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/

Sushi Avenue

If I had to pick my favorite cuisine, it would probably be sushi. On one hand I cringe admitting that. Sushi has become so trendy. Everyone eats sushi. You can even buy sushi in the grocery store. But sushi is so good.

But I have two problems when it comes to sushi. The first is that I have an enormous appetite and I love sushi so much. Sushi isn't cheap. The second is that I prefer the more expensive, odd sushi items which makes my sushi dinners more expensive. I am only "allowed" to eat sushi on rare occasions due to my loss of self-control upon entering the doors of a sushi restaurant.

Fortunately, I was recently permitted to make a trip to Sushi Avenue. Sushi Avenue has three different locations, but we always go to the location on the square in downtown Decatur. Sushi Avenue is not known as one of Atlanta's sushi hot spots like MF Sushi or others. I contend that its lesser known status is one of its key assets in that it serves good sushi at decent prices. The restaurant serves a wide variety of items of great quality.

I started off with an octopus salad. The octopus was cut into bite size pieces and served with cucumber slices and a sauce similar to a watery sriracha sauce.

The octopus salad was delicious. The octopus has a chewy texture and a sweet seafood taste that matches nicely with the heat from the hot sauce and the crisp, coolness of the cucumbers.

I then had a chirashi bowl (chirashizushi). A chirashi bowl is a bowl of rice covered with a variety of sashimi pieces. The chirashi bowl had tuna, salmon, squid, octopus, salmon roe, shrimp, tamago (sweet egg omelet), and other seafood items.

The chirashi bowl was also excellent. It is an excellent way to get a variety of sashimi pieces at a better price and with an ease of ordering.

Finally, I ordered a variety of nigiri pieces and my wife selected some rolls that we shared.

In the top left are two rolls of rice topped with salmon roe and a raw quail egg. I have heard these called "tiger eyes" at other places. When you eat a piece the salmon roe pop in your mom releasing their salty juices and the egg pops releasing the yolk. It forms a salty omelet in your mouth.

Next to the tiger eyes in the top left are two pieces of scallop. Scallop has a delicate taste and texture raw.

Below the scallop pieces, the two white pieces of nigiri are squid. I love raw squid. It has a very chewy texture. I believe I have mentioned before that I have an odd but undying love for chewy foods. As you chew the squid, it breaks down into a milky texture with one of the best sweet seafood tastes.

Below the squid are two pieces of surf clam. Surf clam is less chewy than the squid but still chewy and is even sweeter.

The roll down the middle of the plate is a rainbow roll. I believe it has avocado and cucumber inside the roll and the outside of the roll is covered in a variety of pieces of fish.

The roll on the far right next to the rainbow roll, was a roll filled with fried sweet potato and pumpkin. As far as vegetarian rolls go, this is about as good as it gets. It was delicious. Of course, fry pretty much anything and it will taste good.

We also had a crunchy scallop roll which was filled with tempura bits and raw scallop. It was also delicious.

Last but not least is my all time favorite piece of sushi. It may also be my favorite food. In the bottom left is uni. Uni is sea urchin. While I will admit that it has a less than appetizing appearance, I contend that its displeasing appearance is vastly overcome by its amazing taste. The urchin is soft, almost a liquid. It begins to break down into a liquid with the first bite. It has a unique sweet seafood taste. The best way I can describe it is to say that it forms a sweet seafood milkshake in your mouth.

For dessert we had mochi. Mochi is a ball of ice cream with a wrapper made of pounded sticky rice. Our mochi had a red bean ice cream inside. The wrapper is hard to describe. It is gummy, chewy, and doughy with a sweet taste. I highly recommend mochi if you have never tried it before.

Other than the delicious, reasonably priced sushi, all you need to know about Sushi Avenue is that it is a small restaurant with an intimate feel. Diners can sit at the sushi counter if they prefer. The wait staff are always reasonably to highly attentive and friendly.

Sushi Avenue
131 Sycamore Street
Decatur, GA
404-378-0228

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

Canton House

Canton House is a Chinese restaurant on Buford Highway that has a regular menu but specializes in dim sum. Dim sum is a Cantonese way of eating that involves selecting many small dishes to eat. The servers push around carts of many different dishes on small plates or in metal steam trays. You point out what you want, the server puts them on the table and makes a mark on your check. The dishes are perfect for sharing. Each is a nice little sampling of a few bites. However, we learned the hard way today that you don't need to order everything that is pushed by. The way the servers approach and ask so nicely if you would like to try everything and the interesting array of dishes makes it hard to say no.

The final verdict is that Canton House is a fun experience with many tasty dishes. However, not every dish is tasty. Some are delicious and some are just mediocre. I can't promise that you will have the culinary experience of a lifetime, but Canton House's dim sum is good enough and fun enough to make it worth your while. Canton House would be an especially fun place to go with a group and share the many dishes.

The first cart to roll by was the soup cart. We tried a cup of pork and rice soup. The soup was rich and comforting with nice bits of pork throughout, but ultimately it was only mediocre. However, a bite of the soup with one of the croutons was quite good. The croutons had a delicious fried, oniony, crispy taste and texture that paired well with the creaminess and meatiness of the soup.

Next up was the curry "squid." Based on the body shape I am fairly certain that it was actually baby octopus. It consisted of whole baby octopus with a curry sauce. The curry sauce was warm and spicy but not hot. The sauce had a hint of sweetness to it. The octopus was properly cooked so that it was chewy but tender rather than just rubber.

Another dish was mushroom caps with shrimp stuffing. The mushroom cap itself was tasty. It had a meaty texture with a deep earthy taste. The shrimp stuffing was not as good. This criticism will come up again in my review of other dishes. The shrimp stuffing was a little rubbery brick of meat. There was a faint shrimp taste to it but it was otherwise impossible to distinguish from any other type of meat. It was not horrible but it was slightly questionable. I would eat it again but it wouldn't be my first choice nor do I think I will find myself daydreaming about it.

While on that note, we also had coconut shrimp balls that had the same rubbery ball of meat with slight shrimp taste inside. The balls were also entirely devoid of any coconut taste. They were served with a sweet, syrupy sauce that was tasty with the fried ball. Overall, I would not recommend the coconut shrimp balls. They were too basic when the restaurant has so many other options.

We also had an order of egg rolls. As far as eggrolls go they were pretty good. I would hope that an authentic Chinese restaurant would have good eggrolls. Nothing out of the ordinary to write about the eggrolls though. (I took a bite out of the eggroll before I remembered to photograph it.)

We also tried two different types of buns. One was filled with pork and the other with vegetables. The vegetables inside included cabbage and mushrooms. The buns are literally a bread around the filling. The bread has a slightly sweet but otherwise unremarkable taste. The bread is slightly doughy and chewy. Both buns were fairly tasty. However, the proportion of bread to stuffing placed them lower on my list of dim sum dishes. With the addition of hot sauce and soy sauce the buns were better but still did not rise to the level of amazing.

The hot sauce that I wrote of adding to the buns was one of the best parts of the whole meals. It appeared to be a simply combination of ground or diced chilies and oil. It had a nice combination of heat, fruitiness, and salt. It was spicy but not burn your mouth spicy.

We also had two different types of dumplings. The first were scallop dumplings. The dumpling wrapper was a little bland but this was improved by the addition of the hot sauce and soy sauce. The filling was like the shrimp filling but with a slight scallop taste instead of a shrimp taste. The scallop dumplings are not highly recommended.

The second dumplings we tried were the pork and taro dumplings. Taro is a root and is starchy with a sweet, nutty flavor. It paired well with the saltiness, meatiness, and chewiness of the pork. The spice of the pork tasted almost like a sausage. Unlike the scallop dumplings, these dumplings were delicious. They were a juicy explosion of flavors. I highly recommend them.

Another dish was the pork rolls. I don't know how to categorize them except as rolls. They were similar to the buns, but the buns had a doughy quality whereas the rolls were light, fluffy bread. The best way to understand the rolls is to imagine a croissant stuffed with salty, spicy pork. The bread has a sweet taste with a little bit of onion due to the green onions on top and the pork contrasts against the sweet bread with a salty, umami taste. My only complaint about the rolls would be that they were dry. The bread was a little dry and the pork was even drier. While I would prefer a little more moistness, I would still recommend the rolls.

Another dish was the tofu skin around shrimp stuffing. The shrimp stuffing was the same odd rubbery stuffing. The tofu skin wrapper was tasty. You wouldn't know that it was tofu if you weren't told. The skin was light with a sweet taste and a sweet sauce. Overall, despite the rubbery stuffing, the tofu skins around shrimp were good.

Last but not least for the savory dishes was the chicken feet. Yes, chicken feet. The whole trip was worth it just for this experience. The manager was walking around checking to make sure all of the customers were satisfied. He stopped at our table and asked if I liked the chicken feet. When I reported back that I did, he was quite surprised. He said that usually only "orientals" like the chicken feet.

Chicken feet are a unique dish. There is very little muscle in a chicken's foot. It is mostly skin, tendons, and cartilage. The composition of the foot gives it a unique gelatinous texture. The feet are prepared by frying, boiling, and then coating in a sweet, tangy sauce. The preparation technique results in a fluffy layer of meat around the little bones. The feet have to be eaten with one's hands. As you try to pull the meat off the bones the bones come apart and you have to separate the bones and meat in your mouth. It is a quite messy dish to eat. The taste is a chicken taste but slightly more gamey; it tastes more like the dark meat of the chicken rather than the white meat. (In other words, it actually has some taste. I have never understood why people prefer the white meat of a chicken over the dark meat. The white meat literally almost has no taste.) The feet are also quite oily which could be from the sauce or the meat. The sauce is both sweet and salty. While the texture is quite unique, I enjoyed both the texture and taste of the feet. However, I would recommend chicken feet for only the most adventurous of eaters.

Finally, we tried two desserts. While I go for unusual, savory foods, my wife has a sweet tooth. She ordered the chocolate mousse and the mango pudding. She enjoyed the chocolate mousse. It was good, but it was just chocolate mousse prepared out of a box with whipped cream that was purchased rather than made in-house. The mango pudding was very odd. It was a creamy pudding with mango chunks throughout. My wife did not enjoy the mango pudding at all. I ate more of the mango pudding, but I would not order it again. To my wife's chagrin, a dim sum house is probably not the place to get fantastic desserts.

The interior of the restaurant is spare but comfortable. The restaurant was clean. The staff was accommodating and helpful. Some of the servers pushing carts did not have a complete command of the English language whereas others spoke perfect, clear language. They were all more than happy to at least try to describe what they had on their cart. While the restaurant's customers were predominantly Asian, persons of all races and ethnicities were in the restaurant. The restaurant had a very open vibe, rather than a closed ethnic community.

Give Canton House a try. Avoid dishes that look overly doughy or that involve seafood stuffing. Stick with pork and chicken. The dumplings seem to be a safe bet. They also have ribs that looked good, but we did not try them, as well as many other dishes that we were unable to try. The experience is fun and the trip is worth it for that alone.

Canton House
4825 Buford Highway
Chamblee, GA
770-936-9030

Pho 24

This past weekend we ventured out to Pho 24 at the prompting of a 50% off coupon from http://www.scoutmob.com/. Pho 24 is a Vietnamese restaurant on Buford Highway that specializes in pho and is open twenty-four hours a day. My wife and I were accompanied by two of our good friends who are now husband and wife and still radiating the excitement of being newly married. Not that being married ever stops being exciting. (It's true. I didn't add that only for when my wife reads this, although that was an important consideration.)

Upon entering Pho 24 we were assaulted by an onslaught of servers. We were repeatedly asked what we would like to drink and then what we would like to eat. Each request we made for additional time to consider our options was kindly granted. But within two minutes a different server was back at our table asking what we would like. While this was a little unsettling and annoying, I prefer it to the alternative of being ignored. The best way to describe it is that the system of service in the restaurant is confusing. My best guess is that the first server to take an order from your table is assigned your table and thus, gets to collect the tip. Or perhaps it was just that the restaurant was fairly empty. I wouldn't weigh this heavily against the restaurant, just be prepared for the onslaught, and as this restaurant just recently opened perhaps management will work out the kinks.

When we finally relented to the pressure to order something and placed our drink orders, I ordered grass jelly drink.

According to the trusty source Wikipedia, grass jelly is a jelly made by boiling the slightly oxidized stalks and leaves of a member of the mint family, adding some starch, and letting it cool into a jelly form. The drink consists of small cubes of this jelly accompanied by its liquid. The sensation of drinking it was very strange. You suck the liquid up with a straw and as you do so little jelly cubes come up into your mouth as well. The odd sensation of drinking something with jello cubes did not bother me at all. The taste, however, was not gross but didn't amaze me. It tasted like a weak, watery tea. I am glad I tried it, but I will definitely try other Vietnamese drinks before I try it again.

My wife and the newlyweds each ordered bubble tea. Bubble tea is a drink made by blending together tea and fruit and then adding small tapioca balls. The newlyweds are experienced bubble tea drinkers, while my wife and I have never tried bubble tea before. They were disappointed that the bubble tea was made with a fruit powder rather than fresh fruit. There also was some confusion as the restaurant had several flavors of bubble tea on the menu but then did not not have them available and then had several flavors available but not on the menu. This is another kink that the restaurant needs to work out. Despite the powder base instead of fresh fruit, my wife and the newlyweds all seemed to enjoy their bubble tea.

Within seconds of being served our drinks, we were being rushed to order some type of food. We got off with only having to order an appetizer of two orders of the eggrolls. Just like the service, the food comes out incredibly fast.

The eggrolls were filled with a pork and vegetable mixture and were tasty, but not mind blowing. They were served with a thin, sweet, cold dipping sauce which was a nice match to the hot eggrolls. Again, the eggrolls were good, but not amazing and were on par with eggrolls at many other restaurants.

We then moved on to the main event: pho. Pho is a Vietnamese rice noodle soup dish. Like so many other dishes, pho consists of a starch and vegetable base to which the diner's choice of protein is added. Pho always consists of a deep, rich broth, rice noodles, green onions, and a side plate of vegetable garnishes to add to the bowl. Typical garnishes, and those served at Pho 24, are bean sprouts, Thai basil, culantro (a relative of cilantro), and sliced jalapenos. Another traditional accompaniment is several lime wedges to squeeze into the bowl. Like many other internet reviewers of Pho 24, I found the lemon wedges they served to be a poor substitute for the traditional lime wedges. While lemons and limes are very similar, they are not the same. Limes, to a much greater degree than lemons, have a note of sweetness in addition to their acidity. Finally, where pho is consumed the tables usually have an array of hoisin sauce, sriracha, and other hot sauces to be added as the diner desires. To those uninitiated to sriracha, it is a hot sauce made of a paste of chili peppers, vinegar, garlic, sugar, and salt. I personally consider sriracha to be among my favorite hot sauces and favorite condiments. A bottle of sriracha is always at the ready on my kitchen counter and on many days I add sriracha to every meal from breakfast through dinner. It is hot, but also has a pleasant acidic and sweet taste that livens up any food. It is hard to describe the level of heat in a hot sauce to another person because everyone has a different tolerance for heat, but I find sriracha to be in the middle to lower end in terms of heat. Of course, I can eat fresh jalapenos and I could probably drink Texas Pete without feeling a thing.

That is enough background on pho. To put it simply, pho is delicious. On the night we went to Pho 24 it was cold and raining outside. The rich, meaty broth alone was enough to warm us up and brighten our spirits. Pho is worth ordering for the broth itself. One taste and you know that the broth took several hours of simmering meat and spices to make something that can pack so much flavor and warmth into each bite. The rice noodles were tasty as well. The garnishes were fresh and flavorful. The basil and jalapenos added a nice spice to the dish as did the sriracha I added.

This picture shows the delicious broth after I finished eating everything out of it. My broth was a little bit darker and redder than the basic broth due to my liberal addition of sriracha.

I ordered the Pho Dac Biet which came with sirloin, flank steak, brisket, tendon, and tripe. My pho was also supposed to include meatballs, but I did not find any meatballs in my bowl. Dac biet literally means "the special" or "the combination." It is the pho option with all of the beef proteins in one bowl. The tendon in the dish is literally the fibrous material that connects muscle to bone. When cooked down in pho it turns into a nearly jelly like protein that is slightly rubbery when chewed but also quickly melts down. The tripe is beef stomach. The stomach is thoroughly washed and then boiled for several hours. It looks like a central piece of meat with many tendrils coming off of the central piece and then small threads of meat coming off of the tendrils. It sort of looks like tentacles hanging down parallel to one another. I am actually amazed at how difficult it is to find a similarly shaped food for comparison or any way to describe it that does not make it sound horrific. Tripe has a very mild, clean taste. It has an interesting, chewy texture. One of the newlyweds described it is a "tongue massage."

Everyone else ordered plain sirlon or sirlon combined with flank steak. The picture below shows a sirloin and flank steak pho. My Pho Dac Biet looked the same except it had additional types of meat.

Everyone was pleased with their order. However, one of the newlyweds did not like the fatty nature of her flank steak. This serves as a word of warning to future diners. Pho does not use the greatest cuts of meat and ample amounts of fat are left on the meat. I would guess that the fat is left on for flavoring. I have no problem with fat, but some people do. If you do you can still enjoy the delicious flavors of pho, but I would suggest you try ordering just sirloin, brisket, or meatballs.

I have only recently begun to venture into the world of pho so I am not a pho expert. Previous to my Pho 24 experience I had only had pho at Saigon Cafe at the corner of Clairmont Road and North Decatur Road in Decatur. While I enjoyed the pho at Saigon Cafe, I found the pho at Pho 24 to be far superior. I have also heard that Saigon Cafe's pho does not hold a candle to any of its Buford Highway cousins. Compared to Saigon Cafe, at Pho 24 the broth was more flavorful, the meat was better, and the garnishes were all fresh rather than wilted as has been the case at Saigon Cafe.

Pho 24's interior was nowhere near crisp, white linens and fine china, but it was pleasant, clean, and comfortable.

The interior, with one exception, did not detract from the food or the dining experience which is as it should be in a restaurant of this type. My one complaint would be the presence of televisions on the walls. This seems to be a popular trend among restaurants offering moderately priced culinary delights. This is also a trend that I despise. I find it virtually impossible to avoid staring at the television regardless of whether I know or care about what is flashing across the screen. The flashing lights draw in my gaze, and then I find myself neglecting the stimulating conversation of those with me and the taste of the food I came to enjoy. Televisions turn an enjoyable dining experience into a zombie-like state of shoveling food into one's mouth while staring entranced at the flickering lights. Other reviews around the internet described loud rap or pop music playing, but fortunately this was not part of our experience.

Finally, as with so many other Buford Highway delights, the price is just right. A small bowl of pho will set you back $5.75, a medium bowl goes for $6.50, and a large bowl of pho is a whopping $7.25. A large bowl of pho truly is large. I am capable of eating more than anyone I know, and while I did finish all of the fillings, I did not finish all of the broth and I was stuffed by the time I was done. Two non-starving people could easily share a bowl of pho and an appetizer for a meal.

As a final note, the menu at Pho 24 also offers banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches, see my previous post on Lee's Bakery), bun (vermicelli rice noodles dishes), and com (rice dishes). We stuck to the pho portion of the menu. When a restaurant is named after one dish it makes sense to order that dish. While I have no experience from which to judge the quality of their other dishes, it is worth mentioning that other reviewers around the internet found Pho 24's banh mi to be rather disappointing.

Pho 24
4646 Buford Highway
Atlanta, GA
770-710-0178