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/

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.