#FoodPrep4Now

Welcome to my blog! I'll be posting mostly food reviews, including photos of plate servings, my thoughts and opinions, as well as the thoughts of others.

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Nori Nori

Nori Nori is an authentic sushi restaurant whose primary, and most noteworthy attribute, is that it is an all-you-can-eat buffet.  The buffet includes anything from sushi and sashimi, to salads and normal kitchen entrees.  I’ve been to Nori Nori one previous time before my most recent visit; I had been treated here for my birthday dinner a couple years back, and after all that time I forgot about the place because when my girlfriend told me she wanted to eat there, I honestly thought that I’d never been.  But once we pulled into the parking lot, it all came rushing back into the forefront of my memory like it was always there.  The restaurant is very spacious with a ton of seating, and highly popular I might add.  One thing I will definitely make note of is that this buffet is not cheap.  You know how much you’ll spend at a Golden Corral or your local Chinese buffet spot, but this place will chunk down your pocket if you’re feeding a family of four.  Now, don’t get me wrong, the food is absolutely worth the cost to eat here, I just wanted to make everyone aware of what they may possibly be getting themselves into before taking a dive off the deep-and-not-so-cheap end.  The price breakdown differentiates each day and for each meal.  So lunch is the optimal choice, being $18 on weekdays and $22 on weekends; dinner is $32 Monday through Thursday, and $34 from Friday through Sunday.  The lunch and dinner times are posted on their website at www.norinori.com.  Here are also some snapshots of their grand sushi buffet.  The sushi itself was pretty decent; not the most supremely fresh of sushi that I’ve had in my lifetime, but what more could you expect from a buffet serving of all things sushi?  There’s also plenty of pieces to choose from, as well as plenty of cooked options, for those that don’t mess with raw fish.  I also have no complaints about any of the food in particular, although there was one sushi roll that had a ton of onion in it; I’d steer clear of just that one, but aside from that all the others I was able to enjoy.  Just a simple word of precaution, there may be children that make their own plates, that end up making a mess at the cooked food buffet.  Just stare awkwardly at their method of scraping food from the serving dishes onto their plate and I’m sure their parent/guardian will catch wind of it and aide the child.  All in all, I would rate Nori Nori an even 7 out of 10, which is more than decent for a buffet place.  I’ll probably be returning at some point this summer to basque in their endless piles of sushi and sashimi.

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Sweet Auburn

Sweet Auburn is a Nouveau-rustic (whatever that means) restaurant serving smoked meats and sides in metro Atlanta.  This place is one of my girlfriend’s favorite places to go for their diversely flavored smoked chicken wings.  She actually introduced me to the restaurant; the first time we went to eat there together, something very strange happened to me.  Upon taking my first few bites of Sweet Auburn’s Wu-Tang Wings, I had the sudden and strange sensation of being full.  Yeah, like I couldn’t eat another bite.  I don’t have any explanation for this event happening; all I know is that once I took that first bite, it was so delicious, and following the second bite my stomach filled up with the bloated feeling you get after eating your fourth plate at the Chinese buffet.  It really is that good too.  But anyways, my girlfriend and I returned about a week ago just because we were in the area and were hungry.  The atmosphere of the restaurant is pretty chill.  Upon entering, most will only have to wait at most ten minutes to be seated because people are constantly coming and going, which is rare for a restaurant as good as this; I think the reason for this is that not a lot of Atlantan’s know about this gem of an eating establishment. I think it’s worth noting that their service is stellar as well.  But back to my most recent visit, I ordered something different from my usual order of Wu-Tang wings.  I got the Southern Seoul sandwich, which is a Korean style short rib sandwich with jalapenos, cucumbers, pickled carrots, red onion, sriracha aioli, and cilantro, along with a side of their chili cheese fries.  The sandwich was really good, and a different but enjoyable taste to experience compared to those delicious ass wings.  On the other hand, the chili cheese fries unfortunately were not the “move” for me.  They just weren’t that good; they were dry, bland, and all around not appetizing at all.  Even my girlfriend tried the fries and agreed with my judgment. She ordered exactly what I’ve hyped up this entire time, which ironically is the same thing she orders pretty much every time, the Wu-Tang wings with a side of wok fried green beans.  The green beans, in contrast to the fries, are amazing; crunchy, savory, not too oily, and complement the wings very well.  As a regular of this restaurant, I’d rate the place a solid 8 out of 10 mostly for their wings.  They’re really that good, and they have plenty of other flavors to try that are almost as good as the Wu-Tang wings, so I recommend wing lovers across the globe to try eating here some time.

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Sweet Auburn  Southern Seoul sandwich

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Sweet Auburn

Sweet Auburn is a Nouveau-rustic (whatever that means) restaurant serving smoked meats and sides in metro Atlanta.  This place is one of my girlfriend’s favorite places to go for their diversely flavored smoked chicken wings.  She actually introduced me to the restaurant; the first time we went to eat there together, something very strange happened to me.  Upon taking my first few bites of Sweet Auburn’s Wu-Tang Wings, I had the sudden and strange sensation of being full.  Yeah, like I couldn’t eat another bite.  I don’t have any explanation for this event happening; all I know is that once I took that first bite, it was so delicious, and following the second bite my stomach filled up with the bloated feeling you get after eating your fourth plate at the Chinese buffet.  It really is that good too.  But anyways, my girlfriend and I returned about a week ago just because we were in the area and were hungry.  The atmosphere of the restaurant is pretty chill.  Upon entering, most will only have to wait at most ten minutes to be seated because people are constantly coming and going, which is rare for a restaurant as good as this; I think the reason for this is that not a lot of Atlantan’s know about this gem of an eating establishment. I think it’s worth noting that their service is stellar as well.  But back to my most recent visit, I ordered something different from my usual order of Wu-Tang wings.  I got the Southern Seoul sandwich, which is a Korean style short rib sandwich with jalapenos, cucumbers, pickled carrots, red onion, sriracha aioli, and cilantro, along with a side of their chili cheese fries.  The sandwich was really good, and a different but enjoyable taste to experience compared to those delicious ass wings.  On the other hand, the chili cheese fries unfortunately were not the “move” for me.  They just weren’t that good; they were dry, bland, and all around not appetizing at all.  Even my girlfriend tried the fries and agreed with my judgment. She ordered exactly what I’ve hyped up this entire time, which ironically is the same thing she orders pretty much every time, the Wu-Tang wings with a side of wok fried green beans.  The green beans, in contrast to the fries, are amazing; crunchy, savory, not too oily, and complement the wings very well.  As a regular of this restaurant, I’d rate the place a solid 8 out of 10 mostly for their wings.  They’re really that good, and they have plenty of other flavors to try that are almost as good as the Wu-Tang wings, so I recommend wing lovers across the globe to try eating here some time.

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Food Terminal

This cafeteria-esque restaurant is something special to me now after having tried their delicious food through the recommendation of my eldest sister on a random Saturday afternoon some weeks ago.  I was going to be spending the day with my niece and nephews, you know, take the kids off my sister’s hands for the day, spend some time with them and do something fun.  It was early morning and I had asked if we could meet somewhere to eat in the child hand-off process, and boy oh boy was I far from disappointed.  To give a little background, Food Terminal serves Malaysian cuisine and Asian street food in a style like I said previously, something very comparable to a cafeteria setting.  The building is a considerably large one on the right side of a plaza off of Buford highway in Chamblee, Georgia.  Upon entering the cafeteria I couldn’t help but feel the nostalgia of middle and high school, except I was definitely expecting the food to be of much higher quality here, of course.  The interior decorating was really neat, one could possibly describe it as millennial decor I suppose.  Very new looking, bright and non-obtrusive colored furnishings, well lit, and plenty of space to sit and eat.  We sat at what again looked just like any old regular cafeteria table we’ve all sat at once in our lives.  Their menu is extremely impressive too; upon receiving one, you could tell these guys were making BANK!  The menu is literally a magazine with around 50 pages of things to choose from, and the design and layout of the magazine menu is pretty cool as well.  It took us nearly thirty minutes just to order because of their large selection.  Eventually I was able to make up my mind though, and I ordered what you see above, which I admire for its extreme simplicity.  Pictured is Beef Rendang, a slow-cooked dry curry spiced with ginger and tumeric, kaffir limes and chillies, with a side of Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, and (of course) plain steamed white rice.  I went ahead and mixed my rice and curry because, what else am I gonna do with the two, eat them separately? Hell no! It was great, and the Chinese broccoli was also good; the oyster sauce was something new to me and had a weird little after taste to it, but it did complement the broccoli well and added to the overall flavor of it.  The Beef Rendang wasn’t too spicy, which I was disappointed about because I am a known spice freak and I used to drink hot sauce straight from the bottle as a child, but it didn’t take away from the meal at all.  As long as I can taste a little burn, I’m good.  The rice was what rice was, a good filler to go down with the primary protein.  But it's pretty difficult in my experience to mess up rice, this rice was Jasmine rice though, nice and fluffy, not chewy, and not too sticky either.  If I had to rate this place just based on the food that I ordered, it’d earn a 9 out of 10 because everything they’re doing is super right.  I wish I had ordered something less safe i guess, just to see if I had more of a reviewers objective opinion, and it’s still objective since I’ve never eaten here before, but I’ll definitely be returning soon to try out more, best believe.

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Wagaya

Wagaya is a Japanese cuisine and sushi bar on Atlanta’s west side, pretty much right off the highway at the Georgia Tech exit.  It’s a real tiny place with real good food.  I just recently had the chance to eat here for the first time last weekend; my mom and sisters wanted to take my brother and I out to dinner celebrating our passed birthday (which was on Jan. 30th).  Well, to begin this restaurant’s location could be in a ton of better places.  There’s barely any parking around it that either isn’t residential permit parking, or just real shifty parking, like the parking you are skeptical about because you don’t want your car to be gone or booted when you get back to it.  Luckily for us it was late enough to park unrestricted, but it took a lot of guts and peering at the parking signs.  The first thing I mentioned about this restaurant is that it’s really small, and that was no exaggeration.  It looked like it seats around 30 people honestly, and the kicker is that my sisters brought all my nieces and nephews along too (naturally), so we ended up waiting by the front door of the restaurant for nearly an hour just so they could clear enough seating space for all ten of us to sit.  It was an agonizing wait but we made it through.  The Wagaya menu is expansive, but what sushi place didn’t have a large menu, right? Here’s a link so you can see it for yourself.  After studying their menu for a bit, I decided to order their Kaisen dinner Teishoku special, which includes 5 pieces of nigiri (defined) and 6 pieces of sashimi (defined), a choice of either salmon teriyaki (I went with this one), grilled saba or grilled hokke, and a side of rice and miso soup. As you can see from the picture of my plate, or tray rather, everything looks delicious, and boy was it!  The sushi was so fresh and cut excellently, each sashimi portion proportionate to the next.  The salmon teriyaki was decent, honestly I’ve had it way too many times in my life, and it really didn’t stand out much but it didn’t take away from the whole experience.  The rice was soft and warm, cooked all the way through, and the nigiri was awesome as well.  The only issue I can bring up is that they never brought me my miso soup, which I didn’t realize back then when I was eating because I was so excited when they brought my food out, but I was stuffed by the end of the meal anyways so it wasn’t much of a loss. Most of my family ordered ramen (japanese-style udon noodles in broth) and really didn’t like it; nearly everyone had a heap of noodles left over in their ramen bowls when we were all done eating, which sucks for them.  Maybe next time I’ll suggest everyone get sushi instead.  I’d rate Wagaya’s food a 8.5 out of 10, most of which accounts for their sushi.  I’ll have to come back and try out their ramen to give the official review on those offerings.  As for everything else, the space in the restaurant, the wait, and the atmosphere I’ll give a rating of 6 out of 10.  If you can help it, stick to the sushi and order it to go

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Taqueria Tsunami (Marietta Square)

A local favorite of mine, Taqueria Tsunami is a Marietta Square restaurant which one can describe as a perfect mixture of menu diversity and simplicity.  The diversity of their menu alone is one of the biggest things that I appreciate about this place; there’s literally an offering from several cultures that are a part of this great melting pot we call America.  For example, some options they serve include the South of the Border bowl, the Far East bowl, and the All American bowl, and these are only their Tsunami bowls!  I personally have only tried one of their bowls but best believe that it was delicious.  Their taco options are the cream of the crop though, with thirteen different styles, including vegan/vegetarian options, and combo options that allow you to order any two or three choices of all the tacos on one plate with a side as well.  Hell, even the sides are excellent, and super simple too.  You can see from the pictures posted along with this entry how simple their plates are.  But anyways, the sides - at least the ones I’ve tried - are great, but there’s one in particular that always rubs me the wrong way when I order it, and I’ve gotten it twice now in all of the times I’ve eaten here (which by the way amounts to more than 10 times).  It is the Cucumber Salad, and I lend any and everyone allergic to dangerous amounts of vinegar a warning, the cucumbers are served soaking in vinegar (which I abhor) so beware.  You ask why order it twice then? Well I really like cucumbers, and it was nothing for me to pat-dry them down before eating.  As for my entree in the most recent visit to the restaurant, I ordered something super safe just because I typically try their more exotic options, and it was the Quesadilla de Traditional with steak added.  I really enjoyed its simplicity, which is what I referred to before, and they also give you a cup of chipotle sour cream and pico de gallo to dress the quesadillas (if you so choose to).  My girlfriend ordered the Tsunami Trio with the Pacific Rim taco, the Baja taco, and the Tots with Jalapeno Queso as a side.  She said the Pacific Rim taco wasn’t great like most of their stuff but I suspected it was probably whoever was dressing the taco botched it somehow.  Aside from their food, the restaurant has a very nice, brightly-lit, and open atmosphere, and their service is super quick!  After making our orders it took them a literal 8 minutes to bring us our food, which is hard to complain about when it tastes as good as it does.  All in all, if I had to rank this restaurant out of ten, I’d say it’s worthy of an 8 out of 10 with all things considered, from food, to service, to wait time, and the atmosphere.  I definitely recommend any of you guys reading to try it out some time, you won’t regret it!

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Bday dessert from Bones in Buckhead Atlanta

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Bones

Bones is an upscale Buckhead restaurant known best for...you guessed it, steak!  They’re also known for their seafood and are referred to as the best steakhouse in Atlanta (according to the “About Us” bio on their website).  Upon entering the place I could immediately tell it was a much more high-end establishment, what with their full service bar stocked with all types of scotch whiskeys and bourbons, the lavish interior design, and the classical playlist.  Once seated we were greeted by our waiter, who by the way did an excellent job of serving us up until the end of our meal, but I’ll tell you about that later.  I examined the menu (pic posted) and was immediately drawn to the snapper for some reason.   And yes I ignored my own advice as I basically stated in the first post of this blog, “...just order the steak.” Not one of my finest moments, but I figured a place like this would have more than plenty tasty menu options.  I know one entree that stuck out to me as I perused their menu is Crab Stuffed Trout with Haricots Verts and Marcona Almonds.  That moment I immediately dug my phone out of my pocket to ask google about these haricots verts; turns out they’re pronounced a whole lot differently than the words look.  Once the waiter arrived to take our orders, I asked him about them and he replied with the google definition of haricots verts that I just read on my phone!  Did I mention the waitstaff is superb here?  Anyways, I ordered the Red Snapper with Sea Beans in Sun Dried Tomato Vinaigrette.  Hands down the best red snapper I’ve had to date.  The outside was crusted and the inside was nice and flaky, as you can tell from the picture posted.  My brother Kyle ordered the Mixed Grill, which includes a filet mignon and lamb and pheasant sausage.  To my surprise he said the steak they served him wasn’t that good.  But the filet mignon was relatively small, so that can happen at times.  My dad got the Salmon with Braised White Beans and Bones Bacon, which he enjoyed very well.  As you can tell, this restaurant experience went a lot differently food-wise than the first.  A much better job of plating and cooking overall compared to Cafe 290.  I do recommend you go try them out, I would come back to get a full sized steak entree for sure.  I’m including a picture of the complimentary birthday dessert my brother and I received since it was our actual birthday at the time.  This is where I bring up our waiter.  Turns out we were at the restaurant for so long (literally the last people there besides clean up crew), our waiter just up and left!  The waiter that delivered our dessert was a totally different guy.  I was sure to ask about it, and he assured us that it was normal for them to do that because the waitstaff work in pairs apparently.  It didn’t bother me at all, but it was  definitely noticeable, so if you go here late enough be aware of that.  The restaurant Bones gets a hefty thumbs-up of approval; I’d give it a 4.5/5 rating overall.  

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Cafe 290

Cafe 290 is a local Atlanta hotspot famous for their steaks, seafood, and live musical talent.  I recently had the opportunity to experience some of the bar’s food, as well as its Saturday night jazz show.  To start, I think it is mention-worthy to let readers and any other curious minds out there aware that there is a $15 cash cover to get in the bar.  I was aware of this beforehand, and as an afterthought I feel it was worth it.  But anyway, the scenery inside the was appropriate for what it was, and you could immediately tell it had an older sort of vibe; I was probably the youngest person in house.  After finding the reserved table of a friend of mine, my girlfriend and I sat down and enjoyed the band that was playing for the night.  The main artists name is Reggie Hines for curious cats, and although Hines performed greatly and with much style and personality, some would say that he was “doing a little too much”.  There were moments within his somewhat improvised performance where he would start playing around with his bandmates, of which consisted of keys, drums, and bass guitar.  Hines continually ended off sequences by shouting a number followed by “slow”, or “fast”, or “smooth”, to signal to his band to play staccato notes.  He did this several times, and I could tell I wasn’t the only one annoyed by it because my friend whose birthday it was at the time frequents the bar and also said she was tired of Hines’ showboating.  At the show intermission, Hines also took about ten minutes to explain in a very “humorous” way how tips and donations are very crucial to the livelihood and functioning of the band.  He also described and compared this with a couple tasteless jokes, including the mention of church offerings as synonymous of the donations he was asking for.  I am sorry but what exactly was the 15$ cover charge at the door for?  All in all the music was what I enjoyed the most at this restaurant.  Now to review the food.  I ordered the jerk chicken plate, priced at $22.99, while my girlfriend ordered the Atlantic salmon plate, priced at $23.99.  The pictures for both of these plates are posted along with this blog posting; anyone reading this please tell me if you’d pay that much for what you see in the picture.  Don’t see where I’m going?  I’ll continue - of all the people at our table, three of us had similar plates, the outlier was my friend Derrick, who fortunately ordered the steak, a house specialty of Cafe 290 naturally.  Now Derrick, my girlfriend and I are these three people, I had chicken, she had salmon, he had steak.  Why do we all have the exact same sides also?  Mixed steamed veggies and rice, which by the way, were the most enjoyable parts of MY meal because the jerked chicken was incredibly dry and was a tad too salty with an excess of thyme blanketed on the topside of the filet.  My girlfriend Ellie also complained about the main portion of her plate, saying that the salmon was heavily overcooked and dry as well.  Here’s the kicker though! Derrick’s steak was mmm-mmm-mmm fingerlicking good according to him!  I mean I would know because I was damn near salivating over his food as he ate it.  On a final note, I give the food at this restaurant a whopping 2 stars out of 5; I already promised my girlfriend I’d take her back (obviously more for the musical performances than anything else), but next time I’ll be sure to order the steak instead.

Enjoy A 4 minute video of Mr. Reggie Hines performing, located on my Tumblr.

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Cafe 290 Performance feat. Reggie Hines & Band