Oenophile at Large: Restaurant Reviews, Sage and Eddie's Attic

First, thanks to all who came out for the fund raiser at JavaMonkey last Thursday. I don't have official figures, but the attendance was really good. The wine was, too.

Before the event, Hubby and I had dinner at Sage. We hadn't been there in a while, and we were both disappointed to see that the menu hasn't changed appreciably, at least as far as we could tell (the online menu is listed as November07, and it looks like the same one, so it hasn't changed at least since then). He put it best when he said, "I guess that's why we don't go there that often, it's just the same old stuff." At least the same old stuff is good. He had the "Pasta a la Tomato-Vodka Cream Sauce," and I had the prix fixe menu, which was a field greens salad tossed with balsamic vinaigrette and then steak with frites and a peppercorn cream sauce. Two things I like about Sage: a good wine list and consistent quality food and service. Now if only they'd mix up the menu a bit.

On Friday, we ended up on the patio at Eddie's Attic. Now, let's be honest, you don't go to Eddie's Attic for the food, or at least I didn't, but I was really impressed with the updated menu, which goes beyond typical bar fare. While we waited for our friends, Hubby and I had the bruschetta, which wasn't as good as you'd get at an Italian restaurant, but still very nice with good, thick slices of mozzarella and garlicky tomato-onion topping. Hubby and one of our friends had burgers, which looked really good and got good reviews from the ones eating them. I chose a trio of sliders (mini burgers): one Falafel, one Black Bean, and one Meatball. The Meatball and Black Bean were the best. One of our other friends got the Buffalo calamari, which everyone described as "surprisingly good" due to the unexpected combination of calamari with wing sauce. We didn't drink wine, but rather shared a pitcher (or two, ahem) of Widmer Heffeweisen, which was refreshing with light citrus.

So those were the two restaurants we visited, one surprisingly the same and one surprisingly different. That's one of the things I love about living in Decatur: I never get bored. Now if I can only manage to get by Tastings when it's open...

Coming this week: review of Aquaknox