Food For Thought

Legs pictured with the Blackberry Bramble are not mine.  Simple homemade ice cream in a minimalist building painted white located next to a street which had a deadly drive-by shooting not more than a week ago, Big Spoon has a grapevine lattice which only grows christmas lights of warm color and plenty of seats to sit and talk it out. Atmosphere: A wide open space outside near a bike shop adds an element of handyman to standing in penguin circles huddled for warmth. This mechanicality gives a feeling of just finishing a project at a big tech company and enjoying lunch with your friends. The inside is white, with a constantly changing menu. The workers are all visible, and like any store, allow tasting. The tasting occurs on wooden spoons which can flex back and forth with an amazing max angle before they break. Actual Food: Making your own ice cream sounds amazing considering the amount of variety and the texture you desire can be precisely engineered. Also, calories...

Saw's Soul Kitchen I’m assuming Saw is the owner of both of these places. The OG restaurant for both of these is Saw’s BBQ, which I haven’t been to because it closes at 8 and football games run late when I’m hungry. A place that knows their meat, Saw’s Establishments create some of the best burgers, pulled pork, and wings I’ve ever experienced. Atmosphere: These restaurants don’t put a huge emphasis on lights, which is a little bit of a letdown cause the food looks delicious! Soul Kitchen has large windows to let in light to the ~6 tables packed just tightly enough to allow room for a line to form out the door. SK has a counter for ordering, then you sit somewhere until someone comes out of the kitchen yelling your order. If the line stretches out the door and you stand in the threshold while keeping the door open, a very sassy black woman cashier yells at you. The wall decor is old license plates, with street signs and flying pigs (little metal piggies with wingies) on the...

An Aerial View of Tip Top that I did not capture. Enjoy. You’ve never seen a more niche locale. Tip Top Grill is literally a reconfigured mini gas station on a cliff. Past their fancy black gothic fence is a rocky death slope. But right behind it is an affordable and cool local American diner. You know how it goes. Or you’re about to, at least. Atmosphere: Imagine an old-school college dorm for 2. That’s the space. The division between worker and consumer is a high, tiled bar where the workers are probably grillin’ it up. I dunno, I’ve never been back there, but the cooks make convincing burger-flip motions. There is a freezer with local business stickers all over it, which establishes them as a local locale. Above the bar is 2 feet of space to see their operations then a big menu sign. It is readable from outside, helpful thanks to the limited space inside. Against the right wall in the back is probably a french fry frier. French frier? Again, never seen it. All I know ...

A conglomerate of many slightly expensive restaurants, Pizitz Food Hall is located in the heart of a bustling downtown. Brand-new and modern, its minimalist aesthetics appeal to the millennial eye even if its food appeals to fewer mouths. Atmosphere: I'm only going to write this section once cause I'll come back to Pizitz multiple times. Everyone in Pizitz Food Hall looks bored. Everyone. The workers, the people in nice suits eating, random kids eating, the security guards, everyone. Gah If I didn't go with cool people I would just take my meal back to my car and chow down with Kpop blasting through my speakers. The entrances and exits of the main building are huge glass panels. The walls are white on the inside, and a lot of different flavors line the walls, surrounding a big square bar area. Thankfully, there is an outside. It is surrounded on all sides by high but run-down buildings with exposed bricks. Quite a look. There are pretty trees and nice metal c...

Disclaimer: IT’S PRONOUNCED CRAPE, LIKE GRAPE WITH A C. I didn’t know that, and wanted all of you to enjoy my article as well as the clever restaurant name without pronouncing them “creepies”.  Through crêpes are an example of a good idea that usually don’t stay good in execution, they can be reborn to be better than the laws of food should allow. This paradigm shift occurs at Crêpe Expectations, tucked in a long strip mall in Las Vegas. Atmosphere: Jam packed. This is the highest density of crêpe enjoyment I have ever seen. Luckily the register is easily reachable without interrupting anyone’s personal enjoyment. From there, a cash-origami register shows that this is no chain restaurant, and that the workers genuinely have fun working here. Or maybe it’s an elaborate Big Food ploy to imitate millennial playfulness. We’ll never know. Anyway. The walls are purple and the menu is fascinatingly new. There is no industrial kitchen visible like in the back of a McDon...

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...

\/\/ Editor's Note below \/\/ Panera Bread had a child with California Pizza Kitchen, and his name is Brixx. He lives near both of his parents like a good child should, and serves personal but filling pizzas in a dimly lit, open-air kitchen. Atmosphere: I’ve only ever gone at night so I’ve only ever looked at it when the sun isn’t watching. Regardless, this place is dark. There is a glass storefront but no holes in the roof for sun. There are plenty of lights, but even the kitchen is dimly lit. The pizza fire is brighter than everything else. Speaking of the pizza fire, it adds a nice background motion. Those cooks are COOKIN', it is unmistakable. Other places conceal their cooking in a well-lit background area with swinging doors, but Brixx shows you there is FIRE there is RAW pizza and out comes your order, which the nice staff brings over to you. Places to seat your seat are brown for the most part. The booths are set into the walls, and there are some higher ...

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 ~...

A homely and proud ice cream shop located where the forest meets the cliff, the Bluff Park Ice Cream Shoppe offers ice cream with a view. And access to a burger place right beside it. Atmosphere: Walk in. It is cool and smells slightly sweet. There are paintings of ice cream and of the little strip that the Shoppe is located on. Everything is peaceful. There is a display of cones, and prices on the back wall that are written on blackboard while still being easy to read. Everything is well-lit, and calming. It is calm. I come to this shop to relax and talk with my friends. After buying ice cream, I can walk outside and look over endless neighborhoods, acres of woods, and a lake. Or I can lounge in my car, waiting for the bird tweets and wind rustling in the trees to make me nod off. Actual Ice: Their ice cream is $5 dollars a scoop, with additional scoops being absurdly cheap, like a dollar. I enjoy their birthday cake flavor, which is vanilla with icing and sprinkles in ...

Situated in a strip mall that contains a vape store beside a laundromat, Tortuga’s is a niche pizza shop with all kinds of sports paraphernalia on every wall. Perfect for dates, whether friendly or romantic, their wait times and staff are facilitative of a great night out. Atmosphere: On any night the place is bound to be full of people. On the outside, Tortuga’s has an open, inviting atmosphere that is exposed to the moon and cool night wind. There are a few tables outside, as well as two additional sections of the restaurant inside. The lights are yellowed and warm, and the air inside is warm and windy, carrying the smell of pizza being baked by people who might also baked. I have heard that people working in a restaurant become disgusted by the smell of their food due to long-term exposure, but I doubt this for truly delicious food like pizza, or odorless but still delicious food like sushi. Their red, cushiony booth’s backs were low, preventing us from feeling trap...

A bustling wooden building on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Maswik lodge conceals a cafeteria with size on par with a university and quality worthy of at least half of a Michelin star. The quality present in a variety of styles is impressive, but an emphasis on pizza and open air environment set this diner apart. Atmosphere : Nice chandeliers with metal “cages”. The style was very angular throughout the place, edges were prominent in the roof and walls. There were clear borders of wood between sections of the building, like the entrance to the main hall and the entrance to the pizza bar. Nothing fancy, just straight pieces of wood. Not sure I liked the continuous wood tiling style. Kind of monotonous for the eyes. Also easily flammable. Because it was as food hall, the restaurant was huge, with large windows on the edges of the building looking out at the beautiful road and trees right before the edge of the Grand Canyon. Basically, thanks for the effort, but unless t...

A deceivingly fancy restaurant in the middle of bustling Five Points, Chez Fonfon is a French restaurant that serves the artesian aesthetic but not the flavor. As long as a couple who goes make no comment on flavor of their food, it is the ideal place for a perfect romantic date night from a movie scene. Seating: Nice and simple. Padded wooden chairs and booths, red and brown color scheme. Since the restaurant didn’t open until 4:30 on Saturday, the lighting was dimmed, but sort of excessively. Like it was so dark I could barely make out my friend’s face sitting across from me. We were also placed in a corner booth, where I had to sit in a chair, which left me feeling like an odd thumb sticking out of the table. Decor: Dark and French. Bottles of wine line the walls. Freshly-made, never frozen/refrigerated cake in plates lying around. Pots and pans lying around the place and nice maroon lampshades. It gave a similar feel to Vero, but was a lot busier in its decor. The...

A niche restaurant in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, the San Francisco Fish Company serves fresh sushi and even fresher clams and mussels to stand out even in the bustling restaurant-filled Ferry Building. They offer seating where other eateries offer none, and attract people with a big open atmosphere. Seating: Actually existed, a feat in the crowded Ferry Building, which is basically a 1-story mall for restaurants. Even more impressive considering that the day I went was the day that people were allowed to set up tents with food and wares outside, tripling the attractions in terms of live entertainment and available stores to browse. There was a white guy playing Billy Joel, two black fellows playing reggae, and a Mexican playing the guitar (A 3 person mariachi band would have given the sequence a progressive theme). Anyway, seats. The tables on the outer edge of roof on the side were raised  a little, forming a bit of a wall against the noise and people in the walkway, wh...