When the Orkin Man serviced  the Atlanta Chinatown Square food court in Chamblee he apparently didn’t do a very good job at the booth of Yanmi Yanmi.

A DeKalb County food service inspector said the Japanese fast food counter at 5385 New Peachtree Road has “heavy roach infestation” and needs the immediate services of an exterminator.

During a routine inspection May 12 more than 10 adult roaches and nymphs were observed crawling on the floor, prep table and inside food preparation sinks, according to the report.

The inspector was told that Orkin Pest Control treated the facility’s entire food court for roaches less than a month ago. However, at Yanmi Yanmi there were pest problems in the kitchen and storage areas.

The restaurant manager was advised to have the area exterminated again and to remove all items not being used, including equipment, food and single service articles.

The floors and walls also needed cleaning. Grease and food debris was observed on the floor …

Continue reading Restaurant Inspections, Yanmi Yanmi »

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On a recent trip to New York I skipped the expensive breakfast at my hotel each morning and instead went around the corner to a perfectly good-enough diner. The menu there seemed to have changed little in decades, and I found it funny that the words “health” and “healthy” were always doled out with a scoop of cottage cheese for lumpy punishment. That cottage cheese healthified a bunless hamburger, a salad and even an egg-white omelet.

Review by John Kessler

I can’t imagine a life of egg white and cottage cheese omelets is one worth living, but I guess I shouldn’t knock it until I try it.

Still, it bums me out that restaurants ghettoize the healthier options on their menus behind a wall of veiled contempt and medical data through which no joy or flavor can pass. Isn’t it possible to find a meal dense with good nutrients and appropriate caloric content that also tastes good going down and ends with a feeling of satiety? Call me crazy, but I don’t think we’re …

Continue reading Rise -n- Dine restaurant review, Emory Village »

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Meat, it’s what’s for dinner (or lunch) at Folia Brazilian Steakhouse. Ok, that doesn’t tell the whole story of this Kennesaw restaurant. There is a cold bar where you can mix and match vegetables for a refreshing salad. And you can heap some mashed potatoes, black beans with pork, or steamed rice onto your plate from the adjoining hot bar. But Folia is a churrascaria (Brazilian steakhouse) first and foremost, and a pretty good one in fact.

Review by Gene Lee

Like most other rodizio style Brazilian restaurants, you pay a fixed price (lunch $12.99, dinner $25.99), and that will get you an unlimited amount of meat brought to you by servers called passadores. They carve the meat tableside, and you assist them by grabbing the slices with provided tongs. A card colored red on one side and green on the other controls the delivery of protein to your table. The dining ritual is simple: green means “bring on the meat,” and red means “halt.”

If meat is not your thing, …

Continue reading Folia Brazilian Steakhouse review, Kennesaw »

Suzanne Papadimitriou, Jennifer Hatcher Photographer

As my nuptials rapidly approach this weekend, most of my free time has been occupied by wedding stuff. While I’m looking forward to the event, I’m secretly much more excited about the week at the beach that will immediately follow.

Since I’ve had weddings on the brain, I thought it would be a good time to talk about wedding food.

I’ve heard, more than once, that “no one remembers the food at a wedding.” Usually, this advice comes from friends that are giving me pointers on planning the wedding, and what areas I should focus on. The thought being, “no one cares about the food, worry about something else.”

But I can’t agree with that. Maybe it is because of my pre-occupation with food and I’m in the minority, but I ALWAYS remember the food at a wedding. It is usually the thing that I remember most, and by which I’m judging the reception. Yes, friends of mine whose weddings I’ve attended that are reading …

Continue reading Thoughts on wedding food »

(Credit: Urbanspoon.com)

The recently shuttered Cafe 101 — a restaurant that specialized in Sichuanese/Taiwanese cuisine — has reopened its doors.

The Buford Highway restaurant, recognizable by its circular shape, reopened this past Sunday. I could not locate any contact information for the restaurant but hints indicate it will continue serving similar fare under the same Cafe 101 name.

I went by there yesterday but the hours posted on the front door stated it is closed on Tuesdays. More information to follow.

Lunch 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, dinner 5-9:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Saturdays, 11:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Sundays, closed Tuesdays, 5412 Buford Highway N.E., Doraville.

In other news:

Website What Now Atlanta has reported that OMG Taco will be opening in the Little Five Points space that formerly was sushi restaurant Sweet Lime. OMG stands for Oh Mmmm Gogi, a play on the Korean word “gogi” for beef. The restaurant plans to serve Korean …

Continue reading In the news: Cafe 101 reopens, OMG Taco to open in Little 5 Points »

Liang pi noodles from Xi'an Famous Foods

The annual James Beard Awards in New York typically extend over a long weekend, starting with a journalism and book awards dinner on Friday night and culminating with the gala chef and restaurant awards on Monday.

That time frame gives the visiting hordes of food obsessives time to check out the latest and greatest in New York dining. My friend Bill Addison secured hard-to-get reservations, went up early and undertook an ambitious dining schedule, lunch and dinner, including an epic 5-hour meal at Del Posto — the city’s grandest Italian restaurant.

Me, I basically chilled and spent a lot of time wandering around with family and friends and seeing where fate and hunger deposited me. One night that meant a crappy-delicious slice of pizza around the corner from my hotel.

I did make one food pilgrimage that I’ve always wanted to do — a trip to Flushing, Queens, to explore the farthest-flung of the city’s three Chinatowns. It’s an easy …

Continue reading A little New York noshing »

"Squish.. Like grapes Daniel-san.."

I’m going to slightly deviate from my usual ethnic-leaning stories because of the abundance of mulberries around town. You can’t ignore it. Roads — at least intown where I live — are stained indigo about every 20 feet from felled ripe mulberries that have been smushed by passing cars and pedestrians. I’ve wanted to collect some when they come in season but always procrastinated.

Little did I know my building has a large mulberry tree in the backyard. Like blackberries, mulberries are best when dark blue and gently give away to the slightest of touches. Unlike blackberries that grow in thorned bushes, mulberries grow in trees that can dangle just out of reach for vertically-challenged people. Some people resort to laying a tarp underneath mulberry trees to collect their bounty; I have access to a ladder so I can forgo that process.

I picked a small bowlful of them this past Sunday, which I rinsed (small bugs are all over), de-stemmed one by …

Continue reading In season: mulberries »

Farmer Josh Davis, Oak Grove Farm

“I sort of fell into gardening,” says Farmer Josh in his quiet casual way. Meet Farmer Josh of Oak Grove Farm.

I recently joined a CSA (community-supported agriculture) with the farm after my husband met farmer Josh Davis through the folk-music community. I wanted to see where and how our food was grown, so I invited myself out to the farm for a firsthand look.

After a solid hour-and-a-half drive, we arrived in Franklin — ten minutes from the Alabama line. Along with a pack of farm dogs and a very vocal rooster, we were greeted by a lovely white 1890‘s farmhouse situated in front of a scattering of small wooden structures — remnants of the original sharecropper community that occupied the space long ago. The buildings once used as a general store and cotton house now hold a library and a luthier’s workshop — clues that there is more to Josh than farmer.

Although he grew up on the 2500 acre farm that his grandfather split between his …

Continue reading Meet Farmer Josh »

Boston Fish Supreme in northwest Atlanta received a failing food score of 46 out of 100 following an inspection that was prompted by a customer complaint.

The facility at 902A Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway is part of an Atlanta-based chain where the fried fish sandwich is the main draw. There are several of these restaurants in the metro area, including another one on Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway.

At this location, a Fulton County Health and Wellness inspector found numerous code violations. There were roaches, uncovered garbage cans and a broken cooler.

The inspector said equipment, appliances and dry storage containers needed cleaning.

Employees weren’t washing their hands when changing duties or when re-entering the kitchen, the inspector noted. And they weren’t discarding their gloves when changing duties.

The hand sink was not available to the kitchen employees, and there were no paper towels at the sink, either.

Some products were old with expired dates and needed to …

Continue reading Restaurant Inspections, Boston Fish Supreme »

NEW YORK — The James Beard Awards stayed true to this year’s theme of the global melting pot and passed out its top awards to a number of American chefs who made their mark interpreting international flavors. Among the regional chef winners were Andy Ricker of Pok Pok in Portland, Ore., who serves northern Thai cuisine, and Tyson Cole, whose Austin, Texas, sushi bar, Uchi, is considered among the best in the country.

Michael Solomonov of Philadelphia’s Zahav won for his creative Israeli fare, while Saipin Chutima of Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas ascended the stage in Lincoln Center with her palms pressed together in the traditional wai greeting of Thailand and had her English-speaking daughter read an acceptance speech.

But the awards did not smile on Georgia’s culinary talent this year as often as in years past. Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta and Hugh Acheson of Five and Ten in Athens — both perennial nominees — were bested in the award for best chef of the …

Continue reading James Beard Awards report »