Day 4: Foodies in GA

I'm not getting as much sleep as I thought I'd get on this "vacation".  :-)  Jan and I were both up before 10am (after going to bed at almost 2am!), and headed down to Buckhead around lunchtime.

WARNING:  if you are NOT a "foodie", you may want to just read the short narration of the day.  If you are, enjoy the detailed version......  :-)

SHORT VERSION:  Jan and I had decided to have lunch at Nava in Buckhead, so we plugged the address into Garmin, and away we went.  Lunch was fabulous, and then we went in search of Filene's Basement to walk off some of the calories while shopping for deals.  :-)  We did round up some great finds, and then went out into the 98+ degree heat to decide where to go next.  It was almost 5pm at that point, so we headed north back towards Buford with two stops along the way.  The first stop was at World Beverage where we browsed the wine selection and ended up splitting a mixed case of some very fun (and inexpensively-priced wines).  Our second stop was at Whole Foods (for both of us, our first visit to one, and hoping that it would be similar to our own beloved Dorothy Lane Market -- DLM).  We wandered through the store, picking up items that caught our fancy, to make dinner at home that evening.  We finally ended up back at Jan's around 8pm.  She had some work to do, and I caught up on emails.  We made dinner, split a bottle of wine from a GA vineyard -- nice! -- and then finished up on our respective PCs for the evening and headed to bed.  I was getting up early to hit to the road north to Charlotte, and Jan had to be up even earlier to be in the office for a 7:30am meeting.  We had a wonderful, relaxing day!

LONGER VERSION OF THE FOOD:  Lunch at Nava....  The restaurant itself was a beautiful and interesting place.  Great wood beams, and what looked like navaho blankets used as pillow covers as well as the seat cushion covers.  It wasn't very crowded (but it was 1pm on a Thursday!), and we had a wonderful server.  We started with prickly pear margaritas and a trio of salsas.  These included:  mango habanero, avocado-tomatillo lime and chipotle-tomatillo cilantro.  All three were really good and each very different.  We also shared a carpaccio that was fantastic, but was served with baby greens and a spicy sauce and the delicate flavor of the beef was a little overwhelmed by the sauce.

For our entrees, Jan ordered red chile seared salmon which was served over a herbed goat cheese risotto, with a cranberry compote, and I had a lobster soft taco (made with green chiles) with black beans and rice.  Yum!!!!  We also used some of our salsa trio to try different flavors with the entrees.  Our server talked us into splitting a dessert (no, she didn't have to try very hard!), but I have to admit that I was disappointed.  [Jan really liked it though.]  It was described as banana enchiladas with spiced caramel sauce.  The presentation was fantastic, and served with two "bullets" of banana bread as garnish, but the enchiladas themselves were filled with banana cream cheese, not actual bananas.  Way too much cheese for me.  And there were a few slices of bananas on the side, but I would have preferred them inside the enchilada maybe topped with the flavored cream cheese.  Oh well!  You can't pick a winner every time!  :-)

The reason we went to Whole Foods Market is that Jan was looking for a grocery store comparable to Dayton's Dorothy Lane Market (an upscale locally-owned store known for their prepared foods, high-quality meat and seafood, and attentive customer service).  Our visit really was enjoyable as we found whole sections of chutneys and honey and fresh salsas, as well as a very well-stocked seafood counter, cheese section, and prepared foods beyond belief.  We picked up fresh peach salsa, black bean and corn salsa, avocados (to make our own guacamole), sushi and vegetable pot stickers, and peach chutney to have with brie and crackers.  Truly, we had no theme for dinner, unless you were just going to call it "international".  :-)  And then, in the last corner of the store, just when we thought we were getting out of there, a made-in-house gelato bar.  Yum!!!!!  We tried the pineapple upside-down cake gelato, but were blown away by the salted caramel gelato, so that's what we took home.  :-)  And, the bakery person who was helping us, went and got two small bags of shaved ice to pack our gelato pint in for the 40-minute drive back to Buford.  Way to go!

Our "grazing" dinner was really fabulous -- with the peach salsa far and away our favorite.  It was really, really fresh, and just burst in your mouth with all that amazing fresh ripe peach flavor, and then just a hint of pepper and onion and cilantro.  I could have just eaten it with a spoon!  And we talked about how it would be great heated up and served over a grilled fish like mahi-mahi.  We did have one bad purchase -- but Jan thinks that she can rescue it.  The peach chutney was called "hot peach chutney", but what it actually tasted like was pure peppers and heat with a pretty mushy texture.  We totally should have read the ingredients at the store, as the first ingredient was apples (huh?) then brown sugar, then peaches, and HABANERO peppers.  Yikes!  It was just bitter (to me) and HOT!  Good thing I had brought Jan some homemade blackberry jam, so we used that with the brie instead.  :-)  [Jan's going to cut the hot peach chutney with cream cheese to see if she can save it.  :-)  ]

And, I have to say that our guac was pretty darn good too!  Made with DLM chunky guac spice mix, grilled corn, fresh tomatoes and a little onion.  We're pretty good cooks!  Or I guess in this case, assemblers.  :-)

So, a full day of hanging out, talking about anything and everything, having great food and drink, a little bit of retail therapy (e.g. shopping) to support the local economy.  All in all, a great stop on my great American road trip!