Catching up, for those interested….listen to the latest.

Exchange.004 – Summertime

Exchange.003 – Touch

Uhhhh, the cover, see, what had happened was…..

Exchange.002 – Teenage Love Affair

In the time-honored tradition of going out to eat whenever Mom is in town, I picked Holeman & Finch Public House.  Very well-publicized new spot (Southern food, all organic/local, small plates…but modeled after British gastropubs?) from local chef behind Restaurant Eugene and a bunch of bartenders. Got hip to it and geeked for it from CL and AJC reviews.  DUMB scrumptious.  Absolutely loved it.  Mom, not so much.  This place gives no quarter to vegetarians.  Pork, glorious pork, from the roota to the toota.  I didn’t even dip into the real crazy stuff (souse, ears, tails, etc.), but what I did have was sublime.

Deviled eggs, three ways: baconized (better than I thought bacon could be, and bacon is possibly one of the greatest things ever invented), pickles (I liked it, and I don’t like pickles), and cayenne (couldn’t taste a lick of heat…maybe they forgot the, um, cayenne part).

Bread and butter:  all housemade (they’re opening up a H&F bakery down the block soon, I read), all GOOD AS HELL.

Pork belly, grits, grilled baby onion, house pickles:  I am extremely guilty of jumping on the pork belly bandwagon, and unashamedly so.  The stuff is heavenly.  But that wasn’t even the best part of this dish.  If you think grits are homely and unremarkable, come eat some of these.  They were rich and thick….it was kinda like eating butter.  Except it won’t make you gag.  That’s quite a backhanded compliment, but a compliment nonetheless.  I’d eat these grits for every meal if I could.  Plus I made sure to get a littel of everything in each bite….great strategy.  The smoky onions and the sweet/tangy pickels played sooo well of the richness of the swine and grits.

Pasta, pancetta carbonara, fried egg:  The extra-thick spaghetti had to be housemade (or at least handmade nearby), the pancetta was as excellent as it always is (when asked, I usually say it’s fancy bacon – is that correct?), and the light carbonara and egg blended perfectly to create a homey, simple sauce.

Coca-Cola Float (Fernet Branca ice cream and candied lime) and sugar glazed donuts:  Fernet Branca is some sort of Italian aperitif (from what I can Google), a syrup/concentrate/liqueur of some sort that is usually mixed with club soda to make a tonic.  Anyhow, it had an extremely distinctive taste, one that I’ve never had.  Semi-licorice-ish, but not nearly as nasty, kinda earthy, like it’s a root or something.  Good though, but the dish in it’s entirety….I mean, it’s a Coke float, what can really go wrong?  But the donuts may give Krispy Kreme a run for their money — at least when the HOT NOW sign is on.

Although there were plenty of other things I want to try, I could go back and eat the exact same thing and be extremely pleased.

Curren$y – Lost In Transit

Off of this:

This is really hard.  Even for me.

Word Sandwich

So my friend Jennifer, who on a near daily basis serves as inspiration to write, post, take a picture, or otherwise participate online, organized (from this idea, although it wouldn’t have surprised me if it was her idea) an ongoing mixtape of sorts.  Gathered a couple of her friends, asked each to offer up a song in line with the tape’s theme (this first one is ’songs with a name in the title’), and with the simple genius of Muxtape, vwhala, we have The Exchange, and its first edition, Say My Name.  Go listen to it, or download it for the archives.

A list of contributors and their selctions:

Me | Jazzy Belle (remix) – Outkast feat. Babyface
Marcia | Black Stacey – Saul Williams
Kate | Helen – The Cave Singers
Ouxu | Mary Jane (All Night Long) – Mary J. Blige
Cye | Saigon Meets Just Blaze – Saigon
Eyejammy | Mona Lisa – Slick Rick
Jen | Renee – Lost Boyz
OJ | Makeba – Aceyalone
Liz | Poor Georgie – MC Lyte
Panama | Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s
Brandon | Adam – Me’Shell Ndegéocello
George | Mona Lisa – Nat King Cole

Honestly, I don’t know but one (besides Jen) of the fine folks participating in this ongoing aural amalgam, but as Jen drafted them, I bet they’re all dope.  So open the mixtape in one tab, and go explore these cats in a bunch of other ones.  That’s what I’m doing.

Also, to acknowledge reality, I kind of suck at blogging.  Or blogging regularly, at least.  I should try harder.  There are all kinds of interesting and useful tools out there to create a presence for one’s self in the social online world that we now spend an inordinate amount of time in.  I want to make use of them.  I think I will.  But you should go listen to the mixtape.

I subscribe to Good Morning Silicon Valley, a daily newsletter that incidentally arrives in my inbox in the afternoon. Nonetheless, it keeps me up-to-date on all matters of tech business news and other assorted geeky stuff. At the end of each newsletter, they always include a few links — weird or failed products, interesting websites, online games….always random, always amusing. I swear, there’s something included damn near every day that I want to share. Case in point, from a recent edition, the FAIL Blog…..things that fail, failed attempts, people that have failed, etc.  I’m easily amused.

I’m not a huge fan of graffiti. While I’m sure it rightfully earned its place as one
of the founding 5 elements of hip-hop (whatever that means, and for whatever it’s worth), I’ve always thought it was kind of corny, like breakdancing and Bay Area rappers. I just don’t particularly care for it. Despite all of that, this is cool. Super geeked out cool, but really, really cool nonetheless.

It’s called Hektor. It’s a portable spray-paint output device for laptop computers. Hektor’s creators, Jürg Lehni and Uli Franke, explain: Hektor’s light and fragile installation consists only of two motors, toothed belts and a can holder that handles regular spray cans. The can is moved along drawing paths just as the human hand or old plotters would.

It takes a vector file like this:

And it turns it something like this:

Sometimes I see or read about something that I think is so innovative, so masterful in it’s use of technology, or simply so far from anything that I’ve ever thought of, that I am literally stunned. As in, I have to take a moment to break myself away from the awe. These aren’t discoveries that will change the world or cure cancer, but they knock me on my ass. This is one of them.

This is the kind of thing I really get a kick out of. I think (hope) this will be one of the true accomplishments of all of the technology that completely bombards us and now affects pretty much everything that we do — not that we’ll be able to write on our friend’s Facebook wall from our watch, or that we’ll have cars that don’t need drivers, but that it’ll make something interesting to folks who normally may not dig it, or give folks access to things (or ideas or services) that they normally wouldn’t.

Late as this is, it’s well worth it. Weekend before last, I had two, count ‘em two, spectacular meals.

Friday night, MF Buckhead. Big brother (sister?) to MF Sushi on Ponce (never been, want to go), this recently opened joint is probably the sexiest restaurant I’ve ever encountered. In a sort of restaurant ghetto in the new Terminus building, where the other tenants (Aquaknox, Bricktops, Lola) all have grand entrances with gigantic, brightly lit signs, MF Buckhead’s entrance is a pair of doors wrapped around a corner, with the restaurant’s logo simply, quietly etched in glass. Greetings come by way of three ridiculously hot (Asian, fittingly) hostesses, and we pass by a beautiful black bar staffed by an even more ridiculously hot bartender as we’re shown to our table.

Heralded recently in two reviews from Atlanta critics that I pay attention to, and already crowned the king of Atlanta sushi, the place is stunningly gorgeous. I can’t even remember it all, but there were great, modern (but comfortable) chairs, dope art, and a larger space overlooking the main room that was sheathed by some sort of blue beaded waterfall curtain. But I digress…..the food. Jesus Christ, the food.

First off, edamame. I certainly never thought that there was much to edamame. Every time I’ve had it, it tastes the exact same. It’s always good, but always the same. This, however, was the best edamame I’ve ever had. I’m not even sure how this stuff is harvested, or if it was from some different place (Japan?) than where run-of-the-mill edamame comes from (Wisconsin?), but it tasted leaps and bounds fresher and lighter than any I’ve ever had. And with edamame like that, you can’t just toss Morton’s on there; our waitress grated fresh Himalayan rock salt over the whole bowl. I don’t put salt on anything, but it was welcomed with open arms (mouth? PAUSE) in this instance.

After that, a roll, but without the rice and seaweed. Is that still a roll? Snow crab and asparagus wrapped in smoked salmon, barely seared and drizzled with a creamy aioli. I dare say it was a little much, if only because the salmon was so rich. But that’s probably a good thing. Then, Kobe beef nigiri. At the risk of sounding cliché, it really did taste like butter. Thinly sliced, momentarily thrown on the robata grill, and laid over a pillow of rice with a slice of jalapeno and cilantro, it literally melted in my mouth. I managed to turn those two pieces into about six bites, just so I could experience it that many more times. Then some real rolls, among them a fatty tuna with cucumber, and two others I can’t remember — not because they were in any way deficient, but because I’m not quite at the level of sushi connoisseurship to appreciate the nuances of it all. I do, however, recall that they were all as fine as the first.

My entree (is that what they’re called at a sushi place?) was a piece of Chilean sea bass, again from the robata, wrapped in what I think was bamboo, with seasoned purple onions and a squeeze of lemon. This stuff fell to pieces as soon my chopsticks touched it; this is a good thing though. It was flaky, tender, and kind of perfect.

Dessert was a raspberry coulis topped with a layer of meringue, and a pair of sorbets — one a white peach, the other the house special, a banana, something, something, and something mix (I know it was 4, all fruits), sauced with sweet red beans, a taste I’d learned to appreciate from the Chinese woman I shared an office with in New York, who consistently and kindly brought me Chinatown treats, like red bean popsicles. Neither was outstanding, but both were still pretty damn good.

Luckily, I have a friend with a generous expense account — for three, the bill was upwards of $300. Nice.

On to Saturday night. I have a dear friend who, while I lived in New York, I went out to dinner with once a week. Or at least almost once a week. A fellow food nerd, we always tried something new and different, and went back and forth picking up the check. She was in town for New Year’s, and lucky for me, it was her turn to ante up (next time I’m up top, it’s on me). After weeks of e-mailing suggestions back and forth, we decided on JCT Kitchen, off of Howell Mill on the Westside. I used to live over there, and have a great appreciation for the area, although in those days my culinary options usually ran closer to Wendy’s and Taco Bell. I’ve grown.

Anyhow, this spot has been on my radar for some time now, as I have a great appreciation for Southern/country/soul food, and I love seeing people doing new, interesting things with it. I’d read about JCT and it’s chef in quite a few places, and Esquire even named it one of the best bars in the country. In what seemed to be a theme for the weekend, JCT is located in another sort of restaurant ghetto. It’s in the same complex as Bacchanalia, Star Provisions, Quinones at Bacchanalia, and Floataway Cafe, all found here, and all of which I desperately want to try. The decor was cool; woodplank floors, and lots of muted lighting and neutral color on the walls. Nothing special and even a little bland, but still extremely pleasant and relaxed.

Started off with tomato soup with a Georgia got cheese crouton. Not exactly a bold choice, but I knew what I wanted, and I go for pretty much anything with cheese. It was delicious, as suspected, but my only complaint was that the goat cheese crouton was precisely that: a big-ass crouton, about the size of a RAZR, with some cheese on it. It made it a little hard to get a nice piece of it with every slurp of soup. Spoons aren’t generally the best cutting utensils, and bowls, particularly when filled with hot liquid, don’t make for very good cutting surfaces. Nonetheless, it was indeed delicious. They do not, however, get any extra special points; I mean really, how hard is it to fuck up tomato soup?

For the main platter, I made an excellent choice, if I don’t say so myself. Which I do. I ordered the bacon-wrapped rainbow trout, served over a bed of sweet corn puree, with a wood grilled onion salad, lemon, and EVOO (shout-outs to Rachel Ray). I realize the ridiculousness with which most restaurants describe their food, but I give them the benefit of the doubt; they do a better job of telling me what it is than I’d probably do on my own. Anyhow, it was good. Really good. And all of the frou-frou that accompanied it was good too. I don’t think I’ve had trout before (I just started eating fish about 3 years ago, slowly but surely, after a 10+ year lay-off, with my previous experience pretty much limited to fish sticks), but it was distinctly not very fishy. Not necessarily a bad thing, but as I’ve learned to appreciate fish, I now kind of like it. Was it just here, or is all trout like that? It’ll definitely get it a shot elsewhere though.

My homie is a real meat-and-potatoes kind of girl (gotta love that), so she appropriately had meat and potatoes. Her steak, which usually doesn’t really get me going, was perfectly seasoned, and she had potatoes two ways — smashed (does mashing no longer do the trick?), and a basket of truffle-parmesan fries. I’m not entirely convinced of the magic and wonder of truffles, despite hearing them praised and fawned over on the Food Network and in fancy-pants restaurants and recipes, and not really being able to taste much more than the parmesan on the fries certainly didn’t convert me. But they were some damn good parmesan fries. I’m not a huge french fry fan, but when done right, they’re pretty hard to beat.

Dessert was crazy good. We shared the gingerbread pudding with lemon curd, although the name is a bit misleading. As you can see, a more apt description would be a gingerbread bread pudding; get the difference? This was an intensely dense pudding/cake hybrid, that was rich and creamy and thick and all of the above. I’m not entirely sure what a curd is, so I’ll run with what they called it. Not a pudding, not a sauce, but whatever it was, its citrus-y zest perfectly accompanied, and balanced, the richness of the cake (that’s what I’m calling it: a gingerbread pudding cake).

Both of these spots get hearty recommendations. Here’s hoping I can finagle my way into another weekend of fee-free gourmet sometime again soon.

Picture credits: MF Sushi – Creative Loafing (James Camp); JCT Kitchen – Off The Broiler; Gingerbread bread pudding w/ lemon curd, Access Atlanta

More here, which I discovered via the newsletter I get from them everyday.  And from the looks of a quick Google, this is a thriving genre.