Gio's Chicken Amalfitano (photos by Becky Stein unless otherwise noted)

My own roast chicken is precisely like the celebrated dish served at The NoMad restaurant in Manhattan in one way. It isn’t the ingenious stuffing (theirs, not mine) of brioche crumbs, black truffle and foie gras that separates the crisp and burnished skin from the supple and juicy breast. It isn’t the appearance of the chicken (theirs, not mine), which comes to the table with its clawed feet sticking in the air and a massive tuft of green thyme sticking from its cavity as if it were a confused Chia pet.

The similarity in the two chickens lies in the cooking method. Like me, chef Daniel Humm likes to roast his bird just to the point where the breast is at its peak but the legs are still pink at the bone and tough. He cuts the meat away and finishes it in a sauté pan to serve as a side dish to the breast. My technique is a bit more inadvertent. I carve into the chicken, realize the legs might send my family …

Continue reading Roast Chicken hits Atlanta: The bird is the word »

Pero’s Pizza and Pasta Restaurant in Atlanta, which has been serving patrons in the Buckhead community and other metro Atlanta areas since 1969, recently suffered a drop on its food safety inspection exam, according to the report.

The Italian eatery, located at 3521 Northside Parkway NW, scored a 71 (C) after making a 77 (C) during a follow-up inspection in February 2010, according to reports. The routine result that February was a 63 (U), suffered from all new violations.

Charles Pero, manager and owner, said all of this year’s infractions have been corrected. He also noted that the restaurant takes food safety seriously – especially after serving customers for 43 years.

“All employees have been retrained” to maintain high-level standards, he said.

The infractions included inadequate storage of foods in the refrigerator, cluttered or blocked hand-sinks, improper posting of its food-safety inspection report and not posting a current food-service permit, the report showed.

The …

Continue reading Restaurant inspections, Pero’s Pizza and Pasta »

Almost a year after food safety standards were tightened in Georgia, restaurants that normally score on the A-B level are still feeling the effects. One of the latest is Luigi’s Pizza Restaurant of Dacula.

After a consistent record of higher scores, the eatery at 2300 Liam Ave., Suites 211 and 212, in Dacula received a 63 (U) recently, according to the reports. The citations were related to temperature controls, date-marking of food items, and storage of chemicals.

In response to citations – all of which were marked new – the manager made sure all were corrected during the visit, the inspector noted. While the manager supports adhering to food safety standards, as previous reports show, he declined an on-record comment.

Luigi’s expects a follow-up in about a week.

Here are other recent inspection scores from restaurants across the area.

Clayton County

• Aubon Pain, Hartsfield-Jackson International, Concourse BF-5, Atlanta. 97/A
• Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, Hartsfield-Jackson …

Continue reading Restaurant inspections, Luigi’s Pizza Restaurant »

Las Brasas owner John Koechlin

Since I started this new format (no star ratings), it has been a learning experience and one that I want to maximize for readers. Some of the proprietors at places I have profiled have been forthcoming and conversational, but others can be challenging to extract information from (even with a prepared list of questions) largely due to language barriers.

Last week’s story about Decatur’s Las Brasas is one I will view as a benchmark for the written story. Photography-wise, this was a tough subject. The tiny kitchen doesn’t have a lot of natural light pouring in, and it was extremely tough to get a good shot of the chickens roasting in the rotombo (roaster) when smoke was wafting all around. (All that smoke makes your shots look blue and hazy.)

But what it lacked in photographic opportunities, owner John Koechlin made up in stories. I loved talking to Koechlin, and he certainly leads an interesting life. He is a proud Peruvian with German ancestry …

Continue reading Chatting with John Koechlin from Decatur’s Las Brasas »

World Dish with Gene Lee

Apparently, 2011 is the year of the chicken shack. Back in February, Delia’s Chicken Sausage Stand opened in East Atlanta offering “slingers” (hoagies) stuffed with chicken sausage and covered with a selection of creative toppings to late-night weekend revelers. Meanwhile in the bustling Westside neighborhood, former Bookhouse Pub chef and Culinary Institute of America alumna, Julia LeRoy gave birth to LeRoy’s Fried Chicken — a walk-up southern-style fried chicken shack.

But long before chicken shacks became fashionable in metro Atlanta, John Koechlin, a Peruvian native, has been quietly running Las Brasas, a tiny, two-room Decatur polleria (“chicken shop”) that smells like the Fourth of July when you pull into the parking lot. This particular shack specializes in pollo a la brasa, Peru’s national dish of chicken cooked over embers.

The method for preparing this distinctive rotisserie chicken was first developed more than 50 years ago and, …

Continue reading Las Brasas, Decatur »