HOT-Lanta!
Where fried chicken is a staple, and there’s only one reason why the city has the nickname it has…because it’s damn hot! When you think you know ‘hot’, come to the south. With 95% humidity and average daily temps like 90-95 degrees, Hotlanta, is not a place to come if you’re not a heat person. However, I’m quickly finding that if you’re a foodie, you may want to fight the heat and get on down here for some good eats
Last nite, our first nite in town, our friends took us to a super cool joint in the sort of ‘uptown’ region of the city. A restaurant called: Restaurant Eugene. Contemporary in its look, the joint had a white tablecloth feeling upon arriving. We sat at the bar, incidentally always my favorite place in the restaurant to sit. Where you can get all the great service you need, and in the right restaurants, where the bartender fills you in on all the establishment secrets.
Restaurant Eugene with a sweet little bar, sitting a max of maybe eight, snuggled the four of us in perfectly. Our friends were especially excited to show us the spot, but mostly to introduce us to one of their favorite bartenders, Nick. With one look, you could tell that Nick was a serious character when it came to the beverage industry. While I’m most used to someone always handing me a ‘wine by the glass’ menu when I sit at a swanky restaurant bar, Nick went straight for the daily drink menu. He was, as our friends said, one of the best drink makers in the city. Yet, not only was he a mixologist but a bartender with food pairings to fit all the cocktails on his menu.
Nick’s Friday Flight Night Menu consisted of: an Irish Cooler, which was a new fandangled Rusty Nail – Irish Whiskey, Drambuie and Ginger Beer + an Alexandra’s Cocktail, a mix of St Germain (Elderflower liqueur), Aperol (a rhubarb bitter), lemon juice and fresh peach + a drink called, There is no Try consisting of a Campari like liqueur, grapefruit and aged bitters.
Each of the cocktails were paired up to little food pairings to try – served as tapas. The first cocktail, which was good, but more of an after dinner drink to me even as sparky as it was with the ginger beer, was paired to glazed baby tomatoes and basil. While the fresh juicy tomatos glazed over were nice and sweet with the cocktail, the Whiskey parts to the drink seemed to swallow the food whole to me. However, for one of our friends, this was his favorite pairing. (Proving, by the way, that we ALL have our own likes to pairings.)
The second was my favorite of the three – the lite citrus flavors of this gorgeous summer drink, Alexandra’s Cocktail, were paired to a Crispy Kale Salad finished with ‘just right’ cooked chucks of bacon. The bacon, cooked perfectly, seemed to be the smoke of the dish as the fresh fruit flavors snuggled up to the awesome! fried, crispy kale. The drink and the dish both awesome, but when paired together was THE perfect pairing. Really great.
And, the last…There is No Try, which had a sour patch kid pucker with an almost medicinal flavor to it was paired to a Lamb Sausage and Sweet + Sour Fairytale Eggplant. The lamb sausage had a fennel spice to it almost pairing right up to the bitters in the drink. Nice, but not over-whelming. Very good.
The remainder of our dinner was outstanding. Dishes of pan seared halibut, georgia white shrimp, watermelon and radish salad, seared marget duck breast to the most delicious confit pork belly that I may have ever had were delivered course by course. All very good and finished up with a stellar bottle of Jorge Ordonez’s Botani – a dry Mocatel from Spain. YUM! (Can’t take a Sommelier out to eat without having at least one bottle of wine!)
Overall, the experience was fantastic and really, a fabulous treat. It’s not very often that I am treated to a cocktail food pairing experience. Not something that everyone does, especially in the MidWest. Hmmmm…. Might want to get on it, MSP peeps.
Signing off and getting ready to head out for another nite of great food + drink with great friends in the Big ATL. I’m hopin’ we get over to Gladys Knight’s Chicken + Waffles before the week is up!