqueria Del Sol is finger-licking good. The only problem is that everyone in Atlanta, their relatives from out-of-town (including my mom who insists we go when she is in town), and the tourists from Japan all seem to know how good it is. There is always a line at Taqueria Del Sol. While the long line could at first scare you, don't let it. The line always moves fast. While the seeming lack of open tables could scare you, don't let it. By the time you have ordered a table will have opened up. I have no idea how the staff works their magic but the line, the kitchen, and the tables all work in near perfect harmony.

Wait in line and you will approach the register and place your order. If it is a hot day, order a Sol or a Corona to wash those tacos down. There is nothing better than fresh, delicious tacos and cold beer on a hot afternoon. Or, while I prefer the beer, the margaritas (on the rocks or frozen) are also excellent and refreshing.

Taqueria also has a nice bar area where you can sit and eat even if you don't order drinks.

The bar is sometimes a great way to skip the line if seats are open. Or if the bar is full there is usually a wait list for the bar that may still be faster than the line.

Usually we head out to the outdoor seating area. It is actually a covered area with plastic walls that are taken up in good weather and let down in cold or wet weather.

On those hot afternoons with the tacos and beer this is the place to sit.

Taqueria Del Sol serves up amazingly delicious food in a fun, relaxed atmosphere with good service and decent prices. I highly recommend it. Its only downside is the ever-present line. While I bemoan the long line and sometimes skip Taqueria for Farm Burger or another restaurant when the line is exceptionally long, I still find myself back at Taqueria on a regular basis. If you want delicous tacos you should too.

Taqueria Del Sol

359 West Ponce De Leon Ave.

Decatur, GA
404-377-7668

Taqueira Del Sol has three other locations: Cheshire Bridge, Westside, and Athens. For the address of other locations, the menu, and any other information you could desire check out http://www.taqueriadelsol.com/.

Farmburger

Ah, Farm Burger, how I love thee. Farm Burger is in our standard restaurant rotation. Why? Because it is quick, easy, and delicious. Farmburger serves up the tastiest burgers around, in my opinion. Although, I have yet to try Flip. The place is simple and the food seems simple, but the menu offers up a dizzying array of combinations all centered around the prototypical American food, the hamburger.

The entire burger portion of the menu starts with a $6 grassfed beef burger or a veggie quinoa burger for the vegetarians. I have yet to try the quinoa burger, but I have heard from two friends that it is at least decent. From there the burger portion of the menu revolves around deciding what you want added to it.

Farmburger's menu offers up six different pre-arranged burger combinations. These combinations range from "The Farm Burger" with grafton smoked white cheddar, caramelized onions, and FB sauce for $8 to the "No 5" with braised pork belly, beer-battered onion ring, pickled jalapenos, and BBQ sauce for $9.50 to the "No 6" with a pork burger, bacon, sunny side up egg, pepper jack cheese, and salsa verde. Both The Farm Burger and the No 5 are excellent.

But say you think you can create a better burger or you don't like having people make decisions for you, Farm Burger's menu lets you go wild with crazy toppings. The toppings come in three categories: free, $1, and $2. You can get all of your standard toppings like ketchup, mayo, mustard, lettuce, and onions for free. Plus you can also get slightly more unusual items like pickled jalapenos, fresh jalapenos, roasted garlic, or FB sauce for free. The FB sauce is a delicious mayonnaise concoction. My best guess is that the FB sauce has some paprika and maybe some ketchup in it. It has a slightly smoky, sweet taste. For $1 you can get toppings ranging from a fried egg to arugula to blue cheese to cured lardo and more. For $2 you can get toppings ranging from house-cured bacon to oxtail marmalade to pork belly to pimento 'n cheese. The $2 category also includes a delicious blue cheese from Georgia's own Sweet Grass dairy.

My personal favorite is a burger, medium rare, with fresh jalapenos, house-cured bacon, and the Sweet Grass blue cheese.

These burgers are so good my wife thinks they should rename the place "Crack Burger." She usually orders The Farm Burger which is shown below.

My only complaint is that sometimes the burgers come out overcooked. I like my meat rare, but regardless of how you order the meat, about 20% of the time cooks cook it one level more done than you asked for. If I had one wish it would be for consistency in the level of "doneness." When they get my burger properly medium-rare with a cool red center, I am in heaven.

Farm Burger has much more than burgers to offer. The fried chicken liver "snack" is excellent.
They are some of the best chicken livers I have had. They are fried in a near tempura style with just slightly thicker than tempura batter and served with a whole grain mustard sauce.

The "rings n' fries" basket is also excellent. The fries are nicely salted and spiced and the onion rings are fried perfectly. Even better they are served with FB sauce which makes the perfect accompaniment.

We were so eager to dive into the basket of rings n' fries that we ate most of the fries and part of the onion rings before I remembered to take the picture.

As I said, the menu offers an array of choices, but the restaurant is pretty simple. You walk in and get in line.

At the end of the line you order your food and then find a table. The servers bring your food to your table and you consume away. It always seems that the line is too long and there will not be enough tables for everyone to take a seat, but somehow it always seems to work out. The staff have a nice system of ensuring that people do not attempt to claim seats prior to ordering.

The dining room, if you can call it that, is no frills.

Most of the seats are picnic tables. The napkins are paper towels. The food comes out in a basket with a paper bottom. The ketchup and mustard are in squirt bottles on the table. But come on, it is a burger place. This is how it should be! White linen napkins and sparkling water aren't always needed or even wanted. The burgers are messy and the atmosphere is lively, in other words: it's fun.

Finally, not only is the food delicious and the atmosphere fun, Farm Burger is committed to local, sustainable, ethically raised food. I am a huge fun of their practices for environmental, ethical, and health reasons. They try to get as many of their products from local farms as possible. The beef is grassfed which is better for the environment and your health. So not only can you relax over a tasty burger, you can feel good afterwards that you supported your community and yourself.

I did my best to photograph the food side of the menu, but it did not come out well. Sorry. Fortunately, you can check out the menu and more at http://www.farmburger.net/.

Farm Burger

410 B W. Ponce De Leon Ave.

Decatur, GA 30030

404-378-5077
http://www.farmburger.net/

Community Q BBQ

Community Q is a BBQ joint in a small strip mall outside of Decatur and near Emory. They serve a range of barbecued meats and sides.

I ordered a combination meat plate of the brisket and pulled pork. It is worth mentioning that my family has barbecued whole hogs using a family recipe for years. I know pulled pork, especially South Carolina style pulled pork. However, I do not know brisket. From what I understand brisket is popular in Texas. I have never been to Texas, and I have never had brisket before.

Both the brisket and the pulled pork were good, but not amazing.

The brisket was smoky and moist but could be a little more moist. It flaked apart nicely. It did have a tasty crust. The pork was cooked nicely. It also was a little drier than I prefer, but it was cooked the exact right amount of time.

The meats were served with your choice of a sweet sauce or a vinegar sauce. The sweet sauce was too sweet for my taste, very sweet. It was syrupy sweet. I prefer my sauce to have a stronger mustard base or ketchup base with a light touch of sweetness. This sauce was more like a syrup. The vinegar sauce was good, but a little thicker and sweeter than the vinegar sauce I prefer.

All of the meat plates come with the meat between two slices of bread. The bread was tasty toasted bread but totally unnecessary. The bread just got in the way of the meats.

For sides we tried the macaroni and cheese and the baked beans.

The mac and cheese was the best part of the meal. The large noodles are covered in a sauce made of three cheeses. It is super cheesy and greasy. So greasy that there was a puddle of grease at the bottom when I finished it. Cardiologists everywhere are protesting this dish.
The baked beans were so-so.

They had an odd taste that neither my wife nor I particularly preferred. We couldn't exactly place what the weird taste is. Part of the odd taste was the strong helping of pepper, but they also had an odd sweet taste.

Orders are placed at the counter up front.

The waiters then bring your food to you when it is ready. The service wasn't bad but didn't impress either. We visited the restaurant on a Sunday afternoon at 1:30. The wait was rather long for that time of day and food that is so easily put together. Hopefully the delay signals that the food is being freshly prepared, but I'm not quite sure that is the case.

The interior is cozy for a strip mall. The families and diners reading newspapers or engaged in conversation give the place a neighborhood feel.

In conclusion, Community Q is good, but not amazing. I had heard excellent things about Community Q through the grapevine but it did not live up to the hype. It is not a bad barbecue joint but a decent barbecue joint. I will probably go back at some point, but it won't make it onto my list of regular joints and I won't catch myself daydreaming about it.



Commuity Q BBQ

1361 Clairmont Road

Decatur, GA

404-633-2080