Just a quick update!

I’m probably going to have nothing to say until next Sunday, and I didn’t really want to go that long without an update.
I’ve been busy packing and getting rid of things in preparation for my move that is hopefully taking place on the 8th. It’s all sorts of annoying to not be 100% sure you’re approved for a place when they are taking their sweet time…but I’ll be getting back into the swing of things once I’m there of course.

Up this week though, I’m pretty busy with packing first and foremost, but I’m also looking forward to my annual trip to The Tail of the Dragon, one of the coolest driving roads in the country. This weekend will be my fifth trip there, and with every trip there, I take a different route. Instead of my usual routes through TN and NC, this time I decided to do something that’s going to take a bit more time but probably be much more enjoyable and interesting:

I’ve been dying to go Dahlonega-Blairsville past Blood Mountain, and it cannot wait until next year when that will be my obvious route. I’ve taken my car over to Helen before, but it wasn’t exactly a fun, curvy mountain drive, and was over a year ago. My car needs more twisties in her life.

So next Sunday I will have a picture post regarding the Dragon Run and some cupcakes will probably be involved since I promised people I’d make some more.

Review: Terminal Brewhouse

Since I’ll be leaving Chattanooga in a few weeks, it is only fitting that I first review what has become my absolute favorite place to eat there. In this I won’t just talk about one visit, so don’t think I managed to eat all of this at one time, because…actually, I would try.
Earlier this year, the Terminal Brewhouse opened near the Chattanooga Choo-Choo, and I am so mad it took me until May to discover it. I’m not really up on my Chattanooga building history, but this was once the location of a Terminal hotel. The building has two floors, and I have never been to the upstairs yet.
So now, for that second part of the name: they brew their own beer, and it is quite amazing. I have to admit that since first having the Belgian White at Terminal Brewhouse, I have not had any Blue Moon beyond what was left from making the cookies and cupcakes with it. It is that good. One sip may taste of orange, and the next could be very much coriander, almost to the point of being peppery.
They have quite a selection of appetizers to the point we were not able to settle on just one, so we got hummus and the cheese dip. The hummus is of course, my favorite form: black bean. They serve it with both pita wedges and tortilla chips, so Joe got a little creative my mixing both the hummus and the cheese dip.
The bison burgers are absolutely awesome. The first time I ever had bison was here, and at first I thought the taste was a little strange, and then it just seemed really, really good. They offer a variety of cheeses and other toppings that you can add on. They also have sweet potato fries, which are delicious. I was so full but I wanted to keep eating those fries.
Remember the cheese dip? Joe liked it so much he poured it on his bison burger.
We also shared a larger size pizza this past Sunday on our way to Nashville for Joe to pick up a new car. It was so good that I ate half of it. (But I was about to drive six hours so I figured I needed to eat enough to not fall asleep. Somehow I did not manage to make my stomach way too full though!) I did manage to somehow choke myself on the spices in the sauce, but nothing is better than a spiced up pizza sauce. Nothing. The combination of cheeses was awesome and the fact that the parmesan cheese they give you is not nasty powdered stuff but freshly grated makes this one of the best pizzas I’ve had in the area.
The service is always really awesome, everyone who works there is extremely friendly. I also like their menu of organic liquors and wine, plus information on what is local to drink. I haven’t tried any of those things because of the beer, but it’s definitely something cool to have available!
I may be moving away, but I am thinking there will be many a trip just to come back. So, if you’re looking at this, you really need to get to Chattanooga to try this place out.
Now if only they did a cider…I would probably not move.

Update 08/29: Since I had been busy moving I completely forgot I wanted to update this post to mention that I tried one of the stuffed sandwiches before I moved. It sucks that I’m sitting in Atlanta right now because this is making me crave it again: The Chick Power stuffed sandwich is so good. I had it with just the cheese, chicken, and bacon, and it was one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had. It was so good that even though I only ate half for lunch, the other half was gone the same day before 4pm because I am obviously a fat kid. But it was worth it.

Review: The Vortex (Midtown)

This is what I’m going to consider as food for the German Grand Prix…Hamburg, Hamburgers, you know, whatever. It works.

The Vortex is a cool little bar and restaurant with two locations in Atlanta. The best feature I have to say is that you have to be 18 to get in, so no whining, crying children to bother you while you eat a tasty hamburger.
I’ve only seen the other Vortex location in Little Five Points with the crazy skull outside. We were going to go there last year but thought it was 21+ and of course, NOW I know I’m wrong. The Midtown location though is still good enough for me, and a not bad walk from the Midtown MARTA station either.
As I said, they check your ID at the door to make sure you’re 18 and can inhale any possible smoke that may be inside. I didn’t even smell any at all from where we were sitting. It’s kind of a tight space with lots of other tables, but it’s not that awkward.
Another awesome thing about the Vortex: imperial pints. I was so thrilled to have this bigger than I expected glass of Strongbow placed in front of me. In case you don’t realize what that means, an imperial pint is far superior in size to an American 16 ounce pint. Also, the bar stocks a ridiculous amount of alcohol. I have never seen so many different bottles in one place outside of a liquor store.
I ordered the Tex Melt burger and Joe ordered the Ragin’ Cajun burger.
I loved mine, it was on Texas toast rather than a bun and covered in BBQ sauce. It also had fried jalapeno slices, which still had quite a kick to them. It was a bit messy, but that’s a good thing when it comes to a burger. It was one of the best burgers I have ever had, without a doubt. It was so hard to even decide on it with the various numbers of options available.
Joe didn’t really like the Ragin’ Cajun burger because of the overload of spices. He got most of them off in the end and then told me it was good now. I tasted it and the spices did sort of take over the taste of anything else, but it was a delicious combination of spices.
We both got the tater tots, which I love to have for an option to get instead of fries.
I really enjoyed the burger here, and I will definitely be going back. The service was friendly, even though towards right before we left the server started to get overloaded and she was kind of hard to get. The atmosphere is awesome too of course, I mean where do you see framed Playboy covers just hanging on a wall? It’s definitely a place to go to again and again, for so many reasons.

Awesome news and strawberry cupcakes!

First of all, I found me an apartment on Friday, and I’m just now waiting for everything to be approved (there is really no reason for that to not happen) and in a little over 3 weeks I will FINALLY live in Atlanta. My boyfriend will be 17 miles away instead of 125, and I will have my own place with my own cute little kitchen YAY. Now instead of being 14 miles away from a somewhat decent mall, I will have 3 within a 3 mile radius to choose from. I love it.

Anyway, last night for a friend’s party I decided I had to bring her some cupcakes, strawberry of course, since she LOVES strawberries.
I came across this recipe and had to make them, and they were definitely popular.

Here is the recipe with little changes I made…probably also easier to read than on that page because of the tons of pictures between the ingredients and the instructions.

Very Strawberry Cupcakes
* 2 cups flour
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1/2 cup strawberry puree (you will need another 1/4 cup for the frosting. altogether it will take probably 12-16 strawberries in a food processor, then strained it and separate into 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup for later)
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 1/4 tsp baking soda
* 1 whole stick butter, softened
* 3/4 cup buttermilk (I used buttermilk powder – 2 tbsp of buttermilk powder + 3/4 cup water)
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1/2 cup seedless strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 325F.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.
Mix together the 1/2 cup strawberry puree and buttermilk (I put this just in a measuring cup rather than using another bowl.)
Cream together the sugar and butter until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then add vanilla.
Add the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients to this bowl one at a time. I did half of the dry ingredients, mixed, then half the wet, mixed it, etc, until everything was all combined.
Pour batter into cupcake pan and bake for 18-20 minutes.

When cupcakes are cooled, fill insides with jam. You can do this just by poking a hole with the tip on a pastry bag, or by cutting off the top as instructed here, which is my favorite method.

Now for the strawberry cream cheese frosting:
* 8oz cream cheese, softened
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* pinch of salt
* 1/4 cup strawberry puree
* 2 cups powdered sugar

Put the cream cheese in a bowl and beat until it’s fluffy. Add the butter and beat again until it’s fluffy and mixed together. Add the vanilla, salt, and strawberry puree and beat until well mixed. Add the powdered sugar and mix until combined. I then refrigerated it until it firmed up, but then again when I put it on top of the cupcakes it got all melty anyway. Cream cheese frosting and humidity are not good friends. But, it’s not really important, it still tastes amazing.

Whiskey Blue & Fireworks

A view from the top.

I’m going to be completely honest: If it wasn’t for the idea of watching fireworks from the roof of a hotel, Whiskey Blue is not somewhere I would normally go, probably ever. The idea I had in my head of a dressy crowd under 30 was not met until about 10:30pm. It was an eclectic mix of people, which made it pretty interesting, but who cares about the people, I was more taken by the looks.
Whiskey Blue is the rooftop bar of the W Hotel in Buckhead, and looks like it was transported from L.A. into Atlanta. If you’re not staying at the hotel, there is a side entrance to an elevator, complete with a sofa, up and up to the bar. You walk down a corridor into the outdoors and then enter the bar. It truly is unlike any place I’ve ever been. More like a lounge than a bar, Whiskey Blue has an inside area with several tables and couches, and on either side is an outdoor area. On the side where the fireworks were visible, there were several large tables that could even be separated by a curtain for privacy.
We decided to go with some fireworks for this Fourth of July, and I had found the deal at Whiskey Blue: pay $25, get a free cocktail, see fireworks.
Of course at first I was like, “this is so overpriced,” but at the same time it was much more convenient than going downtown, and most importantly I wanted to avoid a massive crowd and children in said massive crowd. So, Whiskey Blue it is.
Back to those people: I dressed myself up. I looked damn classy, and oddly enough seemed to outdo nearly every person in the place. Oh, how fun it is to realize you are one of the nicest dressed people in a swanky bar in a fancy hotel in Buckhead. (Of course, it may have just been the occasion. Since most people who weren’t very dressy were in some form of red, white, and blue.) There was even this older couple who seemed to making a touristy time of it…at first it was weird, but it became somewhat precious.
I did not actually order anything to drink considering the…ridiculous price of $15 for Red Bull Vodka. But you have to remember where you are: if it wasn’t for those two free margaritas (which were DAMN strong), I probably would have gone for it. However in ordering the two margaritas, I did discover how one can somehow anger a cocktail waitress without doing much of anything. The bartenders were much friendlier, and of course less annoying considering a girl was coming around practically every 5 minutes, even when my first drink was entirely full.
As for the fireworks, we had no idea how close they were going to be….they were awesomely close. And also, they were absolutely amazing. I doubted so much when I read “the best fireworks in the southeast” on the internet….and I entirely take that back. They were ridiculously awesome.
Of course I had no tripod and I was tipsy, but I find playing with light fun. Of course it doesn’t help that fireworks mode on my camera takes 4 second pictures.
But in all, I really enjoyed the place. If I wasn’t a cheapskate, I would LOVE to celebrate my birthday at Whiskey Blue. However, the price of $350 for bottle service is a little too high for my liking. (Maybe if I win the lottery, but then we’d all be drinking Dom Perignon.) Every place I sat in the place was ridiculously comfortable. You’d look at some of the sofas and chairs and think, “That looks kind of like plastic…” but oh no, that was the most comfortable sofa I’d been sitting on in awhile.
I definitely plan on coming back for a sort of like who cares how much it costs day sometime in the next couple of months. The atmosphere is excellent, the location is beyond cool, and it really doesn’t have the pretentious feeling you may expect from you know, being in a W hotel in Buckhead, beyond the price tag of drinks.

And lastly, some crazy fireworks pictures:

It seemed as though no smiley face fireworks ever exploded in the right direction.

SPIDERS?!

And for more here’s the set on Flickr, in case you are into looking at long exposures of light at night like me.

Review: Hashiguchi Jr.

As part of our Fourth of July plans, we wanted sushi. Makes perfect sense, right? Since our other plans for the evening involved Lenox Square’s fireworks, an easy decision was made to check out Hashiguchi Junior.
The moment you step into Hashiguchi Jr., you feel like you might as well be in Japan. The space is cramped and small, like I would expect an izakaya in Japan to be. The lighting was very low, so I couldn’t get any good pictures. The sushi bar was entirely full, which was sad, but always a good sign.
Like I said, this is basically similar to an izakaya. When you are seated, you are given a hot towel for your hands. There is a huge range of dishes to choose from, from onigiri to soba and udon to tempura to of course, sushi.
We ordered sushi and I also ordered onigiri. My attempts at making onigiri failed greatly, and it’s probably not that hard. I ordered one with a seasoned seaweed filling, which was different. I am completely confused still on how you can eat onigiri without it just killing itself about halfway through.
The sushi was absolutely fantastic. I have no idea how the taste of an avocado roll can vary so much, but this was quite possibly the best avocado roll I ever had. Same thing goes for the spicy tuna roll, I have never had one that was that delicious. There was a definite taste of sesame with a kick to it, and I am guessing of the spicy components in a chili sesame oil. (This has me thinking, when you see a recipe for spicy tuna rolls, they always involve making a spicy mayonnaise. Of all the places I’ve had spicy tuna rolls now, none of them have ever used something like that, which leads me to believe that the use of mayonnaise is some dumb American idea. Also, I hate mayonnaise so I am very glad about this.) The negi hamachi roll was also very fresh, but I was just so taken by the spicy tuna rolls that I don’t have much to say on that one.
Hashiguchi Jr. is definitely in a strange spot in a shopping center outside of Lenox Square. We easily walked from the Buckhead MARTA station over to it, and I mean easily: I was only wearing 4″ wedge heels.
It’s definitely worth checking out, for the food and the atmosphere. The table next to ours was very impressed with the onigiri.

Review: Mike’s Chicago Hot Dogs

I firmly believe that when you move away from Chicago you are programmed to search out two things: Chicago hot dogs and deep dish pizza. And that is how I found Mike’s Chicago Hot Dogs, by my Chicago food detector. The interior completely reminded me of a hot dog place I remember at home, but overall it wasn’t quite the same, but close enough to work.
I suppose when this is because nothing stands up to actually being in Chicago, eating the food you know is Chicago. Take Nancy’s pizza, I was so let down by that deep dish pizza. Even though this hot dog was good, I just felt it wasn’t the same. I liked it, but there were just a couple problems.
First, when I ordered a Chicago hot dog, they were out of relish. How can you be a Chicago hot dog place and be out of relish?! I’m not that big of a fan of relish so I didn’t really mind. However, I did mind the complete overload of celery salt. The flavor of the salt overtook everything else, down to the hot dog. In case they have forgotten, everything I’ve ever read and know about a Chicago hot dog is a DASH or a SHAKE of celery salt, not a tablespoon of the stuff.
The scent of celery salt still lingers on my hands as I type this. I know at this point I should be like “I don’t like it,” but I loved the atmosphere of the place, but as a White Sox fan it could have used a bit less Cubs stuff, bahahaha. It felt like a bit of Chicago in Atlanta. And the hot dog was most definitely like a Chicago hot dog, because as far as I’m concerned, if you don’t use Vienna Beef hot dogs, it is just not good enough. I will not eat any other hot dog. In fact, the last time I even ate a hot dog was when I was at Portillo’s last time I was in Chicago. I was also a vegetarian at the time, but I got a chili cheese dog anyway. I am dedicated to these foods, you understand.
It’s worth a visit, just for the atmosphere, and if you’ve never had a Chicago style hot dog. If you’re not from Chicago you’re probably not going to really care that little things may be off. Heck, even if you’re from Chicago, it’s good enough to be able to get a taste of home.