So finally, a good restaurant!
We went to bacchanalia. The check, for 2 prixe fixe, half bottle of white wine, and a $15 desert wine glass, was $248 (a 20% tip on top, made it so I left $300 on the table), for two.
It was definitely like.. in that michelin area. However, it was obviously not nearly as good as the 2 michelin star 'Lasarte' we went to in barcelona. But as long as it's within the same lightyear as 2 star Lasarte, it's going to be fucking amazingj, and yea, it was.
At Lasarte in Barcelona last year, we spent $30 on a bottle of wine, and it was fucking amazing. i don't know how, but it was just amazing. It didn't have that cheap '7-11' aftertaste, and it was so good, you could literally chug it. It was just so thirst-quenching. It was some white wine, and the server there recommended it when we said, in english, to a guy in spain who knows no english, 'we have no clue'. He obvoiusly knew we had no idea what we were doing, so he said 'this is a good budget wine' or something along those lines. It was just the most amazing wine ever. I hate wine, personally, But, if it's good wine, anyone will love it (like, if you hate mushrooms, doesnt matter, if you get a $100 mushroom plate, you will fucking love it, kind of thing). But what was crazy about it, was it was $30 bottle, and was just so fucking good. You could chug it, it was so good. And the alcohol, it would go straight to your head! Cheap wine doesn't do that. I'm pretty sure this $30 bottle of wine, you couldn't find in any grocery store, or even high end grocery store. It was a diamond in the rough, I guess, but maybe more like, a diamond on sale in a field of super diamonds.
Anyways, my point is that the bill at Bacchanalia, was a lot due to the wine. We spent like $40-50 on a half bottle of wine. Now, a full bottle, is like 4 glasses for 2 people. This half bottle, was like 2 full glasses for 2 people. So it was basically more than twice the cost. It definitely wasn't as good as the wine in spain. It was still great, it didn't have that 7-11 taste to it, but it just didn't have that 'omg i need to chug this now' taste to it. I don't know. But it was still amazing wine. The $15 glass of desert wine, it was really 'strong' red wine, with a super sweet aftertaste. I kind of didn't like it, it had too strong of that 'wine' taste to it. It did go well with the desert.
Anyways. So $85 per 'prixe fixe', or 5 course meal. They gave you a menu, and for this prixe fixe, you picked out a selection out of about 5, for each of the 5 courses. I let the waiter know, straight up, i had no fucking clue (like what the fuck is a raddichio, or fava bean?). So I basically told him, for each course, what was his favorite. I think all I said was, on the first course "I'd rather not have shrimp, but, unless, of course, you recommend it especially. and I'd rather not have lamb because it doesnt sit quite right, and I don't care for duck, unless you would recommend it". because $85 lamb, or duck, or mushroom, or shrimp, is going to be fucking baller, but hey, I got to cut the choices down a bit somehow.
You can see the menu here:
http://www.starprovisions.com/menus/bacchanalia/bacchanalia_menu.pdf
They also had some taster stuff come out in between courses (so it was like an 8 course meal, yep, 8 plates! Each plate, of course, small, 8 full plates would be ridiculous, so they bring out 8, small dishes, over the course of the entire meal. It's not like applebees where you just get a main, and maybe you get an appetizer or desert if you buy it too. You choose 5 for the 'prixe fixe', and then there are like 3-4 tiny dishes from the kitchen for you too).
So first, was "Asparagus soup". It was like, corn chowder, in terms of texture? It had a very complex taste, and there were 2 tiny orange peels in it. It was very mild, and green. And there was a "Kumquat' thing - it was like this very brittle 1 inch rectangular cracker, with I guess a piece of kumquat on top, and some 2 other things piled on top of that too.
So I went with:
1: Hawaiin Ahi Tuna Crudo
Raddichio, Blood Orange,
Kohlrabi
It was amazing! The tuna, was basically raw tuna. If you've had sushi, it was like maguro (the deep red 'classic' tuna). Well, I've had a ton of sushi. I've worked at a sushi place, I always go to the best sushi place in the city I live in (RVA, tennessee, all over the bay area and SF). I've had great, fresh sushi at tsukiji fish market in tokyo (it's where all the fish comes from, literally, right off the boat, at the biggest fish market in the world). And this tuna, was just miles better.
It wasn't toro, which is the 'best' tuna, that's really fatty. As maguro style tuna though, it had much more. The texture, it was almost like the tuna had a more jello-like texture. Like 'biting' into it. It didn't quite literally melt in your mouth, but imagine eating jello, and that's kind of how it was like. Sort of. Hard to explain, but it was just very soft. And the taste was a bit deeper.
There was 2 sauces on the side of it, some sweet red berry sauce, some sweet lemon style sauce. I didn't add it to the sushi at all, to better enjoy the quality of the meat. But you can bet I wiped the sauce up with my fingers! The red stuff was like great jam or something, but it was just great. Really, really complex flavor. I tell you, the flavor in just that sauce, was more complex than anything, anywhere else (except, of course, at some other super high end $100+ restaurant).
My GF had:
Confit Foei Gras Torchon
Local Pear, Georgia Pecan
Ginger, Brioche
So foei gras is like, a duck, that's overstuffed, then killed, then the liver pulled, and the liver is like super fatty because this duck was stuffed. It was like a cheese spread, and she was given bread. It was great, again, very complex. It was fatty, and I guess like bologna. It was just super fatty, buttery, great. There were a few sauces on the side too, similar sauces to what I had (red sauce same, she had a different style lemon sauce).
2:
Wild Mushroom Risotto
Summerland Farm Chestnut
Parmesan, Spring Onion
Watercress, English Pea
The waiter recommended this one.
Risotto is like a rice, italian style. Just thick rice. It was like porridge I guess? I don't know. There was a hint of sweet in this dish I didn't like, but the mushrooms, I thought they were steak at first bite. They were very savory, and just amazing. I actually hate mushrooms, but not these mushrooms. Just amazing. Dry flakes of parmesean on it too.
My gf got:
Georgia Rainbow Trout
Spring Vidalia Onion
Fava Beans, Fiddlehead Ferns
Preserved Lemo
This was her favorite dish. It was just a really good piece of trout. I thought it just was kind of like salmon. Just cooked really, really well.
There were bits of caviar on top of it. I like caviar. They are like, these balls of liquid. Fish eggs (sturgeon fish). No flavor when you put them in your mouth necessarily, but when you bite into them, or pop the balls, you get this salty, very savory, deep, flavor explosion in your mouth. Caviar is fucking awesome. These caviar were white, like white wine, as opposed to what caviar normally is I think, black (yea that michelin restaurant had black caviar, really big ones. it was great). If you get a chance to try caviar, do.
3: Pork Loin, Glazed Belly, Rillette
Red Cabbage, Celery
Celery Root, Mustard
When I ruled out lamb for 'not quite sitting right' (i got lamb at that michelin restaurant, it was good red meat like steak, and I loved it, but something about it just doesnt sit right in my stomach. I'm not sure why, it's like a 'queasy' sea sick feeling, like after you'd get when you know you just ate a snail or human eyeballs. I can't get over it. I loved the dish, but I still had that queasyness), and duck (its just super fatty chicken, to the point of ridiculousness, i dont like dark meat anyways), and the steak (he said the steak is a super safe option, and yea, it's just steak, once you pay about $40 for a steak it doesnt really get better, and as long as you have good quality meat, you can cook the best steak at home anyways, which I actually do. I cook the best steak ever, wayyy better than outback or anything like that, the secret is rub, maybe letting it sit in oil and rub and vinegar/acid, and cooking it very slowly), that left me with basically the pork loin.
It was great. There were bits of 'pork loin', that I guess you can maybe compare to pork chops. Just very tender. A real good pork chop, I feel, is better than a steak. Really underrated piece of meat imo. Anyways, like 1 inch kind of circular kinds of pork loin, like 4 of them. Great, very tender, very juicy. If you've ever had a good piece of pork chop at a restaurant, yea, kind of like that I suppose, just a little fattier and better.
And then, the pork belly. I don't even know what that is. It was cray cray. Like, it felt apart first of all. Lots of fat. Maybe like bacon? I dont know. Just really, really fatty and juicy, and soft. You cut it with the fork, and it just fell apart. Really good.
Then he had some sauce he poured to the side. He said to 'top it off'. I thought he meant like, you ate it afterwards, but when I asked him when he passed by later what did he mean, since I wasn't sure how I was supposed to eat it, he just said like, do whatever. I thought he meant top it off as in, after you eat the pork, you eat the sauce, but he meant 'top it off' as in 'to complete your dish and make it baller'. He then said, 'you can mix it with the pork if you want, or not - it's up to you, experiment'. That was fun. It was like corn chowder? Mild, white. Very full flavor. Very mild. Not harsh at all.
There were bits of red cabbage on the bottom though, and they were kind of not good. I didnt care for that at all. I just didnt eat them at all. At the michelin restaurant, I would lick the plate clean. And for the most part, I would lick the plate clean here too. But not this cabbage (and what I mean, is at a restaurant like this, or michelin place, even the bits of sauce, which they seem to place randomly on random plates, but these fancy designs are actually amazingly tasteful and will taste better than anything you'll eat at any $60 plate restaurant, but even these bits of sauce, or the green leaf things, or random bits of veggies, are just fucking DELICIOUS, like all the taste in the world, crammed into some seemingly random piece of green, that at like at any high end steakhouse, youd just brush aside, while at a place like this, it tastes better than the steaks at such restaurants!). So, you know, that was dissapointing.
My gf got
Hand Cut Farm Egg Noodles
Summerland Farm Egg Yolk
Jumbo California Asparagus
Crispy Sourdough
Tarragon
I didn't really sample much of this. She had like 4 long, inch wide, ribbon noodles, that were fresh and obviously made from scratch there, an egg yolk, and some greens. I didn't care for what I sampled, which, again, I didn't really sample much of. But the egg yolk? You know, just any normal egg yolk. I dont know how you make an egg yolk special. The same egg yolk at any cheap diner, really. I wasn't impressed with this at all, but my gf ate it all, so I guess it was good enough to eat. I'm sure it was delicious. I had a piece of noodle, and I do recall it being very soft, and having a lot of flavor, like savory. But this dish didn't seem to impressive from where I sat. I think it had like crouton things in it too.
By this point my GF and I are just about to BURST from all the food. All of these dishes are super tiny, but they add up. My GF felt this was a very bad thing of the restaurant. At Lasarte in Barcelona, we walked out of the restaurant just perfectly full. Not stuffed, just very full, and completely satisfied. By this point, both of us, particularly my GF, was just stuffed, and any more would be like getting just disgustingly stuffed, in a bad way. My GF felt this was bad that the restaurant was giving us way too much food. I felt like, well, you dont have to clean the plate, and the more the better. But yea, I do feel it was kind of weak that it wasn't portioned perfectly. I don't know why, but I feel like maybe they can cut the price a bit and make the plates a bit smaller, or not, but that the food was too much. I know right, weird, I'm bitching that a restaurant that cost $300 is giving me plates that are too big. You are meant to clean the plates though, and maybe the 2 pieces of sourdough bread (just plain sourdough bread) and the 5 pieces of bread that went with her foie gras duck spread, contributed to getting stuffed too much, but I still felt this was a mistake on the part of the restaurant.
4: Goat’s Milk Fromage Blanc
Carrollton, GA
Roasted, Raw and Pickled Beet
The cheese dish. I had no fucking clue about any of this, but I do know I don't like feta (although again, expensive feta would probably be awesome). So I had the waiter recommend something, and that I didnt want the feta, unless he particularly recommended it. And so he recommended this dish.
The goal milk fromage blanc, was like a frothy, liquidy cheese. It was goat cheese, and I think all goat cheese is sort of thick in texture. It was good. I don't know how to explain it. It defintely wasn't cheddar or american. Just a frothy liquid, and when you put it in your mouth, it was kind of like... cheesy. It was blanc, white, I guess that's all I can say on that. it was very, very good.
And then there was some sweet frothy sauce too. Or cream? It was light, unlike cream. Maybe it was like whipped cream... yea that sounds right. You could tell it was almond in flavor. It was like vanilla almond. Very sweet, just cream. Underneath it, sat some crushed almond pieces.
And then there were a ton of beats on the plate. Red, beats, and yellow, pickled beats. The waiter said something like "I know some people don't like beats, but if they are cooked right, they are very good, and I love beats that are cooked good". Well, apparently, I hate beats, even when they are cooked right. When you bit them, it was like biting maybe cranberry sauce, but it's solid, so a bit more solid than that. Anyways, i didn't care for it. It's sort of neutral in flavor, but has that... 'beat' flavor. Whatever. I just did not care of the many pieces of beats on my plate at all.
My gf got:
CalyRoad Feta
Sandy Springs, GA
Winter Citrus, Young Fennel
She didn't like it, and I didn't sample it. I had a small taste of the feta, but I wasn't impressed, although it was definitely better than normal feta (maybe it was more like cottage cheese). She liked the beats I had, but she didn't find them particularly special. She ate them all.
Next came a Pre-Desert
It was a small, milkshake. A vanilla milkshake. It was awesome. It had like pieces of tiny, shaved ice inside, so it was like, not very creamy, but very... thirst quenching. It wasn't frothy like shitty mcdonalds shakes, and it wasn't thick, like ice cream anywhere else. It was very awesome. Just a standard vanilla milkshake, done very awesome. very milky. great, with obvious high quality ice cream in it. Not gooey at all.
5:
Valrhona Chocolate Cake
Mint Ice Cream
Banyuls, M. Chapoutier 1
As you can see on that linked menu, each item came with a recommended wine pairing. I got the recommended wine pairing. I described it above, but I didn't like it - it was a red wine, but one thing cool about it was that it had a VERY sweet overtone, or aftertaste, whatever, and it went very well with basically, my chocolate lava cake.
Extremely good choclate cake, with a gooey liquid chocolate sauce inside. Very warm. It definitely rivaled the best chocolate cake I ever had, at a restaurant in Akeyri, Iceland (northernmost city in iceland, i think northernmost city in the world). Maybe I'm partial because that chocolate cake didn't have quite a cake texture, but a texture that was a cross between pudding and cake, and it wasn't some moist cake, as it just WAS moist, being pudding/cake texture. That was damn good cake... but so was this lava cake. It was just cake done right. It was just a chocolate lava cake, like anywhere else, but the flavor was perfect, and the moisture was perfect, but in general a standard cake, nothing too fancy. besides, you know, being THE perfect lava cake with perfect moister and just perfectly cracking and crunching to the outside with molten chocolate inside of it.
There was some sweet foam spots on the plate, which were good enough to wipe clean with your finger, and then I had some rice cracker, which was very sweet and good, and a few gummy pieces of jelloey chocolate, that I didn't care for.
And, there was a small bit of mint ice cream. Now the mint was VERY obvious. It was like eating a spearmint leaf. VERY much mint, real, authentic mint to it. Literally like chewing a mint leaf, if you ever have. Actually, much stronger than that (looking back on eating mint leaves in morrocco from the amazing mint tea you drink everywhere there). It was just mint, straight up, in flavor. But the ice cream itself, it wasn't gooey, it wasn't airey. It was like blue bell in a way, in that you could eat it and it would quench your thirst on a hot summer day. It didn't have that airyness a lot of shitty ice cream has (or really, all ice cream has), nor any gummyness or gooeyness most ice cream has (especially gourmet ice cream). It was good. Not sure how to describe it. being a HUGE ice cream afficianado, yea, definitely the best ice cream i've ever had. But the portion was so small and quick that I wish I had more of it, to better judge it. It was sweet in flavor, very minty, not airy, not gooey. Like normal ice cream, you can sort of twist with your spoon or whatever. This ice cream, you twist it with the spoon, and it just turns. It's not gooey at all, and doesnt have that fluffing/flaking/texturing you get when you run the spoon across it, like you do with most ice cream.
My gf got:
Sourdough Beignets
Malted Chocolate, Sweet Cream
Cardamo
When placing the order, at the start of the meal (you have to say at start, so they can prepare it in time), the waiter had said to my gf that the beignets here are very heavy, unlike beignets elsewhere. I joked in response, saying what, the beignets he's had elsewhere were too light?
Like what the fuck is a beignet, and how can you say that they are heavier here, unlike elsewhere. I've never heard of a beignet. Like what, do you just get beignets at mcdonalds, and just grown up eating them all the time? 90% of the stuff on the menu I have never heard of, have no clue where i would go to get, let alone pronounce. So when he said that, i found it very ironic. Like I've ever had 'beignets' ever before in my life. Waiter, you sure I'll be okay with these heavy beignets? I'm so used to having them a certain way!
He found the humor in it, but explained that a lot of cajun/louisiana style restaurants have it. So I was like.. so.. any cajun place? And he was like yea.... okay... well, maybe just the high end place. I think he knew by this point, so early in the meal, that we never go to $300 restaurants, so we aren't going to be picky about that!
And he's a server! I mean, seriously. Does he just eat this kind of food all the time? Could he even afford to work at this restaurant? Has he eaten anywhere like this before? Does he just go to these kind of michelin calibre restaurants all the time? No one does, even most rich people probably never go to these kinds of places! So.. you know, irony.
Anyways, they were just like sweet little doughnots, except, like sourdough. We didn't care for these at all, imagine doughnot holes made with sourdough. Well, not quite doughnut, but like, little dough balls. I'm sure you understand what I mean, with like sugar all over it. But then, like made with sourdough. Not great.
I didnt taste her ice cream, but I imagine it's the same kind of ice cream I got, just chocolate instead of mint.
Keep in mind, we are both way past stufft here. We are just sickly full, can't move, too much food.
After this, they gave us some french madeleines. They were warm, fresh, fell apart very 'freshly'. Inside was kind of moist. Best madelieines ever. And I love madeleines (you can get these at coffee shops). Usually at coffee shops they are really dry, not moist, but still super awesome. But these, were very moist, like cupcakes or something, and soft... like cupcakes. Just really good, fresh, warm madeleines. I'm sure you could make these at home if you wanted to, or could fathom this if you just bought any madeleines.
![[image loading]](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/12/21/dining/BIT-madeleines/blogSpan.jpg)
And then, they gave us some candy/stuff, as the finale. At the lasarte place, they gave us macaroons (which are fucking awesome, they look like colorful minitaure hamburgers, but the taste, i dont know, is unbelievable. theres a sort of cream inside, but its very light, and you bit it, and then its sort of like a cracker or cookie, but like if you press it against the roof of your mouth, it all squishes together really tight, i dont know how to explain it, like it squishes so it becomes candied - the ironic thing is that in morocco, you find bakeries selling these 'premium' thinggies for like 1 penny each, but in europe they are super expensive, and the quality is the same).
We just asked for them to be put in a bag, because we were too stuffed, and in a hurry to get to a concert that had already started. It was some red solid jelly cube (its okay), some sweet marshmellow cube thing (okay), and some other thing (forgot what it is, its in fridge).
All in all, it's definitely not on the same level as Lasarte in barcelona, a 2 star michelin restaurant. However, it was DEFINTELY worth it. I don't think the wine was worth it, next time I go, I'm just sticking with water (wine was too expensive, and overpriced in terms of quality, that or the wine I had in lasarte is just the best wine ever and was like $1000 quality for $30, either way, I dont care for wine, so unless it's that wine again, I'm not getting it) so it would only be $85 each, about $100 with tip, so $200 total with tip instead of $300.
But the food was totally amazing. I was impressed. I really enjoyed it. I think my girlfriend didn't like it as much because she decided to pick her own stuff, which was dumb. She, like me, has no clue about any of this stuff any way - yea, she doesnt like mushrooms, like really doesnt like them, but when its *this* quality mushroom, you'll love it. So she should have gone with waiter recommended like I did. Because I loved what I had - the fresh raw tuna, the pork, the chocolate cake, the mushrooms in the risotto dish I got, the goat cheese. I could go without the risotto dish in all, and the beats in my cheese dish, and my gf loved her trouth more than I liked my risotto.
But the ice cream? totally made it worth it, if not the rest of it. Definitely worth the money, even though I can't afford this shit anyways lol (well, maybe i can, i'm not paying anything for rent and working 70 hours a week). It was a great restaurant, and while not the same level as the michelin place, everything here was lightyears above anything else. I'm sure the nicest restaurant 99% of people go to, like outback, or ruby tuesdays, or even higher end places that have $50 plates like McCormick and Schicks, tobacco factory, there best stuff, steaks basically, doesn't come close to the flavor encapsulated in just some tiny piece of sauce or piece of mushroom or the milkshake, at this place.
Afterwards, we saw Justice at the Tabernacle. It was a great show. They played an encore set too. The crowd was loving it, really a lot going on there. It was a lot of fun, I felt it had a lot of rock influence to it. They didn't play their songs. It was an electronic show, so like all electronic shows, you know, they just sort of dj'd up there. Which was better, because I've overheard dvno and dance, and I dont like 'we are your friends'. But how they played we are your friends, was fucking awesome. We just rocked out for basically 2 hours. It was a decent set, I didnt' feel it was too short at all, although it wasn't long.
So yea, Atlanta has good food. This restaurant was awesome, not a dissapointment at all! And I here there is 'restaruant eugene', someone who said he knew the chefs at both of these places said he preferred that place, although bacchanalia is always touted as #1 in atlanta in just about every forum or publication, and then aria, anothier high tier restaurant. There's also empire state south, I dont think it's the same level, but supposed to be good southern 'breakfast for dinner' style I guess, and holeman and finch, and a few others that are good. And that iberian pig.
Oh yea, went to Morelli's ice cream. It was very gooey, but good ice cream. Would I get it over blue bell ice cream at the grocery store, which is just phenom fucking ice cream? Well, no. but it's close. I definitely enjoyed it. It's not bi-rite in san francisco, it's not carl's ice cream (the BEST fucking place in the country for ice cream, in the middle of nowhere basically in VA, well along 95, but it's 50s style ice cream and it's soft serve, made fresh there, and soft serve is always better than hard serve), but it was still pretty good. I think the 'thing' with this place is the flavors they have - they had maple ice cream, and then they put candied bacon brittle in it, with actual pieces of meaty bacon. It actually tasted great, it was like peanut brittle, but then tiny pieces of bacon in the brittle, and it went great with maple ice cream. The vanilla was probably their best flavor, I didn't care for their most popular flavor, salted caramel, which was just salty and like candied brittle flavor (it was great, but, just, not vanilla or maple bacon brittle awesome). I wasn't dissapointed, even though it's probably not better than blue bell ice cream. I'm glad I tried it out, although I probably won't ever go back. I guess that sounds really harsh, but blue bell is REALLY fucking good lol.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.iamstaggered.com/usa/files/2011/12/Vortex.jpg)
