MadeByMark.com

The Boys Make Pie

We got up early this morning to make a rhubarb pie from scratch.

Mom called last week to say she had a hankering for rhubarb pie. After weeks of scouring the shelves of grocers in my Alabama hometown, she hadn't been able to find a single can of rhubarb pie filling. So ... would we be so kind as to keep our eyes out for a can or two here in Atlanta?

We tried Publix, Whole Foods, and Fresh Market, but no one seemed to have a supply of canned rhubarb on hand. So I turned to Twitter, asking my Tweeps, "Hey, does anyone know where to get canned rhubarb in the ATL?"

America's Best 25 Pizzas - GQ

via men.style.com

"Alan Richman traveled more than 20,000 miles across the U.S.A -- the country at makes the best pizza -- to search for the 25 best pizzas you'll ever eat."

I agree with Richman that the "Italians are wrong" when it comes to pizza. As he notes, "We care more about it. We eat more of it, and unlike the Italians, we appreciate it at dinner, at lunch, and at breakfast ... Italians don't really understand pizza."

Atlanta doesn't seem to have been on the list of "pizza cities" Richman visited, and for good reason: to date, most of the pies I've eaten in the ATL just don't quite measure up, despite critical praise.

Certainly, he didn't visit Jackson, MS, for a taste of the world's fifth-best pizza at Pizza Shack.

Posted via web from Mark's posterous

McGangBang

The McGangBang is "a sandwich made from a double cheeseburger and a McChicken sandwich — where you put an entire McChicken sandwich inside a double cheeseburger." 

I would prefer mine "unprotected" (that is, with a spicy chicken sandwich in lieu of the regular McChicken). Via Kottke.

The Porter Beer Bar

From the Blissful Glutton:

[Atlanta's] Porter Beer Bar will be offering its food menu at half price during the entire month of March.

Well ... not exactly. As even dear old BG admits, those special prices are available just three and a half hours a day, five days a week. So, while "half price food for a month" sounds great ... the reality is that, if you're interested, you'll have to make your way down to Little Five Points for a quick weekday lunch.

Not that you'd want to.

I know, I know: the Porter Beer Bar is a darling of the Atlanta food reviewing community, and critic after critic rhapsodizes ad nauseam about this so-called "gourmet gastropub."

But when our informal dinner club descended on the place one evening two weeks ago, we were sorely disappointed. The beer special -- Terrapin's India Style Brown Ale -- was soapy and bitter. The often-celebrated hush puppies were deep-fried to death. And the dishes we ordered were saturated -- literally limp! -- with yellow-orange grease.

The food was so bad, in fact, our friend J. revoked her husband's license to choose the "Restaurant of the Week" and, on the spot, scheduled out our next five forays without allowing him a single syllable of input.

Reviews had described the joint as packed; when we were there, servers almost outnumbered the diners.

You'd think that would guarantee good service; it didn't. When we wanted refills, additional beers, and even the check, we actually had to go looking for our server, who tended to huddle with the others at the front of the restaurant.

Bad food. Bad service. And now, a month-long half-price food special? That's not chili cheese fries you're smelling -- it's desperation.

If The Porter is open on this date next year, I'll personally buy the BG a bottle of Terrapin's India Style Brown Ale.

When Throwbacks are Progress

Great news for those of us avoiding high fructose corn syrup (also known as "The Devil's Saliva"):

In the middle of April, PBV [Pepsi Bottling Ventures] also will begin distributing Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback, which features those brands formulated with sugar.

I don't care much for Pepsi products, but it's possible that the popularity of Pepsi's "Throwback" line could induce Coke to follow suit eventually ...

[Link]

30 Atlanta Foodie Favorites

Friend JPH sent me the Blissful Glutton's list of thirty favorite foodie experiences here in the ATL.

Perhaps because my personal grazing is so Midtown-centric, I've not sampled, savored, or stumbled across one of them -- not even one! 

Is it too late to make some New Year's Resolutions?

Link: The Blissful Glutton: The Bliss List: 2008.

Firsts: Fugazetta

Having been "steaked out," I'm in one of hundreds of BA's pizza restaurants, prowling the menu for something with less protein and maximum carbs. That's when a word -- fugazetta -- catches my eye. 

I first heard of fugazetta -- a style of pizza popular in Argentina -- when researching our trip. I added it to my list of "must try" items ... and promptly forgot about it. Now, here it is in front of me, so it's clear I'm supposed to give it a try.

A few bottles of water later, the fugazetta arrives: a plate-sized pizza crust layered with thick slabs of fresh mozzarella and piled high with a mountain of chopped onions. The toppings look as though they've been applied by inverting a bowl on the crust itself.

When I try to detach a slice, the cheese strings and strings and strings, stretching the length of the table before I manage to break a wedge of pie free. There are other toppings -- ham and green olives, I think -- buried beneath the mozz and onions; these reveal themselves only after a bite of fugazetta has been popped into the mouth.

I'm already making plans for homemade fugazetta: a thin crust cooked on top of a red-hot iron skillet, a bowl of fresh mozz (from Trader Joe's), paper-thin prosciutto, olives. I imagine how the aroma will fill the condo, then drift out over Midtown: a little whiff of Argentina on the Georgia breeze.

Firsts: Yerba Mate

Everywhere we go in Buenos Aires and Colonia (Uruguay), we see people "drinking the mate" (pronounced "ma-teh."). To join the fun, you need three things: a gourd-shaped pot, an odd metal implement resembling a cross between a straw and a slotted spoon, and a great, big, honkin' wad of yerba mate.

Especially when dried and packaged in five-pound baggies, yerba mate's dried, spongy, mossy leaves look and feel a lot like wacky weed. In fact, the yerba plant -- a member of the holly family -- has a lot more in common with green tea. (Folks here in BA say the drink has just a bit more punch than coffee.) And because making and drinking yerba mate tends to be a social affair -- friends gather, stuff the weed into the gourd-shaped mate pot, pour on the hot water, chat while the brew steeps, and then pass the mate from person to person, sharing the single bombilla, or metal straw.

I had my first yerba mate while sitting in a fancy buffet that would never dream of serving the stuff. Fortunately, our trusty guide Pablo had brought along a supply, complete with a mate, a bombilla, and a baggie of dried herbs. After clearing everything with the management, he whipped out a thermos filled with hot water, filled his mate, poured in the water ... and waited. 

The waiting is part of the pleasure, providing the entire table with time to chat, time to reflect on the day, and time to savor the aroma of the steeping herbs, which smell a bit like a cross between lawn clippings and fresh pizza dough.

Pablo passed me the mate. I sucked on the bombilla, drawing in a mouthful of very hot liquid. The flavor of the brew reminded me more of spinach than anything else: dense, thick, green. I passed the mate to Clyde, who seemed to like it more than I did ... and then he passed it to the boys, who seemed to like it even more.

I cannot imagine craving the mate -- though Nigel, on staff at the Mira Vida assures me that, with time, it becomes a taste one looks forward to. The boys, though, are converts, and this afternoon, knowing that our departure time is looming, they rushed out to the local grocery store and picked up a five-pound bag each, along with their own personal mates and bombillas. 

I would like to be a fly on the wall the first time campus police at Ole Miss stumble across a circle of young friends passing each other what appears to be an elaborate, brightly-painted pipe packed with a damp pile of musky yerba mate.

Red Snapper

Clyde surprised me with dinner at the Red Snapper on Cheshire Bridge Road last night -- our first actual visit to the storefront seafood restaurant we've driven past for years.

The run-down exterior had me expecting wobbly, vinyl-covered tables and styrofoam plates heaped with fish fingers and fried potatoes -- but once you walk through the heavy, commercial-grade glass and steel door, everything changes. Chandeliers dangle from a black suspended ceiling. The warm red walls are decorated with framed silk tapestries of Thai dancers. Lighted curio cabinets display crystal models of the Thai king's royal barge. In the subdued light, the tables -- draped in white cloth, not vinyl -- look positively elegant.

That touch of Thai extends to the menu, where, along with the signature grilled red snapper "touched with lemon butter," we found Snapper Siam (a fillet buried under mildly spicy lump crab meat) and Shrimp Massaman (medium-sized shrimp bathed in a mild coconut curry, served with rice, potatoes, and cashews).

Taken by surprise -- we actually went to the Red Snapper because we were Thai'd out from consecutive nights at King & I and Thai on Tenth -- we found ourselves ordering the Snapper Siam and Shrimp Massaman. Good choices! The snapper was not fishy at all ... and the massaman curry was creamy and sweet.

Prices were a bit high -- we wouldn't want to drop twenty-five bucks a head every night of the week -- but, as a spot for an occasional treat, the Red Snapper definitely delivers.

One note: Clyde and I are in our mid-forties ... and by walking in the dining room, we lowered the average age of Thursday night's Red Snapper diners to, oh, eighty-five or so.

I'm not sure why the place appeals so strongly to Atlanta's octogenarians (The friendly, flirtatious staff, perhaps? Or the retro-plushness of the red walls and dim lighting?) -- but appeal it does, because every other table there was packed with folks discussing hearing aids, pacemakers, and What To Do About The Black President.

Typical Midtown this ain't -- so if you're interested in seeing and being seen by folks under fifty, order your fish at Silk instead.

I'm Up for Chocolate Slap Yo' Mama

If Jake's Midtown location had remained open, I would probably have had a lot more weight to lose when I started my Wii Fit routine. Now, a new location threatens my resolve! From Omnivore Atlanta:

At long last, Jake’s Ice Cream has launched its new location in the Oak Grove neighborhood (at 2746 Lavista Road), officially opening its doors on August 9.