Scenario: You’ve just spent a few hours walking around the (fabulous) Georgia Aquarium and are hungry. The SEC championship game also happens to be in town and traffic is pretty much gridlocked, despite the efforts of traffic cops on every corner.

Problem: You want food. Now.

Solution: Go to Fat Philly’s, right across the street. Yes, it doesn’t look like much from the outside. And it might look like even less from the inside. And there might be no one there. But, you cannot go wrong with getting the Philly cheese steak, with mushrooms. This sandwich could go up against some of the best in Philly itself. The bread is soft, but substantial enough to hold the hot, yummy, juicy steak and mushrooms. They’re generous with the white American cheese – and they put it on the bottom of the bread, so it’s melted by the hot filling but also prevents the bread from breaking apart.

We’ve been driving by an interesting statue of a green woman, dressed in weather appropriate attire (i.e. rain gear, baseball hats, t-shirts, etc.) for quite a few months now. About a week ago we finally realized she’s the mascot to a coffee shop called LOCAL Market & Coffee Bar (her name’s Ida Thumwar, by the way).  Today we stopped in for lunch and a few treats.  Our coffee choices were the daily special white chocolate raspberry mocha and the Local mocha frappe, which had both caramel and chocolate flavorings.  The raspberry mocha was sweet but not overly so, and the Local frappe was very well blended – and topped with very rich real (at least it tasted real!) whipped cream.  We also tried the grilled cheese sandwich, which was toasted sourdough with pimento (loved it) and some type of Parm/Asiago cheese blend.  It was really good, particularly if you like pimento cheese.  We got the couscous on the side, it’s served chilled and simply seasoned with a few cranberries.  Nice and refreshing, particularly when paired with the rich grilled cheese.  We also tried a thick slice of pb/dark chocolate/banana bread.  This is called “trifecta bread” when rung up on the cash register, and is a fantastic combination – I don’t know why more places don’t do this.  Dessert was a blueberry lemon scone baked by Wild Flour pastry (tip: ask for them to warm up the scone).  It was tasty – moist, dense, rich, flaky, with just a hint of lemon, lots of nice blueberries in the center and a topping of crunchy sugar.

Sunday afternoon, getting on towards lunch time.  Where to go?  Hominy Grill seemed like a good choice.  After all, they’re known for biscuits and shrimp and grits, which sounded pretty much perfect.  Since it was a nice day, a few dozen of our new closest friends also had the same idea, so there was a bit of a wait.

Once we got our table, we quickly perused the brunch menu and had our orders ready.  Coffee, shrimp and grits, the big nasty biscuit, and an extra biscuit.  The food arrived pretty darn quick, considering they were still completely packed inside.  Everything was fabulous.  Let’s start with the coffee, which was dark but not too full-bodied, with low acidity.  The shrimp and grits were cheesy and properly cooked, plus they were pretty generous with the shrimp.  To make things better the bowl is “loaded” – crispy bacon, mushrooms, and scallions complete the dish.  This was one of the top 3 shrimp and grits we’ve tried in the South.  The big nasty biscuit is anything but nasty – it’s a flaky biscuit topped with crunchy (and not greasy) fried chicken, a bit of shredded mozzarella, and sausage gravy.  The gravy was creamy, with big chunks of sausage and red and green peppers for a bit of a kick.  The extra biscuit was put to good use.  We’d spotted the jam jars (raspberry-blueberry, we think) on the tables, and needed a biscuit vehicle for them.  Enter: the extra biscuit on the side.  The meal was delicious, and definitely worth the wait.

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