I originally wrote this on Christmas Day so I could get it to Geoff Koski for the Decatur News Online launch. I meant to post it yesterday, but never got to the computer. Yeah, I blame trying to catch up on the Doctor Who specials before David Tennant's final episode is aired tonight. So, here it is, a little late. I'll start over with resolution #3 today.
“Oh, I just love Decatur!
How many times have we heard this when we tell other Atlantans what part of town we live in? I just love Decatur, too, although parking can be tough. Still, it’s worth it, because whether you’re eating on the square or venturing off of it, there’s something for just about any taste and budget. Here are a few of my Decatur favorites from 2009:
Favorite “let’s just grab dinner out” place: If you hadn’t guessed this already, I’m a big fan of Feast Restaurant, by the railroad tracks near the intersection of Howard and Candler. Teri Rogers has set up this cozy spot with good food, a great wine list, and fantastic desserts. I would describe it as “bistro fare.” We went there for our five-year wedding anniversary in October, and they treated us wonderfully. They do great wine and beer dinners as well.
Favorite wine list: Yes, this would be Café Lily. We’ve never had a bad meal there, and they’ve got a great selection of zinfandels.
Favorite place to take parents (or have them take us): My in-laws are absolutely addicted to the mussels at Watershed. We never say no if they want to go there for dinner when they visit. You can even find famous violinist Kirsten Browning and me lunching there from time to time.
Favorite place to stop for a pint after Mass: How convenient for The Grange Public House to be located just down the hill from our church! Great selection of beer including some Belgians. Yes, there are places to find good beer in Decatur that aren’t the Brick Store (which I like a lot as well)!
Coffeecoffeecoffeewine! Yes, we love JavaMonkey. It’s a coffee shop with pretty good sandwiches and great desserts from Southern Sweets, which is another favorite lunch/dessert place. I did try a couple of other places for dessert this year, but none of them can hold a cake server to Southern Sweets.
Favorite newcomer: I’m baffled by the Atlanta food critics’ response to The Iberian Pig. Every “real person” (i.e., not professional food critic) I’ve talked to about it has loved it. I need to go back and try the entrees before I can write my review, but Hubby and I were impressed with the wine and tapas on our first visit.
(added since DNO launch) Favorite "let's do lunch!" place: I can't tell you how many times we'd driven by Duck's Cosmic Kitchen before we decided to stop in one morning for breakfast. I had a chocolate chip scone, and -- please pardon the cliche -- it was love at first bite. Since then, we've gotten bread, and it's become my standard lunch place. The pizzas and sandwiches are all really good, and the baked goods have never disappointed.
So now that I’ve hit the highlights of 2009, it’s time to turn my thoughts to what I look forward to in 2010. One of the reasons I started my blog was because I wanted to have a place for non-professional wine and food lovers to go to for thoughts and descriptions that aren’t incomprehensible if you don’t speak that wine expert dialect. That also means I have a lot to learn, and I recognize my shortcomings. So, here’s what I hope to accomplish in 2010, both for me as the Random Oenophile and for the blog:
1. Drink and write about more European wine. I fell short on this one last year and plan to do better. I need to not be so easily seduced by labels with those magic words Lodi, Willammette, or Walla Walla (although I do get excited by Bordeaux blends and wines from the Cotes du Ventoux region – that counts for something, right?). Have been more intrigued by French pinot noirs lately, so this is a good time for this resolution.
2. Following from number one, drink and write more about wine from interesting places. Like Texas. Yes, my annual professional conference takes me to San Antonio this year, and we’ll likely be going up to Austin as well in search of wineries. If you ask anyone from Texas, their state is way more interesting than any other state, so it counts toward this resolution. That will be another check on the “states I’ve visited wineries in” list.
3. Post a little more regularly on my blog. Going to aim for 1-2 wine/food posts per week plus one Friday Flash fiction post. Regularly updating my web site goes under this number, too. I’m also excited by a new opportunity, to contribute to Decatur News Online. I hope for that to be a mix of regular blog posts and other articles.
4. Have at least 10 pieces of writing, whether they’re novel queries, short stories, or other things out for submission at all times.
5. Take the train to work more.
What? You thought it was going to be lose 10 pounds? Not quite – I’ve got more wine to drink and more desserts to eat! Hopefully my regular visits to the Decatur/Dekalb YMCA and the half mile walk between home and the MARTA station and the other half mile walk between the station and work (for a total of 2 miles round-trip if you’re counting) will help to offset that.
Finally, I look forward to bringing you more wine notes from the Random Oenophile’s West Coast correspondent James Bassett as well as further notes and thoughts from Dan Browning, who helps me out when I can’t be in two places at once. Hubby has also expressed interest in more collaboration, which is exciting because he’s a very humorous writer.
Thank you, dear readers, for helping to make my blog a success in 2009! Here’s wishing you happy eating, drinking, reading, and writing in 2010!
Showing posts with label Duck's Cosmic Kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Duck's Cosmic Kitchen. Show all posts
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Girls just wanna have lunch
I had a minor medical procedure last Friday, which has dampened my wine drinking a little, so I've been recovering at home this week. My mom came on Sunday to help take care of me as well as so Hubby would catch a break with cooking and housework during a crazy work week for him.
On Tuesday, I was finally ready to venture out of the the house, so we went to lunch at Duck's Cosmic Kitchen. This was a place I'd driven by frequently and had seen the sign for, but hadn't tried until Hubby and I recently stopped in for a quick breakfast. The menu, although short, has a good variety of "bistro fare" including sandwiches, pizzas, and "small plates." They also have a different soup daily as well as other specials. Mom got the special sandwich, which had raw vegetables and hummus. She deemed it to be very good. I had the California pizza, which has chicken, mozzarella, garlic, avocado, and tomatoes as well as tomato sauce. I thought the presentation of the avocado, one long slice per quarter-slice of pizza, was a little odd, but the flavors worked well together. I also had a "Cosmic Side Salad" with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, mushrooms, sunflower seeds, dried cherries, blue cheese, and vinaigrette. I thought it was a good bistro-style salad, and the mix of textures and balance of flavors were just right.
Duck's does have a short beer and wine list. The reds are heavily weighted toward California, but the whites show more variety, and they even offer a rose and small bottles of sparkling. Even better, they suggest food pairings for the wine.
Dessert looked wonderful, especially the bittersweet chocolate pie, but alas, that will have to wait for another time. We did bring home a donut for Hubby to have for breakfast the next morning, and he was very happy. I've had the chocolate chip and walnut scone, and it was fresh-baked and really good.
Score card:
Atmosphere: Nice and casual; maybe a little too casual for a business lunch
Food: Very Good
Wine list: Limited, but not bad
Wait staff: Excellent, very warm but not hovering
Desserts: Look very promising
Vegetarian friendly? Yes
Kid friendly? Maybe? It is Decatur, after all.
Would I go back? Definitely!
When Mom's in town, shopping is definitely on the to-do list, so yesterday we ventured to Perimeter Mall and Nordstrom to check out boots. I would prefer to not shop in a high-end department store, but I wear a 10 1/2, and that's the only place I've consistently found cute shoes in my size. I had heard good things about the Nordstrom Cafe on the third floor, so we went there for lunch.
The cafe is set up cafeteria-style with sandwich/panini, salad, and "special" sections. They also offer pizza, pasta, and desserts. They have Roma Tomato Basil Soup daily as well as a soup special. I had the Chicken Mozzarella Ciabatta, which has thinly sliced grilled chicken, fresh mozzarella, balsamic glaze, spinach, and pesto aioli served on a parmesan ciabatta with chips. I also got a cup of the Roma Tomato Basil soup. The sandwich was very good once I distributed the meat from where it was concentrated in the middle to the whole sandwich. I didn't really taste the balsamic glaze, but everything else tasted fresh. The soup was a little creamy, but the tomato flavor was not overpowered, and it had a nice texture, like thick tomato sauce. I also liked the parmesan cheese toast that came with it.
Mom had the Blue Cheese & Pear Salad in an attempt to be healthy. Overall, it was good, although the dressing and the candied walnuts likely sabotaged her efforts. Also, the pears looked and tasted like apples. That's not a switch I would have expected, at least not without notification.
Dessert was, sad to say, disappointing. We split a Tiramisu, and it was not what we expected. If there was any amaretto at all, it was a tiny layer on the bottom. The creamy part was very sweet and tasted like vanilla pudding rather than mascarpone cheese. I had been worried about sharing a dessert with my mother because it has been known to lead to a battle for the last bite, but we each ended up taking a couple of bites and leaving the rest. That, my friends, qualifies as an epic dessert FAIL.
The other thing to know about Cafe Norstrom is that they have wait staff to help clear the tables, refill water, and bring to-go boxes. They will leave a little tray at the end with a couple of chocolate mint sticks so that you'll leave them a tip. There's no chance to do so ahead of time, even if you pay with a credit card.
Score card:
Atmosphere: Somewhat noisy
Food: Good, but watch out for sneaky substitutions
Wine list: Tiny
Wait staff: Good, attentive
Desserts: The Tiramisu was meh; the cake pieces look huge, but I'm wary now
Vegetarian friendly? Somewhat
Kid friendly? Yes
Would I go back? Maybe
Random note with intuitive ramble: The inspiration for the title of this blog post is from Weird Al Yankovic's 1985 album "Dare to be Stupid," on which he parodied Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Yes, I have the Weird Al album. My karaoke buddy Ms. Vegetarian and I did "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" to much acclaim one evening. Another song that was received well was Peter, Paul, and Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane." Mary Travers died yesterday at age 72 from leukemia. She will be missed, and I'm grateful to my parents for exposing me and BabySis to the music from their generation.
On Tuesday, I was finally ready to venture out of the the house, so we went to lunch at Duck's Cosmic Kitchen. This was a place I'd driven by frequently and had seen the sign for, but hadn't tried until Hubby and I recently stopped in for a quick breakfast. The menu, although short, has a good variety of "bistro fare" including sandwiches, pizzas, and "small plates." They also have a different soup daily as well as other specials. Mom got the special sandwich, which had raw vegetables and hummus. She deemed it to be very good. I had the California pizza, which has chicken, mozzarella, garlic, avocado, and tomatoes as well as tomato sauce. I thought the presentation of the avocado, one long slice per quarter-slice of pizza, was a little odd, but the flavors worked well together. I also had a "Cosmic Side Salad" with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, mushrooms, sunflower seeds, dried cherries, blue cheese, and vinaigrette. I thought it was a good bistro-style salad, and the mix of textures and balance of flavors were just right.
Duck's does have a short beer and wine list. The reds are heavily weighted toward California, but the whites show more variety, and they even offer a rose and small bottles of sparkling. Even better, they suggest food pairings for the wine.
Dessert looked wonderful, especially the bittersweet chocolate pie, but alas, that will have to wait for another time. We did bring home a donut for Hubby to have for breakfast the next morning, and he was very happy. I've had the chocolate chip and walnut scone, and it was fresh-baked and really good.
Score card:
Atmosphere: Nice and casual; maybe a little too casual for a business lunch
Food: Very Good
Wine list: Limited, but not bad
Wait staff: Excellent, very warm but not hovering
Desserts: Look very promising
Vegetarian friendly? Yes
Kid friendly? Maybe? It is Decatur, after all.
Would I go back? Definitely!
When Mom's in town, shopping is definitely on the to-do list, so yesterday we ventured to Perimeter Mall and Nordstrom to check out boots. I would prefer to not shop in a high-end department store, but I wear a 10 1/2, and that's the only place I've consistently found cute shoes in my size. I had heard good things about the Nordstrom Cafe on the third floor, so we went there for lunch.
The cafe is set up cafeteria-style with sandwich/panini, salad, and "special" sections. They also offer pizza, pasta, and desserts. They have Roma Tomato Basil Soup daily as well as a soup special. I had the Chicken Mozzarella Ciabatta, which has thinly sliced grilled chicken, fresh mozzarella, balsamic glaze, spinach, and pesto aioli served on a parmesan ciabatta with chips. I also got a cup of the Roma Tomato Basil soup. The sandwich was very good once I distributed the meat from where it was concentrated in the middle to the whole sandwich. I didn't really taste the balsamic glaze, but everything else tasted fresh. The soup was a little creamy, but the tomato flavor was not overpowered, and it had a nice texture, like thick tomato sauce. I also liked the parmesan cheese toast that came with it.
Mom had the Blue Cheese & Pear Salad in an attempt to be healthy. Overall, it was good, although the dressing and the candied walnuts likely sabotaged her efforts. Also, the pears looked and tasted like apples. That's not a switch I would have expected, at least not without notification.
Dessert was, sad to say, disappointing. We split a Tiramisu, and it was not what we expected. If there was any amaretto at all, it was a tiny layer on the bottom. The creamy part was very sweet and tasted like vanilla pudding rather than mascarpone cheese. I had been worried about sharing a dessert with my mother because it has been known to lead to a battle for the last bite, but we each ended up taking a couple of bites and leaving the rest. That, my friends, qualifies as an epic dessert FAIL.
The other thing to know about Cafe Norstrom is that they have wait staff to help clear the tables, refill water, and bring to-go boxes. They will leave a little tray at the end with a couple of chocolate mint sticks so that you'll leave them a tip. There's no chance to do so ahead of time, even if you pay with a credit card.
Score card:
Atmosphere: Somewhat noisy
Food: Good, but watch out for sneaky substitutions
Wine list: Tiny
Wait staff: Good, attentive
Desserts: The Tiramisu was meh; the cake pieces look huge, but I'm wary now
Vegetarian friendly? Somewhat
Kid friendly? Yes
Would I go back? Maybe
Random note with intuitive ramble: The inspiration for the title of this blog post is from Weird Al Yankovic's 1985 album "Dare to be Stupid," on which he parodied Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Yes, I have the Weird Al album. My karaoke buddy Ms. Vegetarian and I did "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" to much acclaim one evening. Another song that was received well was Peter, Paul, and Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane." Mary Travers died yesterday at age 72 from leukemia. She will be missed, and I'm grateful to my parents for exposing me and BabySis to the music from their generation.
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