Atlanta etc.: Marilyn Wolf's Food Blog and Restaurant Blog

In the mood for a hearty breakfast, I stopped by Bob and Edith's Diner in Crystal City. It has the old fashioned diner style and service---welcoming, efficient. Here are my veggie omelet, home fries, rye toast, and coffee. The omelet was very good, although I wish I had known that I had a choice other than American cheese. The home fries gave that perfect balance between crispy exterior and creamy potato interior. Rye toast is something I don't make at home and always a treat.

Breakfast spots are somewhat rare on a good day. Finding one that is open on the 4th of July adds to the difficulty factory. Luckily, Galaxy Diner came through. It's been awhile since I was there and I really enjoyed my visit to this corner of Chamblee east of I-85 and north of I-285. As always, the service was very gracious and welcoming. The food was just what I needed. This is the sort of place that every neighborhood should have. My veggie omelet was nicely cooked and filled with onion, green pepper, and mushroom. The home fries were very homey. I ordered the sausage gravy as add-on for my biscuit and I'm really glad I did. The gray was packed with bits of sausage and very smooth. I also caught sight of this corned beef hash. This dish is a rarity these days and I'm glad that Galaxy cultivates it.

Olympic Flame is in the industrial section of Marietta Bouevard. This is a quiet part of town, without the traffic and people of midtown. Olympic Flame has been here for almost fifty years. Unlike the Silver Skillet and White House, which cater to the white collar crowd, Olympic Flame is a workingman's place. You can see this as soon as you walk in to find counter service. You can also see it in the menu, which favors portable breakfast a.k.a. breakfast sandwiches. They do have a seating area with classic Greek diner decorations. (Did some salesman sweep through town and sell every Greek diner the same posters? Or is there a greekdinersupplies.com from which everyone orders their Greek Diner Wall Hangings Kit?) I decided to eat inside, so I ordered and took a table. As I waited, guys stepped up to the counter, ordered, and sat to wait for their to-go breakfasts. This is two orders, an omelet plus biscuits and gravy. The gravy was the star, made with a rich dose of chi...

The stretch of Route 1 between New Brunswick and Princeton doesn't offer a lot of food choices. Omega Diner is one of the mainstays. Like most modern diners, it's huge and bright inside. I was a little disappointed that my coffee wasn't refilled promptly---caffeine is an essential for breakfast. I ordered a waffle with bananas and strawberries, a favorite combination. They offered whipped cream, which I declined in a fit of pseudo-healthiness. I also ordered a mushroom omelette, filled with big, tender mushrooms. It came with potatoes and toast---rye in my case. This was one big comfort breakfast.

Hyesoon and I convened our meeting at The Frontier and enjoyed a very good lunch along the way. The restaurant is located squarely across the street from the University of New Mexico. It's a huge place with plenty of parking squirreled away in various spots behind the building and down the alley. The decor is lived-in but clean and pleasant. Given the number of John Wayne portraits on the walls, the owner seems to be a fan. A word on service: look at the menu, figure out what you want, then step up to the counter and order. They will give you a number that will pop up amazingly quickly on monitors all over the restaurant. You can then pick up your food at the other end of the counter. I ordered the vegetarian burrito, which I found both tasty and filling. It came with a very large sopapilla. I'm a little puzzled as to how they cooked it---the surface was barely browned and it wasn't at all greasy. But it was tasty.

I visited this restaurant with a disabled person and was very disappointed with the staff's treatment of the disabled. As a result, I can't report on their food---we never made it to a table.

Marietta Diner is on Cobb Parkway. Unfortunately, that large sign across the front of the building doesn't face the highway, so it won't be as easy to spot as you may think. The space inside is large, bustling, and comfortable. Every meal starts out with a basket of fresh bread and a sample of spanakopita. I ordered chicken marsala for my dinner. The presentation was more what you would expect from a Greek diner, with a slightly heavier sauce and a good dose of nutmeg. The chicken itself hit the spot. But I was disappointed to make a quick trip to the restroom just after ordering and coming back to discover that my table, including my drink and appetizer, had been cleared. This isn't the sort of thing that makes diners feel welcome.

The last thing I expected to find in downtown Chattanooga was a New York diner, particularly ensconsed in the corner of a motel. But the moment I walked in I knew that's what City Cafe is: the bright marble and mirrored walls, the impossibly tall cakes displayed in glass cases. The owner is, in fact, from New York. The only clue that you are south of the Mason-Dixon line is the lilt in the way your waitress calls you honey. The place was packed for breakfast. I jumped at the chance to have potato pancakes. They didn't disappoint: cruncy on the outside, soft on the inside, served with applesauce (my favorite) and sour cream. All served with the courteous, bustling efficiency of the New Yorker.

Chris's Pizza in Toco Hill Shopping Center is one of those old familiar places.  Although the name emphasizes pizza, it's best to think of it as closer to a Greek diner with an emphasis on pizza.  I've eaten there many times and had pasta, chicken parm, etc.  The decor is wonderful.  They have managed astonishingly well to approximate the atmosphere of a restaurant in Greece given that they are in an Atlanta strip mall.  The decor is white with sea blue seats.  The entire space is lit by two huge skylights that give the sort of natural light that makes the Mediterranean such an appealing place. I had the pizza lunch special.  My Greek salad was of the lettuce variety but it was very pleasant.  This is my pizza with green mushrooms on top.  The pizza is workmanlike.  The crust is medium thick and just a little tough.  But it is perfectly fine and today the location definitely made this stop worthwhile.

Category: Local instutution Summary: Great diner food, consistently excellent service. Landmark Diner is a very well-known Buckhead spot.  It has all the usual diner trademarks: shiny exterior, large menu, generous portions, open 24 hours. But it also offers some upscale features; its liquor collection, for example, seems to be quite extensive. I've eaten at Landmark several times over the past few years. On my previous visit I discovered the vegetable soup, so that's what I had again this time.  The photo shows my soup and salad order---that's a small salad but it seemed plenty big to me. The soup is a treat.  It's filled with all sorts of vegetables and has a very rich base.  I used the wonderful bread to sop it up. The salad was also excellent, particularly the dressing. On my previous visit, I made this mistake of ordering this soup with a large Greek salad, thinking that the soup wouldn't be enough. That salad was huge and filled with all sorts of great thin...

Category: Great local place or worth a drive if you are Greek diner deprived Summary: Hoppin' atmosphere, open 24/7, very solid food  Decatur Diner has been open for a week or two now.  Word seems to have spread fast.  We got there just in time to get a table without waiting and the line started building as soon as we sat down.  The entryway was packed with people the entire time we were there. We saw all sorts of people: students, families, senior citizens. The combination of the food and the atmosphere is what brings people in. This is a classic New York Greek diner.  Perhaps that's not too surprising considering the owner ran a restaurant in New York for 17 years, as he told me.  The decorations on the walls, the neon signs, the huge cakes in the refrigerator case all spell diner.  The waitstaff is friendly.  Everything moves quickly here; you don't have to wait long to eat if you're hungry. I went for the chicken parmigana (chicken parm to the...

The Majestic, on Ponce de Leon, dates to the 1920s. I've eaten breakfast there before. I think this was my first dinner. My pork chop was fine, more or less what you would expect from a nice diner. The salad, which I didn't show here, was great, with a wide variety of ingredients and a flavorful vinaigrette. The menu is generally heavy on sandwiches and lighter on blue plate specials (I had been looking forward to a turkey dinner, but alas). Their breakfast menu is very strong---I suspect that they serve breakfasts to all sorts of people at all hours of the day.

I spied the Galaxy Diner a couple of weeks ago and finally got the chance to try it. It's on Chamblee-Tucker Road just north of I-285. The interior is very homey. The big feature is the huge collection of car photos, which were taken during their Saturday night car rallies. (That sounds like a fun activity...) The food is classic diner; I had the turkey dinner. What I really enjoyed about the Galaxy was the warm and friendly service. Everyone was extremely nice and helpful; the owner even came over to say hello and adjust a fan. As with all real diners, their dessert selection is vast with huge portions. I tried the devil's food cake and was very happy.

Alpha Soda was started in 1920. It's in a new building now, still near the old part of Alpharetta. The interior is a very nice wood with a 1920's feel. The menu is classic Greek diner---lots of items, plenty of red sauce, desserts that are huge in both selection and portion. I started with some hummus. It was nicely spiced with paprika and the associated pita was warm and fresh. For my main course, I tried the fried chicken. Atlanta is a great place for fried chicken, and I wouldn't put theirs in the same league as the city's top locations, but it was pretty good. It was cooked to order---I had to wait 20 minutes for it. It was very tender and juicy. The crust was of the smooth variety. I did realize after the plate came that ordering a half fried chicken plus fried okra was a little too much fried food for someone of my advanced age. Overall, it left a good impression and I plan to go back.