Hollie Guacamole!, Marietta GA

I certainly enjoy having the small audience that Marie and I have, but sometimes I think that I'll do a lot better by y'all once we get a book deal, an expense account and a secretary. Okay, so I'm not really counting on these things, but I bet that if we did have a secretary, then they would have pointed out a remarkable oversight that I made long before now. Back in May, I happened to spot the sign for a new burrito place in downtown Marietta, and resolved to stop in as soon as possible. About a week later, I wandered over there, hungry for such a meal, and was surprised to learn they were still about a week away from opening. I ended up driving to the Chilito's in Kennesaw instead to get my fix and wrote them up instead. I promptly forgot that the burrito place on the square ever existed until I remembered out of the blue more than five months later. I'm serious; the place fell into a black hole of memory.

My plans for this past Wednesday got juggled around, so, having only remembered that "that burrito place" existed about 48 hours previously, I took advantage of the chance to swing by and see whether they ever opened up. I had to drive to do it, because I couldn't remember the name, and Google couldn't help me find the place. Now that I know the name, Google's still not much help, because the owners have not done much of anything to let the world that they've been here for five months. Not even the phone company can track these people down. I'm not sure whether this might be incompetence or somebody's very clever plan to make customers really work to find the place. But they seriously are there. Look, photographic evidence:





Okay, so let's get one thing out of the way: that's a really terrible name for a restaurant. All I could remember about it, once I remembered that "a burrito place on the square" existed at all, was "I think that it had some wacky name." Amusingly, the owner had his own take on it. I asked of the couple whether one of them was "Hollie," and he admitted that just about everybody asks that. As for why it's spelled that way, he said he wanted something memorable. Didn't work with me, I'm afraid.

Much like the many "fast casual" burrito places in the city, this is a build-to-order place with the ingredients on the other side of the sneeze guard and assembled per your specifications. I had the daily lunch special, which is your choice of a burrito, chips and a canned soda for six bucks. The guacamole is an additional eighty cents, but I have to tell you, it's easily worth that. All of the ingredients of my "bowl" burrito were very tasty, particularly the fresh jalapenos, but that guac was outstanding. I highly recommend everybody give this recipe a try. While thinner, and more like a dressing than a dip, it's actually about as good as Bone Garden's, which has my favorite in the city.

The restaurant seems to get a pretty good crush of business from government workers during the lunch hour. I arrived at 11.30 and had the small space to myself for a few minutes before the county clerks, attorneys and deputies filed in and took up all of the handful of tables. I took from the sort of noncommital way that the owner answered when I asked how business was that as of now, Hollie Guacamole! is dependent on doing a lot of noon to one business to stay afloat, and that they haven't been able to turn their place into a big word of mouth destination. Places on the square have always seemed to me to have a lot of trouble turning themselves into something that the public wants to search for. I'm not sure what this place is doing wrong, but when a Google search for: "hollie guacamole" marietta turns up (today) exactly five entries and three of those are echoes from one gentleman's Twitter feed, I can only conclude that there are a hell of a lot of people missing out on this very tasty guacamole and the friendly owners. And the Lime Crush, the soda that I've been enjoying the most for the last several weeks.

And this is after five months. I won't swear that I'm incredibly optimistic that they'll make it another five at this rate, and that's a shame*.



*As of March 2012, they're thriving and proving me wrong. Keep up the good work, guys.

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Desi Spice, Atlanta GA

It was with a heavy heart that we bid farewell to Roswell's Moksha, which had been my favorite Indian restaurant in the Atlanta area. Well, now I'm on the lookout for something to claim its former crown, and that is going to mean eating as much Indian food as the wallet will allow. I'll try and rise to the challenge.

Well, I exaggerate. I really don't get out for Indian all that often, and still miss that wonderful vegetarian place in Decatur with the no-frills approach and styrofoam plates. But I'm certainly happy to keep my eyes open for something new and very tasty, and this past weekend, with Marie out of town again, I asked David whether he was free to find some grub for a Saturday lunch. The restaurant was his idea; left to me, we might have gone down to Jackson or over to Covington or someplace to fill up some of the list I'm trying to do. No matter; I am perfectly happy to stay in town and have some Indian food. There was only one obstacle: my daughter. It took this girl almost a decade to admit to liking Brunswick stew, so it's evident that Indian cuisine is simply going to take a little longer.





I was mostly very pleased with my meal. They offer a nicely-priced lunch menu, even on Saturdays, which gets you a small appetizer, rice and dessert along with your main course. I had some mulligatawny soup with my lamb curry. I honestly won't say that was the best lamb that I've ever tried, feeling a little stringier than I prefer, but the sauce was a delicious, medium hot concoction, and I liked that better than many other curries that I've had before. The mulligatawny had a delightful zing of ginger with its kick, but the color - a vibrant red - completely surprised me. I've always seen it as a yellowy orange.

Instead of soup, David had an onion pakura that he said was wonderful, and an order of chicken tikka which he shared. Much as I liked the curry, I got menu envy again, because this chicken was prepared just perfectly. It was tender and juicy and the light green sauce that came with it proved a nice, if unnecessary, accompaniment. Our desserts were the small bowl of wonderful rice pudding that I ordered, and a dish new to me, gulab jamun, a deep-fried cheese ball dipped in honey. As David felt that his blood sugar was already through the roof on Saturday, he passed that to me and darn if I haven't found a dessert on Indian restaurant menus that I enjoy even more than rice pudding.

Well, Desi Spice is certainly very tasty indeed, and the girlchild definitely missed out by only agreeing to a stuffed paratha before decamping for the little Rita's Italian Ice stand down below the restaurant, which was once a Bruster's. It's in the shopping center with the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema and the Trader Joe's. If there was only a nice trail connecting this strip mall on Monroe with the one behind it on Ponce with the Borders, then you could easily spend all afternoon here, shopping, reading, watching good movies and having a few good meals. There are a heck of a lot of decent restaurants in the neighborhood, plus a couple that I've been hoping to try.

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TupTim Thai, Brunswick GA

This is Marie, making the first of a couple of contributions from a side trip I made independently. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but there was this one place that I went with my father that really ought to have included Grant to help out. We needed more plates on the table to taste from, and an additional person to make one more appetizer practical.

TupTim Thai in Brunswick is one of those little places at the edge of a neglected strip mall that you miss if you don't already know how to find it. After my first visit about four years ago I had actually put this on the list of places to take Grant at the next opportunity. The first time, I relied on my memory of where it was. That would normally be enough, but I never saw it; I didn't realize that coming from out of town one needs to be looking in exactly the right direction and facing backwards in order to catch a glimpse of the place. Since that's not a normal driving position, of course we passed it by.

The second time we made the attempt was on a different trip and we actually intended to stop on the way out of town and even checked the location first, but still managed to be looking in the wrong direction when we passed by, and since we didn't have time to search and also eat, we kept going. I'm not sure exactly how long ago that was, and the web site doesn't include when they started the restaurant.

It's got a cute set of plants and a little fountain out front that takes the edge off the encroaching rather grim atmosphere (not a bad part of town, just neglected). However, once through the door you are in a completely different environment. The tables have intricately folded cloth napkins in the water glasses, real place mats, and shawls under the glass covers that add color. The walls are covered in almost parquet-intricate woodwork, and there isn't a single cheesy plastic tasseled dragon lamp to be seen. There are rather more staff than I saw at my original visit, when one guy appeared to be doing everything except cook, so I hope the place is doing well.

My father and I shared an appetizer of chicken satay with peanut sauce, and I want that peanut sauce badly. The meat is tender, flavorful, and juicy even though it's exceptionally thin; if it weren't a criminal waste of sauce, I could happily eat the chicken on a stick all by itself. With the sauce it's divine. The sauce itself has only the barest hint of heat, but is absolutely full of flavor. They don't give very much, unfortunately; by the time you've scooped up the last smear of sauce with your last sliver of chicken, there's none left to use on your entree, should you have hoped to stretch it that far. There's a little pickled cucumber salad that comes with the satay, and it's probably just as good, but the peanut sauce took up all my attention.





Dad selected Pad Prik and I decided on Pad Thai. I've found that even though that is a terribly ordinary favorite (and therefore I try not to order it terribly often), it's made differently everywhere, so there's always something entertaining and different to appreciate. This is one of the best I've had. They really work on presentation here, and the dishes are beautiful as well as delicious.

The spice level of medium is what many would probably consider to be just on the high side of mild, so if you are partial to a pronounced and lasting tingle, you will need to go hotter. The staff is clearly used to American aversion to overly spicy food judging by their answers to my dad's questions about how hot was hot; I would hate to hear the cook's comments when originally planning the mild dishes. We both got medium and were happy with it, but could have gone hotter. On some later visit I would like to try a "spicy" dish to see whether it's just one level up, or more true to the volcanic nature of so many varieties of tropical cuisine.

We each got a dessert as well, though we could not really fit much more. Dad got the fried banana; it was a quite elegant little snack, with small chunks of banana wrapped in something as thin as a sheet of phyllo, then fried. I got the mango ice cream. Both were excellent, but I think Dad got the better end of that deal.

Steak 'n Shake, Kennesaw GA

A few years ago, the Steak 'n Shake chain, which has 500 stores in 22 states in the southeast and midwest and is, by my definition, large enough to be called national, decided to introduce a terrific promotion which my daughter and I used to enjoy greatly. They have a "happy hour" with half-price milkshakes from 2 to 4 every weekday afternoon, and again from 2 to 4 am overnight. When I took a job that left me with a couple of weekday afternoons free, and my daughter was in elementary school, this meant that I could take her by the Steak 'n Shake nearest us on Barrett Parkway - said to be the busiest and most profitable in the whole chain - and join the mob for a daddy-daughter milkshake treat.

Those days are actually gone for us, since she started middle school and no longer gets home until close enough to suppertime to make a milkshake "ruin yer dinner" impractical. I slightly resent the loss of quality time, but then again, that's just one of the many downsides to having your kids grow up.

The milkshakes here are terrific - my particular poison is a mix of their banana and orange cream - but the food is only slightly on the preferable side of average. The beef is okay, albeit pressed into sadly small and weedy patties, and the fries are thin enough to make you wonder whether there's any potato in there, but the chain does offer a dish which is actually worth a second look. It's not the same as what you can find in Cincinnati's chili parlors, but Steak 'n Shake does offer their version of a 5-way.





I've only been through northeastern Kentucky four times, but on each of those occasions, I've made it a point to stop at either a Skyline Chili or a Gold Star. I imagine that people more familiar with Cincinnati would be pleased to tell me about a better, more humble, non-chain restaurant to get chili made in that city's style, and perhaps the next time I'm in that region, I'll give that a try. In these restaurants, you get the area's particular chili recipe - very finely chopped ground beef served in a light stew containing (as Wikipedia terms it) "unusual ingredients such as cinnamon, cloves, allspice or chocolate," but without the traditional chili peppers or chili powder like you would expect from other regions.

This chili is intended to be eaten over noodles or on a hot dog, and not in a bowl on its own. Over time, some traditions developed about how to order this dish in area restaurants. A two-way is simply the chili poured over spaghetti noodles, and a three-way adds a giant mound of shredded cheese. A four-way adds either beans or diced onions, and a five-way contains the lot.

Steak 'n Shake's version can't be characterized as a proper Cincinnati 5-way, because the beef is not spiced the same way, nor is it chopped as finely as what you would see in a Skyline. It's just average canned chili beef in a "special" sauce of ketchup and Worcestershire. At any rate, I got to thinking about it after reading an amusing thread about the chain's chili over at Roadfood.com, and it made me peckish enough to want to get back over there. In a bit of nice timing, my daughter had early release last week for parent-teacher conferences and so we had an early supper together. With milkshakes, of course. It wasn't bad at all. It was no Gold Star, but it will do until the next time I can get to Cincinnati, anyway.

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Jiffy Freeze, Canton GA

One of my favorite little traveling roadfood resources is Chopped Onion, a splendid little website that specializes in detailing, not just the usual barbecue and meat-and-three joints that we look out for when making our road trips, but also hot dog and ice cream places. The site's owner has a particular interest in old, "vintage" Dairy Queen restaurants that have not updated and upgraded their appearance. I certainly understand the fascination; long before that company nailed down its franchise look and feel and started aggressively enforcing its trademark, there were dozens of "dairy queen" restaurants all across the country that were only loosely connected with the parent corporation via use of their soft serve goo machine, just as there were once many dozens of "tastee-freez" stores and many dozens of "zesto" stores, and most of these, by far, are lost to history and memory.

This country's move towards corporate standardization and homogenization left behind many hundreds of buildings that were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s to sell "dairy freeze zesto"-styled menus, with fast food burgers and hot dogs with a variety of slaws and soft serve goo. Eventually the hammers of trademark lawyers came down and these businesses were told to get a proper franchise agreement going or make it on their own. Most of them must have closed long ago and the stores, eventually, were bulldozed. Some, a small handful, decided to use the existing building and community goodwill to effect a name change and try making it on their own.

Jiffy Freeze looks to be one of these. While I'm not certain what it was originally, the building reminds me of an older Dairy Queen Brazier construction with neither indoor seating nor a drive-through, but they've been calling themselves Jiffy Freeze with no hoopla or much in the way of advertising since the mid-1970s. I was very much reminded of Mrs. Story's Dairy Bar in Opelika, which we visited last month, although this place has a considerably larger menu. I'm not entirely sure that you're going to get the best Philly cheesesteak in the area here, but it looks like they will try and make one for you.





This past Saturday, we were meant to have made a road trip out I-20 to Madison and Augusta, but finances were unexpectedly low, discouraging us from spending the money on gas. This left us free to attend a "couples shower" for Randy and Kimberly at her parents' house north of Canton, for which we'd earlier sent regrets. People should really know better than to invite us for anything on a Saturday without at least ninety days' notice. Especially during the football season. The really surprising thing is that this genuinely is not a pretentious affectation of mine; the calendar is quite honestly penciled in through mid-January. At any rate, dropping a visit to Augusta, for now, meant that we could spend an evening with our friends, and visit a little more with Kimberly's incredibly neat and interesting father, a pastor and musician with fantastic stories to share.

I don't know anything about the town of Canton, but a little research pulled up this Jiffy Freeze place. I thought that would be an ideal after-shower destination, but I phoned and learned that the darn place closes at the absurdly early hour of 8 on Saturday. Grudgingly, we'd have to stop in on our way to the party. Then, we ended up leaving almost a half hour late to pick up Todd and Samantha for our trip up I-575. Just as well that was a very tasty slaw dog!

Since we'd be eating in just a little while, we just split a footlong with slaw and Marie had a very, very tasty fried peach pie. The pie was a little smaller than many places make them, but it was nevertheless very good. The slaw was very creamy with mayo and made for a simply fine snack. The one disappointment, and it was a mild one, was learning that the "Mississippi Mud" that my daughter ordered was just a prepackaged chocolate ice cream sandwich from, I think, Blue Bunny. She thought it was really good, and I'm always curious to see these sorts of products when they're unknown to me, but I was kind of hoping she'd actually get to try that actual chocolate pie for the first time.

I can't swear that Jiffy Freeze is worth a really long drive, but it's certainly a nice little curiosity for anyone passing through Cherokee County on I-575, and if you like good, creamy slaw, it's worth a try. I'm very glad that little roadfood places like this are still around and drawing a crowd.

Sublime Doughnuts, Atlanta GA

About six months ago, a regular guest where I work brought in a big box of Sublime Doughnuts as a thank-you for the front desk. The treats were duly sliced into bite-sized samples for all the staff to try. Allegedly, a couple more boxes have come this way for Wednesday afternoon birthday celebrations, but, criminally, I don't work on Wednesdays. I recall thinking that my sample was just wonderful and resolved that I needed to get back to have a lovely little breakfast from them as soon as it was feasible.

Six months went by and I finally thought to stop in for an afternoon snack. I need to try harder, don't I?

The business was founded by a local fellow, Kamal Grant, a couple of years ago. He picked a career that's for morning people: he's there, in a shop on 10th Street once occupied by some other doughnut baker who chose to misspell the word the way that those dunkin' people do, every morning at 4 am getting his doughnuts and pastries ready for a hungry audience. I really like the way that many of his creations don't look like hockey pucks. Some, like his red velvet cake, do, but his version of a Boston creme, for example, is called the A-Town Cream and is shaped like a letter A. Elsewhere on the racks, you'll see little hearts, stars, twists and ribbons, all of them decadently delicious.





Earlier this summer, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution named Sublime as their favorite guilty food pleasure in the city, singling out their A-Town Creams and their Reese's peanut butter doughnuts. It looks like my peers in the food-talkin'-bloggin' community are similarly sold on the place.

We - Marie, my daughter and my parents - stopped by on Saturday after our lunch a few miles south at Harold's. After a quick detour to look at the federal pen and the requisite teasing of my daughter that this is where she'll end up if she doesn't straighten up, we drove north up Pryor and Central, up avenues where my dad, navigating and reminiscing, used to work, while we listened to the Dogs beat up on Vandy. Left on Marietta and right on Spring / West Peachtree as Vandy caught a break and had a field ruling of a fumble overturned as an incomplete pass, we started passing $10 and $20 lots for Tech fans coming into midtown to tailgate. Tenth Street, which borders one side of the Tech campus, was full of yellow and navy and black and gold. Apparently there's now a Petro's Chili and Chips outpost actually inside Bobby Dodd Stadium. It's a little aggravating to be within walking distance of a Petro's and know that the most convenient one is still three hours' drive north.

My dad was talked out and tired and didn't want to get out of the car when we arrived, but the fellow behind the counter at Sublime had an awful lot to say. He showed off and described all the treats on display. I got a different pastry for Marie, Ivy and my mother, and while they all came with different flavors, they all shared a wonderfully light and fluffy touch. Grant's trick in the kitchen, reported by John Kessler in the AJC, is to fry the doughnuts at a very high temperature for a shorter period; that apparently gives them the most puff.

These are absolutely wonderful pastries, and although with prices this low and a profit margin so slim, it will certainly take a long time for Grant to grow this business, he's got an awful lot of goodwill backing him up. I hope that Sublime thrives and becomes a destination for everybody in the city. Even all those Tech students lining up 10th need something to eat.

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Harold's Barbecue, Atlanta GA

There are so many barbecue restaurants in this state that I've never tried. Even the old ones, like Harold's, which has been around since 1947, I've just never got around to before. Well, on Saturday, we had originally intended to take another short road trip, this time out to Augusta. Unfortunately, the bank balance is a little low, so we elected to save the gasoline and find a new meal intown instead. There are four restaurants in Atlanta that are reviewed on roadfood.com that we have not written up for our blog yet. A roll of the dice brought up Harold's, so I rang my parents and asked if they'd like to join us.

Harold's is a simply perfect destination for a Saturday lunch. It's very easy to find, just a quick little hop off the downtown connector at exit 244 and south less than a mile. It is in a pretty rough-looking neighborhood about a stone's throw up the street from the federal pen. If you've never seen this gigantic building, you should, as it's an architectural masterpiece. Unfortunately, Harold's itself is in a pretty basic and deeply ugly building, and the bars around the windows and the air conditioning units don't inspire great confidence in the local residents' rap sheets.

I apologize for repeating much of the online information about this restaurant, but some things are so blatant that I can't avoid coming back to it.





I'm very glad we finally stopped into this Atlanta institution. Despite the "keep driving, and fast" exterior, the inside is cozy and relaxing, and also quite chilly, since one of the air conditioners seemed to be working overtime. There's a glorious smell of thick smoke throughout the building, and interior walls in the kitchen that are blackened from more than sixty years of smoking. It's a building with a lot of history; we were taken care of by Harold and Hugh's granddaughter, who's been here for forty years herself.

As for the food, the chopped pork is pretty good. It's very soft and dry, almost incandescently white. Unfortunately, I didn't like either of the sauces at all, and made the considerable mistake - the novice mistake - of just pouring the hot sauce all over my food before testing it. Theirs is a thick, red, tomato-and-pepper concoction that leaves a Tabasco-style aftertaste and overpowers the subtle, smoky taste of the soft pork. While I would certainly recommend Harold's, I would caution anybody going to try a little on the side before indulging too much.

The main dish is pretty good, but the sides are just outstanding. The Brunswick stew is probably the best anywhere near Atlanta. It's really thick, with a very heavy corn flavor, and lots of tomatoes and stringy shreds of meat. The corn taste reminded me of the wonderful Zeb's in Danielsville. The plates are served with a generous helping of cracklin' cornbread. Crumble just a little of that into your stew and scoop it right back out, and that's perfect. If I have had cracklin' cornbread - named for the little pork cracklings that Food Network describes as "little pieces of pork fat, fatty meats, or ham skin which are left crisp and brown after the lard or fat has been rendered from them" - before, I don't recall it. Honestly, there's not a great deal of meat in the bread, but it's so tasty that didn't feel that I was missing anything.

The slaw is also excellent; a perfect blend of mayo and vinegar that goes extremely well with the stew and pork. It's simply a perfectly balanced meal, even if the sauce was disappointing.

Harold's attempted to expand just a little from this neighborhood, but unfortunately it didn't last. There were two outposts south of the city, in Jonesboro and in McDonough, and a third up near us in Kennesaw, but apparently all three have closed. Only the original remains, which, honestly, is kind of the way it should be. Older joints with this much history, well, visitors should go to them for the experience almost as much as the food. With stew this good, I hope to be back for both before too long.

Pasta Alberto

This is Marie with a short chapter about cooking experiments in general and a recipe of my father's in particular. My father likes to experiment with food and is much more allergic to the concept of following recipes than I am. I just change ingredients and proportions; he throws instructions out entirely and uses recipes solely as a source of inspiration. When he sent me this recipe, it was with the instruction that I play with it and report back. I am including the recipe itself, as it's completely typical of my dad...note that there is only one unit of measurement in the whole thing:

INGREDIENTS
Red/yellow/ green bell peppers
Roma or other flavorful tomatoes
Red/yellow onions
Olive oil
Oregano
Basil
Marjoram
Garlic
Salt to taste (watch your blood pressure)
Black pepper
One stick of butter
Shrimp or diced chicken breast

OPTIONAL

Banana peppers
Cayenne pepper
Paprika
Chili powder
Other spices and flavors can be added, but I do not recommend peanut butter or soy sauce.

One difficulty with following this sort of recipe is that if something works particularly well, it can be hard to figure out which variation actually caused the positive result. On the other hand, one will never get bored because the final result always changes, and there's no problem if all the peppers in the grocery store look like they got hit with the Uglifier Ray; just pick a different veggie. Do try to use fresh garlic rather than the dried stuff if possible.



I decided that my vegetables would be some of the wonderfully fresh farmer's market zucchini, tomatoes, and red peppers acquired just the other day. The meat was of course going to be some of the frozen shrimp I bought on my last visit home (locally caught and purchased from the wife of the shrimper--the very best kind!) There is absolutely no way for me to recall how much I used of anything. However, the specific spices used were pepper, the Penzeys Italian blend (sorry, Dad, I didn't have time to go to the store for fresh herbs...though I am sure they would have been AMAZING!) Adobo spice, and a small amount of lemon pepper seasoning to brighten up the shrimp a bit.

I sauteed the veggies just to soften them up a bit and then started working on the sauce. I was rather dubious about using an entire stick of butter, but it melted into the olive oil beautifully and combined with the spices. Once the chopping was done everything came together very quickly; once you decide on your proportions this is a very good weekday cook-something-in-a-hurry-because-traffic-stunk sort of meal.

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Poole's Bar-B-Q, East Ellijay GA

I had to track down Randy before I wrote up this chapter and let him know what I was going to say, for fear that he might think that I was making a passive-aggressive swipe at him when I say that Poole's is probably the most improved restaurant that I have ever visited. They've gone from a regional curiosity to something downright amazing.

Last week, Marie and Ivy and I drove up I-575 to the mountain town of Ellijay to buy some apples. There's a really great place on the right just after you enter Gilmer County called Panorama Orchards, and while you could very well load up with all sorts of jams and jellies and salsas, you can also spend late summer and early fall loading up on fresh apples. Marie got several pecks - Fujis, Mutsus, Arkansas Black - to share and to snack and to bake into pies. That's a very agreeable way to spend an hour.

A little further north, and technically in the town of East Ellijay, there's an intersection where, within spitting distance of each other, you used to be able to find a Pizza King, a Burger King, a Waffle King and a Mexican restaurant called El Rey. The Waffle King has gone now - I suspect this old chain might well have left Georgia entirely - but I still think of this place as "King's Corner." A zigzag right and a left from there brings you to the Pig Hill of Fame, and one of the state's silliest and tackiest restaurants. Once upon a time, Colonel Oscar Poole fell afoul of some county sign ordinance or other and responded by turning his property into a glorious eyesore. The building is painted in vibrant, bright colors, and the land behind the restaurant is covered with small, flat, wooden pig signs which customers can buy for a small fee and have their names listed there until weather erodes them away.

Poole himself is quite a trip. I only saw him in person once, briefly, years back, but I can't think of a restaurateur in the state who's been photographed as often as him. He's a little hard to miss. He's kind of a cross between Grandpa Munster and Uncle Sam. He even drives a car that Grandpa might have found funny.





If you read between the lines of earlier chapters, you might have picked up that I don't care for having politics inserted into my meals when I go out. You might have also have detected that the politics to which I object would be the Republican variety. But really, what makes a place unfriendly isn't a discussion of ideas, it's that grim, quiet, paranoia that unhappy people spend time seething about. It's when loudmouths start parroting whatever hate radio talking point passes for discourse, and loudmouths have been doing this long before anybody heard of Barack Obama. I've been quietly declining to return to restaurants owned by such morons for many years.

Poole, on the other hand, may be as Republican as they get, but he is having the time of his life. He wants to tell everybody how fantastic a job he has, and how his faith and outlook and damn hard work and, yes, political views, have helped made him a success. He's optimistic and wild and carefree, and basically everything good about people. If you don't leave this place with a smile, something must be wrong with you, because his upbeat and fabulous attitude is evident in all the staff, the decor, the photographs and the building itself. You are guaranteed a very good time here.

For quite a few years, however, this didn't translate into very good barbecue. Randy stayed up here in the mountains for a few years and we ate here a couple of times (maybe in 2003-04) and then ate again at the antacid counter of the local drug store. It was, then, a place to visit for the considerable spectacle, but the pork was just so greasy that it really disappointed.

I told a lot of people this. I used to have an old barbecue review page on Geocities and shared this disappointment with everyone who came to it. I don't know whether Poole ever saw that page or whether he concluded on his own that his pork was too fatty and gross and his recipe needed changing, but I can tell you this: I once had two meals here, about a year apart, which were marred by the heavy, greasy aftertaste, and a meal this past week which was easily among the best plates of barbecue that I've had in the state of Georgia. Top ten, easy. I was prepared to sop up the pork with a paper towel before I started eating, but was very pleasantly surprised. The pork was dry and very smoky, and so incredibly flavorful. I can't remember ever having a meal at a restaurant that much of a 180-degree turn towards the positive before, ever. It wasn't just the pork, either. We also had onion rings, Brunswick stew, baked beans, green beans and mac and cheese as sides, and everything was incredibly tasty.

The restaurant was amazingly busy on this Saturday - they call in extra, volunteer help for Ellijay's apple festival, which brings in thousands of tourists - and we arrived along with a huge tour group from a Baptist church in Louisiana, most of whom were wearing LSU shirts. Let's see, they had this great barbecue for lunch and the Tigers beat Florida in The Swamp that evening. Sounds like everybody there had a fine Saturday.

(Of course, the small irony in comparing Oscar Poole to Grandpa Munster is that Grandpa Al Lewis was about as left-wing as they get, although equally bombastic and fun. No offense, Col. Poole.)

Bourbon salmon fillets with Penzeys Northwoods Fire seasoning

Normally, when we feature a little writeup about one of the nifty meals that Marie cooks, she'll think about penning a few words about it. This time, however, the idea and the craving was all mine, and even though she executed it quite perfectly, I'm the one who should tell you about it.

When we were in Memphis back in June, I did a little "advance shopping" while Marie was still asleep - she sleeps a lot more than me - and I was flipping through the Penzeys Spices catalog. She wrote then about how wild and satisfying a trip to one of Penzeys retail stores is, and the catalog's not far behind it in the getting-you-real-hungry stakes. Penzeys employs a team of very clever and imaginative copywriters to tell stories and give diners and chefs ideas for how to cook with their spices and seasonings, and I found my mouth watering with the prospect of trying out their Northwoods or Northwoods Fire concoction.

From their website:

A great place to fish, an even better place to eat. This Northern Wisconsin-style blend is a traditional mix that is a perfect seasoning for family-style fried or baked chicken and fish, green salads with oil and vinegar, egg and potato salad, and Door County-style fish boils. Use heavily, 1 tsp. per pound, for meats and vegetables. Hand-mixed from: coarse flake salt, paprika, black pepper, thyme, rosemary, garlic and chipotle.

Ooooh. If that doesn't make you want to drop some trout in a cast iron skillet with some olive oil and a thin pat of butter, there's just no hope for you.

And yet Marie broke my heart when, after she and her sister concluded their epic shopping trip to the Penzeys retail store in Memphis, there wasn't a jar of Northwoods or Northwoods Fire (which is pretty similar, but with extra paprika and chipotle) in her gargantuan bag. In all her frenzy and excitement about everything, my request was completely forgotten! She felt bad about it afterwards - mainly on account of me teasing her - and agreed that the next time that she placed a catalog order, or we went to a store, we'd get some for me. She realized that there was a store in Birmingham, and so a stop there was part of our recent day trip out there. Northwoods Fire was acquired, along with quite a few dollars' worth of other lovely spices in preparation for Christmas baking, and now it was down to me to get some fish.



I don't mind telling you that I was a little stymied in getting what I wanted here. Rather than trout, Marie and my daughter each agreed that they'd rather have salmon. I just went to the seafood counter at Publix and went with their bourbon-marinated salmon as that was the least expensive option. Honestly, it turned out even better than I hoped, so no complaints here.

So we had a little rice and some veggies and Marie gave the fillets a good coating of Northwoods Fire. We don't actually have a cast iron skillet, but we do have a quite spectacular grill that could be used four times as often with no complaint from me. Marie, by the way, is turning into quite the grillmaster. Her steaks are consistently amazing, but I think that this salmon might be her best concoction yet.

Having said that, I'm still keen to try this on some trout sometime soon. Maybe with a little squeeze of lemon? Mmmm. My mouth is tingling already.

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Folks Southern Kitchen, Marietta GA

The story of Atlanta's Folks Southern Kitchen is another one where the small chain's heyday seems to be behind them. However, unlike a couple of the earlier stories I've told here about, say, The Mad Italian and Old Hickory House, where the last remaining outpost of a chain is struggling to remain relevant, Folks still seems to have a pretty good bit of life in it. I say this even though the chain, which once numbered twenty stores in north Georgia, is down to ten around I-285. Two more, in Cumming and McDonough, were recently converted to a new "concept," Rusty Rooster Cafe, which apparently serve very similar food in a "fast casual" setting. That we're talking about food in terms like "concepts" and "fast casual" is probably a warning flag to many food lovers that the food's quality might have been a little lost under the weight of marketing.

Folks was originally called, and you'll love this, Po Folks. The first store opened in 1978. I'm not sure which that was, but I recall that the one on 41 and Windy Hill must have opened around that time. It had a bright red roof and all of the signage and menus were written in a tacky font meant to represent the scrawlings of an illiterate hillbilly. My own folks got takeaway from them quite frequently - their sweet tea was said to be the best of any restaurant - but I don't remember ever actually eating there.

In 1994, the chain converted all of its locations from Po Folks to Folks Southern Kitchen. The reds were changed to greens, the hillbilly scrawls were replaced with a more elegant script, and, since Folks weren't po no mo, the prices went up. It was this incarnation that expanded to its peak in number of stores, but a few years ago, the contraction began. I recall that they shuttered the restaurants in Roswell and Smyrna right at the same time, and probably a few others as well. I rarely see any advertising for this chain anymore.





Without making too much hoopla about it, my daughter loves Folks, and when we gave her a turn to pick an activity for our weekly dinner-or-movie night, she suggested this place. So last week, Marie and I took her to supper, meeting up with Neal, Samantha, Randy and Kimberly. Circumstances forced us to have a pretty long dinner; our server was congenial and attentive, but also incredibly slow. I thought that we'd never get our checks at the end of the evening.

Marie ordered the rainbow trout and declared it very tasty. It came with some mixed vegetables and sweet potato waffle fries. Sweet potato fries seem to be quite trendy lately, but these are the first ones that I can recall that are done waffle-style. My daughter had a chicken pot pie that she enjoyed very much and a side of Brunswick stew. I almost always just have a veggie plate here, since everything they offer as a side is as good or better as their entrees. This time out, I had fried green tomatoes, calico beans and corn nuggets.

Everyone really enjoyed their meal, but special praise was reserved for the bread. Folks serves up these incredibly tasty peach muffins that everybody really enjoys; Randy and Kimberly ordered another half-dozen to take home. Marie bucked the trend by having a biscuit and everyone else asked whether she was feeling all right.

And that's the story of Folks. They may be smaller than they once were, marketing-synergy-speaking gobbledygook may be vomited all over their web pages, and the place may be as quiet as the grave in the evenings, but the food remains quite good. They talk big about their recipes being made from scratch and prepared fresh daily, and while it may lack the individual attention and focus of something smaller, it's still a reasonably good dinner out, for rich or po.

Ike & Jane, Athens GA

This past Wednesday, I practiced my notion of visiting Athens and enjoying two small meals, at least one of which I can write up for this blog, on either side of spending a couple of hours downtown visiting friends and buying comic books. For this trip, I had a small sandwich and a bowl of chicken mull at the Butt Hutt, about which I wrote in July, and then moseyed over to Ike & Jane on Prince Avenue on my way out of town for a devilishly decadent treat.

Of course, it's Marie who has the sweet tooth in the family. I mean, I like a milkshake more than most anybody, but I don't necessarily need pastries or cupcakes, and most days I'd just as soon have a second sandwich somewhere for a snack. On the other hand, there's a really good way to get my attention, and that's add one of my favorite breakfast cereals to a really good cake doughnut, as shown here.





Now, I confess, what I wanted to do here was make Marie a little jealous that I enjoyed such a nice sweet treat on my early day off. It turns out that I was stymied here, because while I was in Athens totally loving these Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms treats, Marie was treating herself, after a doctor's visit, to an eclair at Doceur de France in Marietta, a place long overdue for a chapter here. Those are mighty, mighty fine eclairs, but we'll agree to disagree about who had the better treat.

This is actually important to my narrative, because my desire to make Marie envious is what led me to the breakfast cereal doughnuts and not the bakery's real spectacle, a little beast called an Elvis doughnut, topped with peanut butter, bananas and bacon. I'm sure that thing is all kinds of amazing, but Marie doesn't like bacon - we've been over that, right? - and wouldn't be jealous of me if I brought home a picture of that. So we'll save that level of decadence for another visit.

Anyway, Ike & Jane also offers sandwiches and soups that all sound quite delightful, and a variety of muffins and coffees at very affordable prices. I had the two doughnuts and an Arnold Palmer for just three bucks and change, which is incredibly reasonable for a midafternoon snack. I'd tell you more about the menu, but their website is a little askew at the moment, and I can't bring up a menu that I can scroll down to read in full. Their site does have a blog, and I recommend you check back to the entries from November '08, when the owners and their families and some contractors used a heck of a lot of elbow grease to get the place up and running.

One thing that I learned from the blog is that I should have noticed a sign offering 10% off your total if you entertain the staff and customers by ordering in some silly fashion that the cashier has proscribed, and which changes daily. Heck, I'm not proud, I'd have batted off some invisible flames for 32 cents. I've done stupider for less.

Marie's B-B-Q House, Heflin AL

Because, as I've mentioned, I am a little mercenary and wanted specifically to add an extra chapter or two to this blog, I hoped to grab one more small bite to eat before we got back to Atlanta. So on our way into town, I noticed that there was an outpost of a small, somewhat well-known barbecue chain located in St. Clair County, and decided that when we left Birmingham several hours later, we would stop by and have a snack and another entry. It didn't work out that way; we did indeed pull off at that exit to gas up, but darned if we weren't all still so stuffed from the sandwiches at Kool Korner that none of us could face the prospect of ordering even a single sandwich.

The stop for gas wasn't without incident. While filling up, honest to murgatroyd, two good old boys pulled up beside us and the driver asked me, "Hey, man, where's the Wal-Mart at?" I'm going to be aggravating Marie with my impression of that dude for months.

So we resumed eastward on I-20 for another half-hour or so. On our side of Anniston, however, I noticed a "Gas-Food-Lodging" sign for another small chain of fast food restaurants local to the area, and made a command decision to pull off, find the place, enjoy a small meal we can't get at home, and have something to write about. Once again, however, we were a little disappointed. We drove north a little more than a mile and didn't find the place. We did, however, pass a barbecue place called Marie's on the way.

"Well, we will just stop there instead," I suggested. "And see whether they're good enough to be named after me," Marie replied.





Once upon a time, before Urbanspoon and Roadfood and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, this is how we found interesting restaurants, just by chance. Marie's is probably one of the nicer little places in the area, and has a large enough dining room to make Saturday afternoons a little cracking, but it was a fairly slow evening when we stopped in. There were some football highlights on TV and just a few other customers.

Since the most that any of us could be accused of was "peckish," Marie and my daughter and I shared a single sandwich, a bowl of stew and some fries. Sadly, this place does not offer white sauce, adding further evidence to my suggestion that even in north Alabama, white sauce is more of an occasional curiosity than a regional specialty.

The chopped pork was not bad, if a little uninspiring, but the Brunswick stew was completely terrific. It was nicely thick, and very flavorful and full of deliciously stringy meat. The chopped pork just wished it was that good. In its favor, the tasty, thick tomato-based sauce mixed quite well with it, but all three of us agreed that the stew was among the high points of our Alabama trip.

Upon consideration of the matter, this restaurant is not fit to be named after Marie. But there again, no restaurant is, not even my favorites, so we won't hold it against them. Stew this good shouldn't be dismissed for any reason, and certainly none as silly as this.

Kool Korner Sandwiches, Birmingham AL

I must admit that within a couple of minutes of entering Kool Korner Sandwiches, I was completely baffled. I had read up on the place, which is in a Publix strip mall in the Vestavia Hills suburb of Birmingham, and followed the reviews and looked over their web site, all of which promised the best and most authentic Cuban sandwiches in the southeast from this brand-spanking new restaurant. Well, I was game. What I did not expect was the sight of all the awards on the wall labeling Kool Korner the home of the best sandwiches in Atlanta for several years.

It turns out that, during that great expanse of time when I was not paying attention to restaurants, Kool Korner was a fixture here in Atlanta's midtown, in a shop on 14th Street that catered to professionals and Tech students. I either missed or dismissed the grief felt by the local foodie community when Kool Korner's owner, an eighty-something granddad named Silvesonso Ramirez, retired and moved west to Birmingham. Ever restless, however, he decided to get back to work, along with two younger generations. Kool Korner is now a daily destination for anybody in Birmingham who wants one of the best sandwiches in town, and word has it that more than one Atlantan has made the pilgrimage west to revisit these amazing sandwiches that they loved so much. I can get behind that. If ever I got word that Tony opened a new home for my dearly missed Mean Bean in Birmingham, I'd be out there six times a week, minimum.





I had written earlier that we stopped downtown for a quick snack at Pete's before driving south back to Homewood to do a little shopping. The ladies spent a little time in some clothing and toy stores before we made our way to the Birmingham branch of Penzey's Spices. This is one of Marie's favorite companies, and you can read about our stop in their Memphis retail store here. We bought enough to keep her cooking and baking for the next few months, and my daughter was pleased with the earrings that she found at a shop up the street, so after what seemed like no time at all, it was time for our last stop in town before heading back to I-20.

Kool Korner was deceptively tough to find, since that stretch of Montgomery Highway is totally lacking in businesses with prominently displayed street numbers. We pulled into the Publix strip mall just to get our bearings - we were hoping to hit a grocery store on our way out of town to stock up on Grapico anyway - and were pleasantly surprised to see Kool Korner there at the end of the strip. We each had a small sandwich and I also had one of their new-to-the-menu tamales. They were great big beasts, stuffed with wonderful roasted pork and on some incredibly nice, rich bread.

What can I say? Atlanta's loss is definitely Birmingham's gain. They deserved every one of those "Best of Atlanta" awards on their wall, and will certainly be racking up more from their new home. I just had the classic Cuban, but I would love to go back and work my way through the rest of the menu. I mean, it's not even a three hour drive!



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Pete's Famous Hot Dogs, Birmingham AL

So I was sketching out this trip and my daughter requested a hot dog while we were in Birmingham. That suited me just fine; I'm mercenary enough to want to add more chapters to this blog, and we had bypassed Pete's Famous Hot Dogs, arguably the best-known restaurant in the city, in favor of one of its competitors the last time we visited. Having now tried both, I'm prepared to make an unusual claim: I prefer the dog that George makes at Gus's to the one that Gus makes at Pete's.

Okay, let me try that again. Pete's is an incredibly popular little restaurant on 2nd Avenue North. I'm not kidding about "little," as it is only about five feet wide inside. It opened in 1920 and, when Birmingham was more of a banking center with something like a thriving downtown, it ushered in competitors on every avenue. Many of these have since closed, but one that remains is Gus's on 4th, which we tried back in May and really enjoyed. Gus is also the name of the gentleman who runs Pete's these days, and serves up these tasty dogs in what must be one of the smallest restaurants in America.





On Saturday, we enjoyed spending a couple of hours in the early afternoon hiking at Ruffner Mountain Nature Center, which I strongly recommend. We've started spending more time looking for places to stomp around in the outdoors than digging through quasi-antiques in dirty old shops when we go out of town. The hike, a little over a mile and a half and also including a little visit to see some turtles and snakes in the visitor's center, was great fun and, for my daughter and me anyway, it really gave us an appetite.

It's about six miles back down 1st Avenue North into the downtown district, and parking is a bit of a headache. There are a few spots on 2nd but just as many places where you cannot park because what you think is a parking space is actually a bus stop. We ended up stopping, probably illegally, around the corner in some finance company or something's lot. I wouldn't have wanted to leave the car there for any longer than twenty minutes, put it that way.

There's apparently no time to go and avoid a crowd. Whether you'll be waiting with tourists like us or grandfathers making their thousandth visit, there are usually a few people lined up and jockeying for a place at the counter. There are no chairs; the restaurant's closet-like interior is simply too narrow for them.

The dogs themselves are quite good, grilled according to a secret recipe that some claim involves being dropped for seconds into boiling milk before hitting the grill, and then served on a bun with chili, onions and kraut - if you like kraut, anyway - ladled over them. You can eat them at the counter if there's any room, or, if you're feigning claustrophobia like my daughter, you can take yours outside. They haven't room for a fry grill in this teeny space, but they can offer you some Golden Flake brand chips to go along with it.

I was a little disappointed that Pete's was out of their house orange drink, which sounds curious, but they do serve Grapico in twelve and twenty-ounce bottles. Pretty much unavailable outside of Alabama and west Georgia, Grapico is the Buffalo Rock Bottling Company's house grape soda, and by leagues tastier than just about anybody else's grape soda. Well, maybe it's not as good as NuGrape, but it sure is good, and it goes very well with a Pete's dog. I can't tell you how much I approve of this. Everybody should enjoy the chance to get a locally-made soft drink when they're visiting a good restaurant in the heart of that drink's main distribution area.

All things being equal, I understand that Pete's is legendary and I am incredibly pleased to have tried this neat dog in such a great little place, but I have to say, I did prefer the dog that I had a few months back at Gus's. I liked that chili and that thick, brown secret sauce just a little bit more than Pete's special. Whichever you prefer, both restaurants are absolutely worth a visit, and darned if I know of anyplace else where you can find two such delightful hot dog stands so close to each other. Any food lover passing through Birmingham certainly needs to stop in and try one or the other, or, heck, both!



(Update 4/7/11: I was sorry to read that Gus passed away a couple of days ago. Hell of a good business the old guy ran! I hope that Pete's continues on. Thanks for the hospitality, Gus!)

(Update 7/29/11: Unfortunately, it was confirmed that the restaurant will not return. The iconic sign was donated to Birmingham's Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. A glass of Grapico to the passing of a legend!)

Dreamcakes, Birmingham AL

This is Marie, contributing a very small chapter about some very small cakes.

As any reader of this blog knows, desserts are well-nigh irresistible attractions for me. Generally, therefore, I don't work very hard to locate places that serve chocolates, sweets, cakes and pies because they tend to creep up on me and drag me in all on their own. That's what happened with Dreamcakes.

On our recent eating trip to Birmingham, we arrived a little early to the first of the places we had on the agenda, a very tasty little place called Saw's (written up in the previous chapter by Grant). As we generally do, to keep ourselves interested and amused we wandered around the neighborhood. It was quite a cute little collection of shops. Practically the first one we saw was Dreamcakes, not yet open but with some delectable things just visible through the Halloween displays.



So we wandered and window-shopped and frittered away time (thinking of sugar the whole time--or at least I was) and then had our early lunch. Followed nearly instantaneously by cupcakes for dessert!

Dreamcakes does a wide variety of regular flavors, and then also has some specials that according to the menu up on the board are supposed to appear on their appointed day. Grant got caramel sea salt mocha, our daughter got strawberry, and I got the amusingly named Dean Martin. Technically that was a Thursday-specific cupcake, but apparently such strictures are not allowed to interfere with entertainment. I can vouch that the cupcake was fresh, moist, and very clearly had not been waiting since the previous Thursday for its date with my palate. Grant likes caramels and sea salt so much that he completely forgot that he doesn't actually like mocha, but he enjoyed his cake enough to finish every crumb.

The folks at Dreamcakes are really pleasant to talk to. They are patient with customers dallying over the selections, are happy to answer questions, and are clearly having a good time. Also, when our daughter accidentally deposited her cupcake on the floor by our table while we were sitting down to enjoy our treats, they were sweet enough to replace the spoiled cake. The price for the cupcakes is $3 apiece, about standard for these sorts of places from what I understand. And yes, we could have made a couple dozen cupcakes of our own for that price, but I doubt they would have melted in our mouths the way these did. The cake part was beautifully soft and flavorful, and the frosting, although extremely rich, had a pleasant texture and taste. The only suggestions I would have to the store is to offer some kind of beverage, preferably hot tea, to accompany the treats, and possibly to include some cushier seating. All in all it was a fun little aside on our otherwise meat-heavy journey.



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Saw's BBQ, Birmingham AL

One of the current faves among the restaurant-reviewin' crowd in Birmingham is Saw's, a barbecue joint that has moved into the space formerly occupied by the much-loved Broadway Barbecue. It's in a really nice little strip of shops and restaurants on Oxmoor Road in the Homewood community just south of the city center and Vulcan Park, a strip which, it would transpire, held one or two other surprises for us on our trip to Birmingham this weekend.

We scheduled a day trip out there as the Crimson Tide faithful made their way to Tuscaloosa for what would turn out to be a simply remarkable, and long overdue, shellacing of the Gators. Most of the trip out I-20 saw us traveling along with Georgia-plated cars decked out in Bama or Florida flags and stopping along the way for tailgating supplies. Saw's, anticipating the crush, had opened early for a couple of Crimson Tide fans who'd phoned ahead to pick up great big orders for the pregame fun.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that I selected Saw's on the basis of its white sauce, which has found a few rave reviews from fans. I have also learned that I'm said to be using this sauce "wrong." White sauce, they say, is for barbecued chicken, and not pork. Well, frankly, I am more than fine with how well the white sauce at Miss Myra's and Hawg Wild goes with the pork, but I'm willing to concede that I probably should sample the sauce the way that it was apparently intended, so while Marie and my upbeat and very well-behaved daughter enjoyed pulled pork sandwiches, I indulged in the smoked chicken.





We got to Birmingham earlier than planned and found the restaurant at about 10.40. This gave us the chance to stretch our legs a little and walk up and down the row of stores along Oxmoor and Broadway, and look around in the little antique mall at the end of the row. When Saw's opened, a good crowd had already turned up, and the line stayed out the door for the entire time we were eating.

Saw's - the name is actually an acronym for Stupid Ass Wilson, the fellow who bought the place when he saw that the fifty year-old smoker was still intact - has a pretty limited menu. I did make the mistake of assuming that the smoked chicken plate would, like the chicken sandwich so mouthwateringly photographed over at Plain Chicken, be pulled and not still on the bone, so I guess that Wilson was not the only stupid ass in Homewood on Saturday. Nevertheless, the chicken was really good, and I liked that sauce, which was very tangy and met my expectations. I could certainly have used more of it, but I did not feel like getting back in that gigantic line and paying fifty cents for some more of it. That, I think, is the biggest strike against the place; Miss Myra's, sensibly, leaves bottles of white sauce on the tables. Saw's has also, sadly, raised their prices since opening. A plate with two sides is now a quite high $9.75.

Saw's does have both of its more traditional sauces available for customers to sample or drench to their liking. One of the newspaper articles on the wall described the experience as being "Bamalina," combining an Alabama/Memphis-style smoked cut of pork with a thinner, vinegar-based North Carolina sauce. The Saw's Sauce, available for purchase at $5 a bottle, is accompanied by a slightly thicker variety, perhaps made with more tomato, for more traditional taste. Both Marie and my daughter preferred this sauce to the bottled Saw's. I sampled both along with bites of their pork and thought they were both quite good.

For sides, I had the tasty deviled eggs - apparently a regular option at Alabama barbecue joints - and the slaw, which was excellent. It's very, very finely chopped, so much so that it resembles rice, and with a very deep vinegar flavor.

All told, this was a fine lunch, but I really think that I've been spoiled. As nice as Saw's is, Miss Myra's is just a hair better in just about every category. This wouldn't be the first time this would happen today. This was our second day trip to Birmingham to come eat and write, and two of our stops really just did not compare quite so favorably to that first trip. Also, as Birmingham does not suffer from traffic and sprawl anywhere as badly as Atlanta, the six-mile distance between the two barbecue joints is darn near negligible. Saw's was certainly worth trying, but when we make a third trip through Birmingham next spring, I think I just want to go to that first find again.