Tag Archives: Georgia

Decatur Restaurants and Driving Back to SC

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Decatur is a short drive from Stone Mountain.

December 4, 2011 – Decatur, GA, has some really good restaurants. As in, the kind that make you wonder if you can find a way to move to be closer to them (sadly, that’s not looking like a possibility).

First up is the Brick Store Pub. We parked a few blocks away and walked over, since the lot by the store is so small (no biggie, plus parking is free on Sundays!). The ambience is great even before you walk in. A thick wooden door, along with an artistic stained glass image of a beer stein, let you know what you’re in for. Except then the interior surprises you. It’s not large, but the ceilings are high, there’s exposed brick on the walls, lots of light coming through the windows, and a few plants further brighten the space. We snagged a high top table, checked the menus (which are also pretty neat) and decided on a few draft beers to start the meal. Tony picked a great one – Scaldis Noel; it started off caramal-y and eventually turned sweeter, like pear. Louisa played it a bit safer with an American brew (Founder’s Favorite) that tasted a bit like Guinness. This one started out tasting like coffee, and after a few seconds reminded you of chocolate Devil’s Food cake. Lunch was a sampling of dishes – fish and chips, the pierogi appetizer, and a cup of curry. The fish and chips were good, but not overwhelmingly amazing. The pierogies were very good – lightly fried, buttery, served on a bed of buttery sauteed onions and nuts with a hint of fresh basil. The curry, though, was the star of the show. It was a thick sweet potato and chick pea mix, served over rice and with a side of (house made) pita chips. It’s better than curry we’ve gotten from our favorite Indian restaurants.

We took a stroll around the block after lunch, and agreed that we were much too stuffed to consider dessert. Then we wandered by this coffee shop called Java Monkey. Well, we only walked by it because Louisa had Tony look it up on his phone, and this was the best reviewed coffee shop. And it’s good. We had a iced mocha and an espresso con panna… and a slice of chocolate pb mousse cake. The coffee was very good. And that cake was fabulous – chocolate cake, topped with pb mousse, topped with ganache, with chocolate cookie crumbs pressed along the outside of the cake.

We had an uneventful drive back, except for finding a Five Guy’s for dinner in Columbia. This was probably the best Five Guy’s we’ve been to – perfectly done, highly seasoned Cajun fries, and really juicy burgers.  If you’ve never been to a Five Guys, be sure to check out the free peanuts and their massive list of toppings (especially the sauteed onions and mushrooms).

Reviews:

Brick Store Pub on Urbanspoon Java Monkey on Urbanspoon Five Guys Famous Burgers on Urbanspoon

Restaurant Review: Heirloom Market BBQ

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We like BBQ. Correction – we like well-smoked meat, complete with an obvious smoke ring and a caramized exterior, that’s also tender and still moist, home made sauces that incorporate a variety of BBQ styles (though we’re partial to Kansas City and TX), and well-prepared side dishes. Basically, we want it all. And we found it at Heirloom Market BBQ. This uanssuming little place shares a building with a (rather interesting looking) liquor store. It’s small inside – we ate at the counter – with seating for about 12-15. But let’s talk about the food. It’s obviously smoked – the restaurant smells faintly of BBQ cooking, and there’s a massive pile of wood outside the door. And a smoker in the kitchen. We wanted to try a sampling, and settled on brisket, pork, and ribs, with Brunswick stew and mac ‘n cheese for the sides.

I don’t quite know where to begin. This is probably the best all-around BBQ we’ve had (and we’ve eaten at restaurants from CO to Kansas City to SC, though we still have to get to TX). All of the BBQ was tender and moist, complete with obvious smoke rings and a crunchy (but not burned) exterior crust. The brisket was sliced thick and was fork-tender. I don’t even like brisket, well, I thought I didn’t, and this was phenominal. The sauces are a bit different – there’s a spicy vinegar, a house sauce that’s like a Kansas City style sauce (this goes well on the brisket and decently well on the ribs), a sweet Asian sauce (kind of like a sweet and sour BBQ sauce, which was great on the pork and good on the ribs), and a hot Texas style sauce. Oh, and the sandwich bun that comes with the meal is toasted and buttered, which is a nice touch. The mac ‘n cheese is a bit zesty – Tony thought it was the best mac ‘n cheese he’s ever had, and Louisa thought it was pretty good too. The Brunswick stew was good, though the meat was a bit chewy. It was well-spiced, though, and good with a drizzle of the Kansas City style sauce. This place also makes a mean Sweet Tea to help wash down a fantastic meal. If you like BBQ, don’t pass this place by!

Reviews:
Heirloom Market BBQ on Urbanspoon

Olympic Rings, Battlefield walk and Coffee

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The Olympic Park is very close to the aquarium.

December 3, 2011 – Once we finished lunch we continued past the Aquarium and a few blocks to Centennial Park, home of the Olympic fountain, which is shaped like the Olympic rings. This area is a pretty park in the middle of downtown Atlanta, complete with (Christmas) trees, elevated fire pits leftover from the 1996 Olympic games, the CNN studios… and hundreds of LSU and UGA fans going to the Georgia Dome for the SEC championship game. We bypassed most of the craziness and headed towards Martin Luther King Jr’s boyhood haunts. Once we were within a few blocks we decided that was close enough, and it was time to get out of the city.

The battlefield is a great place to walk... or relax.

Past Marietta is Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, which is complete with a variety of nice walking trails, rolling hills, trees, and chickadees and blue birds. This was just what we needed to counteract the craziness of the football crowds.

Yep, definitely a good place to relax.

It wasn’t quite time for dinner, so we spent a few minutes at a Daily Grind coffee shop, enjoying a blended mocha that tasted like an amazing chocolate milkshake, and a caramochanut latte (hot, thank you). Their scones looked great – we chose the white chocolate raspberry scone. It was quite good, particularly if you have them warm it up. This is a great coffee shop. And their frozen/blended drinks are perfectly smooth, a real rarity. Oh, and there’s a back room you can rent… I think there were about 6 women playing bridge, it looked like an intense game. ;-)

Reviews:

Daily Grind Coffee House & Cafe on Urbanspoon

Georgia Aquarium

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There are many fun creatures in the ocean.

December 3, 2011 – Friday we headed out for a weekend road trip to Atlanta. We stayed at an HGI in Alpharetta. The hotel was good, with a very nice breakfast, nice room, and was very quiet – even with a few socceer teams and the SEC (college football) game in town over the weekend; just over 5 hours driving time.

We were awake and ready to check out the aquarium!

 

December 3, 2011 –  The first stop was the Georgia Aquarium. There’s a convenient parking garage right next door, complete with a heated outdoor walkway (they vent the walkway with hot air from inside the aquarium). Once inside we were quiete impressed, not only with the building itself but with all the helpful volunteers. They must have noticed our lost expressions and directed us towards various exhibits. The building is shaped like a wheel, with different spokes coming off the main lobby area. Each of the exhibits have a clearly defined entrance and exit, which helps maintain the flow of traffic. Fortunately, we got there near opening and it wasn’t very crowded.

The whale shark tank was a highlight of the visit.

The first exhibit we wanted to see was the whale shark tank. These are very large fish that can grow to the size of a school bus; the four in the aquarium were between 19′ and about 22′ long. The tank is almost the length of a football field, and includes various viewing windows (with windowseats!) and a glass-covered tunnel. The tunnel also has a very slowly-moving people mover off to one side, so folks can just stand and look around without running into anyone else. ;-) We really liked the tunnel – we saw the whale sharks, a group of about 10 little rays swimming in a V-shape, manta rays, three tiger sharks chasing each other, another shark with very large teeth, giant grouper and an assortment of smaller fish.

Rays are a common sight in the whale shark tank.

Once through the tunnel we found the large viewing area for the tank and snagged some spots on the floor by the glass. Now was the time for the whale shark feeding. Marine biologists sit in little rafts and pull themselves back and forth, while using nets to feed the whale sharks krill. Each whale shark recognizes the color of their food bucket (red, yellow, green or blue) and lines up in the appropriate feeding lane.

Don't worry, these teeth don't bite... humans.

We also saw the large (about 10-11′ from tip to tip) manta rays doing their back flips to draw food into their mouths, and a few spotted eagle rays went swimming / flapping by, as well as a guitar shark (so named because it resembles a guitar). The giant grouper was lurking in a corner of a tank; it’s more territorial than the sharks, so one diver out of a group carries a 3-4′ long metal rod to discourage the grouper from sneaking up behind and ambushing an unaware diver.

This penguin may have been fascinated with my black and white shirt.

Other exhibits in the aquarium are interesting, too. There’s a colony of South African penguins. One penguin had a piece of straw and another kept trying to steal it; another penguin kept staring at Tony’s black t-shirt (“funny, he doesn’t *really* look like a penguin….”). It’s also fun to watch the penguins flop into the water, then try to figure out a way to climb back on the rocks. My favorite was one who swam really fast towards a sloping rock and used it as a reverse-slide to get back to higher ground. There’s also a crawlspace where you can look at a penguin eye-to-eye (if they’re cooperating and hanging out near the space you come out by).

The beluga whales like to swim upside-down.

And there are beluga whales (think: fail whale. Or “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”) They were happily swimming in circles… while being upside down. Just because. A few sea otters share the whales’ tank as well, though they were mostly just swimming alon the bottom of the tank.

The tropical fish are very colorful.

Starfish, jellyfish, a cute little tree boa, a poisonous milk frog (who was sitting about 1′ from the little boa), burrowing fish, tropical fish, sea horses, sea urchons, sea anenomes and other creatures round out the exhibits. As well as river otters, who are always fun to watch, particularly when they wiggle around to scratch their backs on the rocks.