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

Category: Fun neighborhood Midtown pizzeria. Verdict: Tasty pizza, laid back style, good parking. Davinci's, an OTP pizzeria, has opened a location on West Peachtree in Midtown.  It's a casual atmosphere.  You order at the counter; they have a nice covered patio with a lot of seating.  Better yet, they have free parking, a plus in this neighborhood. I had a salad and a pizza. The house salad was pretty good, although the balsamic dressing was fairly bland.  I ordered an individual pizza with pepperoni, mushroom, and red peppers.  Overall, I really enjoyed it; having it come out of the oven piping hot was certainly a factor.  The crust was good, although it could be a little chewier to meet true NYC standards.  The roasted red peppers made a great topping.

I visited La Cazuela in downtown Lawrenceville.  As you can see, it's in an old building on the main square, a very picturesque location that I really enjoyed.  They seem to be a small chain with several locations, including Buford Highway. I decided to try the grilled chile poblano, a green chile split open, stuffed with shredded chicken and cheese and then grilled.  I was expecting a little more cheese, but perhaps that's my ignorance, and this preparation was better for my health.  The salsa was smooth, not chunky, and unfortunately I am a chunky salsa bigot. Overall, the food was competent, the service pleasant.

Category: Excellent neighborhood Thai restaurants Verdict: Very flavorful food that can be both familiar and unusual at the same time Top Spice is one of those places I like so much that I didn't get around to blogging about it until now; I always knew that I would be back again.  It has several locations and I've eaten in two of them over the years.   I of course enjoy Thai food for all the reasons that so many people do: unusual yet understandable, wonderful and new combinations of spices, and relatively light and healthy.  I've always considered Top Spice to be an excellent example of the genre. Top Spice actually serves both Thai and Malaysian food, which we'll get to in a moment. I didn't really need an appetizer, but I decided to try a roti murtabak, which I don't think I've had before.  It's a flatbread/pancake filled with ground beef, onion, and spices.  The filling was dry and I think that my mood would have been satisfied with something ...

Category: Wonderful local place, worth regular visits Verdict: Elegant Mediterranean food and outstanding service Cafe Lily is one of those places that I've walked past dozens of times but never tried.  We went there tonight for a Georgia Tech event at the behest of my friend Yorai.  I had assumed from the name that the menu was vaguely French.  To my surprise, it is actually Greek and Mediterranean.  This turned out to be a wonderful treat. When I realized that the menu was Greek-influenced, I had to try the horiatiki salad.  Those of you who read this blog regularly have read my occasional rant about the unwanted appearance of lettuce in the American Greek salad.  This, boys and girls, is what a Greek salad is meant to be.  The presentation I've seen in Greece is a little different, but this gets the list of ingredients exactly right: tomato, feta, onion, cucumber, olives, all in an olive oil and lemon juice dressing. This style of salad is both ...

Category: Special occasion friendly Verdict: Fun combination of chocolate, food, and atmosphere I've had my eye on The Chocolate Bar in downtown Decatur for awhile.  Tonight's lovely weather seemed like a good time to try it out.  The atmosphere is hip bar: they seem to have an extensive liquor collection and a layout that is conducive to talking, seeing, and being seen.  Their menu actually has a  good range of foods and one could probably have a whole meal there. I had a small assortment of chocolates complemented by coffee.  The chocolates were fun but on the whole not a gourmand experience. All the ones I tried were filled with a chocolate cream (ganache), so I didn't get the variety of textures that I had hoped for.  They have a wide variety of flavors, but generally speaking they were slighlty artificial, rather than relying on native ingredients.  The cherry flavored chocolate, for example, was just that, not a chocolate that hid a cherry in ...

Some friends and I tried Blue Grotto.  It's just off Roswell Road in Sandy Springs.  As you can see from the sign, it's a small-plate place, serving both sushi and tapas.  I concentrated on the sushi.  The tapas side seemed to me to be an eclectic mixture of small items. This is the sasimi sampler.  The presentation was very nice.  The sasimi was certainly well prepared (some how well done doesn't seem like the right phrase for sasimi).  I think I would have to put this into the date place category---perfectly fine but not exciting.

Category: Good local place Summary: Typical north Indian fare, but at least they're not afraid to use spices I noticed the sign for Viceroy a good six months ago and finally made it there for lunch.  It's in the Wal-Mart shopping center on Ashford-Dunwoody Road.  The interior and service are both fairly upscale. I stuck to the vegetarian side of the lunch buffet.  It was all pretty standard fare.  Not that there's anything wrong with that---a good, competent meal is always welcome.  And, in fact, I thought that Viceroy was more willing to use spices than quite a few of the local Indian restaurant.  All of the dishes had a little zing, whether from cumin, coriander, pepper, or other appropriate spices.  I ate up the onion chutney with a spoon and then went back for seconds. By the way, is there a category for Indian-American food?  I've talked about the differences between Italian-American and Italian food, and Chinese food in this country is w...