Food For Thought

(We got SUBSCRIPTIONS in the house! Hit the subscribe button if you don't like my blog, smash that subscribe button if you do like my blog. Win-win?) A cozy Cuban cuisinitarium (ok, not a word, but I wanted it to alliterate), Mojito’s is named after some alcoholic drink and serves legit Cuban food in a way accessible to even gringos. Atmosphere: Every time I come here it seems there is construction going on, and while that is nice to see in a university, I’d rather not see restaurants do the same. I went to a restaurant in China where there were only 5 rooms to eat in because everything else had no floor tiling. The bathroom had exposed wiring BETWEEN your feet and the urinal, meaning I could’ve been in for a nasty death… Anyway, Mojitos. A very small area inside, and some tables outside in the back. It nearly rained on us, and we were not in the balcony’d area also outside. Paper covered tables + the foresight to bring a pen meant everyone was kept busy with group activities...

Imagine a wonderful Mexican fusion/experimental restaurant, filled with fun, themed decor and cute tables made of recycled license plates. Now imagine sitting in a wonderful, high-top table, next to people you love. Now, add this DJ who wants to pimp his DJ skills, RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR TABLE. AHHHH. Atmosphere: Good, besides the music (or should I say NOT beside the music). It had a very temporary vibe; something about the light aluminum chairs and the license plate table-top covers that made our meal seem transitory. There was a cyan car door hanging behind the host's podium too. We were elevated on a table which was SO far removed from the booths and the bar that we were nearly out the door. There was a garage door that seemed like it was there just for aesthetics, and a guy playing badly remixed club music to ruin it. Tater tots in a tin Some more tins, but this time with tacos Actual Food: Like a memey type of Mexican/American focus. For an appetizer, instead ...

Have you ever been to a restaurant where they recreate the environment of their food’s origin? If you’d like to, head on over to Amalfi’s Pizza, where they sacrifice floor space to create the feeling of an Italian alleyway and bedazzle the senses. An enchanted alleyway portal to Italy Ignore my brown friend, enjoy the chandeliers! Atmosphere: This place does not skimp on aesthetics. There are fancy booths with deep cushions, a literal hallway entrance that they have painted and decorated, and these cool trees inside that really give the place a fancy vibe. They even do something about the pipes in the ceiling, disguising it by putting wooden buttresses and a fancy chandelier up, instead of just leaving the roof raw (nobody looks at restaurant roofs :( despite the amount of work that goes into them). I like being in areas with chandeliers when I have semi-heavy disposable objects that I can throw and lodge into them. The imp of the perverse drives my every action when the...

Ever wonder to yourself why the Freshman 15 happens? Because of wonderful cafeterias like this one, located in the Pope Student Center in Dalton State College, North Georgia. Who says American food is just food stolen from other cultures? Not Pope. Atmosphere: First off. This building sits on an air isthmus, embedded in a one story hill with 3/4 of its sides 10 feet in the air, inaccessible except to Spiderman or Alex Honnold (first solo-climber of El Capitan!), which sort of symbolically sets up its quality. It raises college food to a new level entirely! The air inside is clear, with good natural and artificial lighting. 3/4 of the walls are floor to ceiling windows, and the roofs are very tall and made of some kind of dimpled concrete, if it were the dimples of a giant. A huge vertical porthole, or skylight, illuminated the middle of this very fresh ground. Very clean looking carpet (questionable and controversial choice, by the way. Seems dangerous (prone to spill...

Who is Ted? Who is TED? Ted Turner the Third?! The man who CREATED CNN?! The man who was the largest private landowner in America until 2011? Who uses his 15 ranches to raise the largest herd of bison in THE WORLD, re-popularizing bison meat in his misnamed Montana Grill actually in Atlanta? Yea. That Ted. Andy here with the scoop. Atmosphere: Enter. See a bar. Bartender has a manbun, serves root beer. Good, IBC root beer. Probably also alcohol but I wouldn’t know because I am a good kid. He seems happy. The floor tiles make a hexagonal mosaic. Deeper into the restaurant, all the lights are yellowed, and the room remains dark. It feels mysterious until your eyes adjust. Then it seems romantic. To pass into the back of the restaurant is to not be seated in the 2-4 person booths, with full backs that go 7 feet up. Only very tall people will not have privacy in those booths. For god’s sake, they’re even a bit enclosed from the entrance. I sat at a circular table in the middle...

An open air restaurant that I only agreed to go to as an alternative to a very nice and very full Dim Sum place next door, Harmony Vegetarian offers poor attempts to convince carnophiles that imitation meat can still be delicious. Atmosphere: At midday, the lighting is glorious. The entire restaurant doesn’t require lights because of the light penetration. The air seems clear, but starts to get stuffy after a bit, since the windows in the front face the barely-setting sun. Our table was set in a corner. No seriously, a space big enough for our table was cut out of the wall. Space was limited. Claustrophobics beware. The tables were covered with nice laminated lace. I have no idea the word, but it looked intricate and was waterproof. The servers were attentive and helpful, especially when a clumsier member of my group spilled their entire cup of water. Traffic inside was minimal, which made it quite peaceful. It was directly after church though, and an extended family of ~...