Hot Dish Review

We have eaten at Nacoochee Grill in Helen many times since it opened about seven years ago. It has undergone a few minor menu changes but has remained relatively true to its original concept….Southern cuisine with uptown flair.

Set inside a renovated house, Nacoochee makes guests feel at home. Light green walls and country casual decor look shabby chic to us city folks. Probably makes the rednecks scratch their heads and wonder why they didn’t fix it up a little better.

Mom ordered a glass of riesling and I got the muscadine wine by Habersham, the winery right down the street. I left with a bottle of it.

My Dad usually gets grilled or blackened fish with collards and a salad on the side, but opted for grilled shrimp instead. He’s pretty particular about his seafood. His shellfish have to be thoroughly cooked until opaque. I tend to agree, I don’t like the weird texture of undercooked shrimp or lobster. Naturally, his shrimp were a little on the clear side so he sent them back to the kitchen.

Nacoochee Grill serves chicken, fish, and steaks, with an emphasis on their grilled selections, often heavy on the garlic. But don’t forget where you are….in the South. Practically everything is also available fried. Bread service varies, recently featuring cranberry scones and jalapeno cornbread or cheddar biscuits.

Mom almost always orders the Szechuan glazed salmon with a sweet potato and salad. True to form, even on her birthday.

Having had the French country salad several times for lunch I decided to order it with the addition of crab cakes for a lighter dinner. But I couldn’t resist the squash casserole which unfortunately contained more casserole than squash and was covered with cheese….way to make a vegetable unhealthy! My Mom also let me have a few bites of her sweet potato, served with cinnamon butter…..yummo.

The salad was great with field greens, pungent gorgonzola, chewy bacon, walnuts, and sliced apple. I requested it without the red onions and also substituted their house honey balsamic dressing for the bacon vinaigrette that regularly comes with the salad. Their honey balsamic dressing is delicious, so good they sell it. I was planning to buy some on this visit but they were sold out so I took home the leftover dressing from all three of our salads. Free….even better!

No desserts. I had bought a couple of pieces of hazelnut torte from Olde Bavaria Inn earlier. Regretably, they have a new supplier and it was just yellow cake with hazelnut icing….not a torte at all. It sucked.

Sun, sand, beer, boys. A perfect day at the beach! After numerous Corona Lights with lime the topic of dinner came up. JS and KS own the fantastic house where we all stayed so they know the local deals….half price sushi from 5-7 on Fridays at Destin Chops. We all agreed, it sounded like a brilliant plan!

I accompanied ST to Rosemary Beach for a reunion with some of his college buddies last weekend…..five guys, four with wife/girlfriend in attendance. We had a blast!

JS was a great hostess, with a whole turkey and ham in the oven Thursday night when we arrived. Buffet style dining was the rule, our dinner leftovers making awesome sandwiches for the beach the next day, with plenty of chips and peanut M & M’s. SS (BW’s girlfriend) picked up some dill pickle Pringles which were yummy, although no one was wild about the ketchup flavor (OK, I ate them after 6 beers).

We set up camp on the beach and as I mentioned, proceeded to inhale beer. ST’s new passion for IPA’s in evidence with Sierra Nevada and Long Hammer in the cooler, along with our old stand-by, Miller Lite, and, of course, the Corona Lights.

A sticky day in the sand called for a lengthy afternoon shower, after which ST and I had worked up an appetite for sushi! I wisely decided to put on a pair of 5″ platform shoes to walk the 2 miles to Destin Chops on 30A.

As the name implies, Destin Chops specializes in steaks, however, in keeping with our half price theme we ordered five rolls to share. I only remember the 30A with salmon, avocado, green onion, and spicy crab salad on top. There was another with eel, perhaps the crunchy eel, and I believe the spicy tuna was among the assortment. The rolls were enormous and at half price, ran about $6.50 each.

When BW and SS arrived we ordered three starters for everyone to share….crab cakes, calamari, and seared diver scallops. BW ordered a steamed lobster which he clearly was not planning to share (see photo).

Our group carried on multiple (and from what I understand) boisterous conversations much to the delight of other diners. Sushi was quite good as were the appetizers we sampled. One glass of red wine was my only beverage and most folks were limiting their alcoholic consumption at this point.

But it was only day 1.5 so a little more eating and drinking would surely be in order….immediately following JS’s delicious egg casserole the next morning!

Upscale boutique hotels are springing up all over Atlanta, from midtown’s Georgian Terrace to the newly renovated Ellis Hotel downtown. Each one has a restaurant that serves the hotel guests breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It would seem as though that alone would provide automatic success to these restaurants, however, it isn’t enough to serve out-of-town guests, they need to draw in locals to stay afloat.

The Terrace is serious about local, sustainable produce. Much smaller in scale than Mennie’s Livingston, it is probably easier for chef Joel Young to maintain this level of excellence. B and I recently stopped by the W Downtown to see Bill Hallman and his new cocktail dresses for the waitstaff at the Lobby Bar, then proceeded on to The Ellis for dinner.

Our hostess allowed us to choose our table as the place had pretty much cleared out by the time we arrived. The restaurant does indeed have a terrace, probably fabulous for breakfast and lunch, but a bit chilly for dinner so we sat inside in the adjacent intimate dining area. Chef Joel joined us, chatting about his background and love of local and sustainable dining.

Not a difficult task here in Atlanta with numerous farms providing fresh produce and locally grown proteins to our prestigious restaurants like Woodfire Grill, Dynamic Dish, Livingston, and many more. Chef Joel visits the farmer’s markets each day to find the best of ingredients for the menu at The Terrace, which automatically gives the menu a bit of Southern flair despite chef’s Connecticut roots.

B and I were two hungry chicks upon our late arrival. We started with the Terrace crab cake and sweet potato ravioli. Served upon a large mound of sauteed spinach and muchrooms, the ravioli was almost an entree portion for me, sweet and savory. The crab cake was stellar, exhibiting very little filler and very much chunky crab. But it was the accompanying salad that received my adoration…..just a simple citrus vinaigrette with a sweet note, awesome.

A wonderful bottle of Colores de Sol Malbec was spicy, peppery, yet very smooth and drinkable.

We opted for two entrees, the flatiron steak and the Amish chicken, and two more sides, collards and mac and cheese. Their beef is grass-fed….a big deal to me, having interviewed Bill Kurtis (the dude with the kickass internet commercials right now) who owns a grass-fed cattle ranch in Kansas called Tallgrass. Cattle was meant to eat grass, not corn, so the grass-fed beef is totally free of antibiotics to treat illnesses brought on by grain diets and also naturally rich in Omega 3 fatty acids. We ordered it medium rare, served sliced on a bed of caramelized Vidalia and carrot slaw. I loved the slaw. There was a copius amount so I took it home, having it the next day with sausage balls!

The Amish chicken was served with mushroom risotto. With a crisped skin and tender meat, the chicken was flavorful and paired perfectly with the creamy risotto. B said the collards were some of the best she had ever had (hey, this coming from a Southern girl!), they were mellow and smoky with bacon. The macaroni and cheese was topped with bread crumbs and baked with Lamb Chopper from Cypress Grove in California, the maker of my favorite Humboldt Fog. What could be better? Not a damn thing.

Dessert was determined even before the entrees….bread pudding? Yes sir! I love it, as long as it is not covered with a cloying syrup. True to form, Chef Joel presented a dense bread pudding with raisins, sliced fresh pear beneath it to cut the richness. We also tried the apple cranberry crumble which was so delicious. But the serving was definitely for sharing….enormous! The homemade vanilla ice cream on top was great.

I know folks are daunted by going “downtown”. Stop being a pussy! Parking is valet, the food is phenomenal, the setting is romantic. And if you drink too much you can always get a room there.