Atlanta Restaurant Guide - Lure

I love trying new restaurants, and am a big seafood fanatic. In the past few years a lot of new restaurants have opened up all over Atlanta, and now that we live in Midtown there are a lot of new restaurants to try. Walking to dinner from our house is a new luxury for us, and one of the big selling points Midtown had for us. The other night we tried out Lure on Crescent Avenue that is a part of Fifth Group's (they own Ecco,  South City Kitchen, etc.), and I loved it so much I had to share.

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The atmosphere is certainly not the main reason we go to a restaurant, but this place has got a great one. The Fifth Group bought and completely redid the old Vickery's building outfitting the space with rustic reclaimed wood and a zinc bar, and an awesome outdoor patio. In 'Hot'tlanta, you often forgo sitting outside, but Lure has decked the space out with fans to make sitting outside enjoyable. 

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We ordered a mixture of raw appetizers and entrees. We started with beausoleil oysters on the half shell from New Brunswick and the cold smoked salmon that's cured in house with dill. Seared tuna is one of my favorite dishes, and I have ordered it in pretty much every restaurant we've been to that offers it. I loved the tuna dish at Lure, because of its really unique taste. I had never had tuna served with spicy lentils and it was cooked perfectly. CT ordered the whole trout, and they filleted it at the table for us. It was served with a summer salad with fennel and cucumber and a lemon vinaigrette that so good I made it at home that week. For desert, we ordered the blueberry crumb cake with pistachio ice cream and aged gouda. I was most impressed with the unlikely flavors the chef mixed together in each dish making each something I had never had before.

Check out the full menu:

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With how much we love Mexican, we will have to try Fifth Group's new Mexican restaurant, Alma Cocina. 

We are always looking for new restaurants to try, so I'd love your recommendation!

The *New* Standard - East Side

There's a very small amount of automated mail I actually enjoy seeing show up in my inbox, and new restaurant openings is one of them. This week, I found out there's a new Standard Hotel in the East Village and with that, a new restaurant.

The Standard Grille in the Meatpacking district somehow became a go-to restaurant for CT and I for celebrating. We've celebrated his birthday and our 4 year anniversary there.

I live on the east side, so I'm very excited to hear that a new restaurant from the same group as one of my favorites is opening up in my neighborhood. Narcissa, will be another farm-to-table restaurant sourcing responsibly to hit New York and pulling produce and dairy products from hotelier Andre Balazs's farm Locusts-on-Hudson. Funny enough, the name of the restaurants comes from the very cow supplying their dairy products, Narcissa. 

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California raised chef, John Fraser’s will bring a stylistic approach to roasting, rotisserie and slow-cooking that is getting quite a lot of buzz for the restaurant. I've been on a huge fennel kick recently, so I'm excited to see fennel interspersed throughout the menu. Toasted fennel cheesecake should be interesting! 

Here's what I've got on our must-have list:

Appetizers

Otisserie-Crisped Beets Bulgur Salad, Apples, Creamed Horseradish 

Raw Tuna Cucumber-Basil Water, Salsify, Jalapeño Relish

Rotisserie-Grilled Sweet Potato Jerk Spices, Peppers, Tofu Aioli

Main

Whole Rotisserie Branzino Fennel, Arugula, Soft Herb Vinaigrette

Lacquered Duck Breast Gingered Butternut Squash, Cranberries\

Desert

Toasted Fennel Cheesecake

Brooklyn Weekend + Upcoming Blog Sale

CT and I have spent our past two weekends together just wandering around Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. It's a great change of scenery and pace from NYC and fun to see a new part of New York. On Saturday, we headed over to Bedford Avenue to find a new brunch spot and tried Sweet Chick. Sweet Chick's signature brunch dish are the chicken 'n waffles, which weirdly enough I've never tried despite growing up in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Holy chicken 'n waffles!

They were so good. Salty and sweet = amazing. Sweet Chick serves the dish with three different kinds of butter - rosemary, honey and raspberry. The rosemary was my favorite and I loved the syrup on the chicken. 

Saturday night, we were back in Manhatten and went to the Upright Citizens Brigade to see this improv comedy show called "Grandma's Ashes." The idea? The audience submits a secret that the cast then acts out. It's only $10 and hilarious, so I highly recommend it! 

I also started cleaning out my closet for Fall this weekend and have a lot of clothes I just haven't worn. I've put a couple of the items on ebay (here and here), but am thinking about trying out a blog sale. Another blogger I follow did one a while back and it was such a great idea of what to do with the clothes you've really only ever worn once or twice..or the item you bought online that didn't fit so you never wore it and you forgot to ship it back...oops. Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this. 

Have you tried out a blog sale? I'd love to hear what you thought if you ran one or participated in one! 

Cheers! Hope you had a great weekend too.

The Ordinary / Charleston, South Carolina

New York is known to always have a new restaurant popping up on every corner, but what about Charleston, South Carolina? Every time I visit Charleston there are at least 5 new places on King Street since my last visit or a new restaurant written up in Southern Living. In what feels like a few months, there’s a new “it” restaurant in town, and it is as good as you’ve heard.

 

The Ordinary is Charleston's new “fancy seafood and oyster bar." Mike Lata is the award-winning chef and owner of The Ordinary and longstanding Charleston restaurant FIG (Food Is Good). His new restaurant is located on Northern King Street in an old bank building from 1927. What I love about The Ordinary's design is the high 22-foot ceilings, balcony and bank vault door. The large oyster bar is also a great touch and looks like the perfect date spot for oyster lovers like me.

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What To Order?

Raw Oysters, clearly. 

They have selections from the West Coast and East Coast and varietals vary by the season. Our favorites are the East coast because they are larger, saltier and grimier than the creamy West Coast oysters.

{We love oysters so have found over favorites by trial and error, but if you're unsure of what you like, check out this guide!}

Oyster Sliders

This dish has been written up a few times and I can see why. They are great mix of unusual flavors like pineapple, pickled cabbage, sriracha hot sauce and cilantro with a fried oyster.

Black Bass en Papillote, Fennel, Sauce Mousseline

Our table ordered a few dishes and passed them around. This seafood dish was by far our favorite even over the whole fish which we normally love. The fish was cooked in parchment paper to keep it moist and topped with a creamy hollandaise like sauce. 

 

Been to The Ordinary? Share your favorites below!

a new brunch favorite / boulton & watt

With there being a new and different restaurant pretty much every 10 steps you take in the city, I have to give Boulton & Watt credit for grabbing my attention when I walked by. The LES Gastropub's industrial design is cozy yet hip and exudes energy with the open air seating.

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At the top of my list of brunch favorites is the sautéed spinach, house-made chorizo and pork sausage, with siracha hollandaise. This is seriously the best benedict I've ever had (beating our Jane's and Friend of a Farmer's crab cake benedicts).

The cauliflower souffle and mixed greens are another favorite.

The mimosas are made with fresh orange juice and only $5 which is a nice treat from the usual $14 price at other places.

I also loved the cheddar grits and CT was obsessed with his braised short rib benedict.

I went the other night for drinks and discovered a new affordable great wine - Alta Vista Classic Malbec. Malbecs are a great choice of red wine when you're out if you want an affordable red with big taste. I loved this wine because it was jammy and juicy at first with a tannic finish.