Recent Episodes

 

Dwight Furrow, the author of American Foodie: Taste, Art, and the Cultural Revolution, talks about the philosophy of food. We discuss everything the impact of everything from automobile to Alice Waters to the Slow Food movement have shaped the way Americans think about food.
 
 
 
 

 

Inbal Baum, the Founder of Delicious Israel, joins us to talk about where foodies should eat when they travel to her country.

• Shakshouka is a popular dish in Israel
• Israeli Breakfast is a distinct and important meal
• The modern cherry tomato has roots in Israel
• Tel Aviv and Jerusalem top the list of cities you should visit
• Beach season runs from April to October
• Rosh Hashana is a great time to visit Israel
• When you visit Tel Aviv, go to the Carmel Market, the Levinsky Market
• Try the date syrup, Silan

 

 

Food for Thought

• Q: After pita bread, what is the most common food used to “wipe” humus?
• A: Raw onion.

 
 

Out of the Frying Pan

• Favorite Spot for Outdoor Dining: Milgo & Milbar
• Favorite Place to Buy Spices: Cafe Arma in Levinsky Market
• Herbs to Try: Za’atar and Hawaij (in Yemenite Coffee)
• Favorite Winery: Sphera
• Favorite Place for Dessert: The Malabia
• Favorite Food Experience for Kids: Max Brenner
• Chef to Watch: Eyal Shani
• Dish to Try at Different Places: Shakshouka and sabich

Bennet Jacobstein, author of The Joy of Ballpark Food: From Hot Dogs to Haute Cuisine, talks to us about what foodies can find at different baseball stadiums around the country.

• Hot dogs and sausages are not the same thing.
• The quality of ballpark food was elevated in the 90s as new stadiums were built and food television shows took off.
• Stadiums have highlighted regional foods.
• Gordon Biersch‘s founder Dan Gordon introduced garlic fries at Candlestick Park in 1994.
• The song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was written in 1908.
• The Yankees replaced Cracker Jacks at one point, but brought it back after a public outcry.
• 

  San Francisco Giant Gordon Biersch Garlic Fries

  Veggie Happy spearheaded the movement to get veggie dogs sold at ballpark stadiums.

• Andrew Zimmern has a stand in the Minnesota ballpark.
• Rocky Mountain Oysters are bull testicles.
• “The Big Six” are the food companies that service the major ballparks.
• As you go from ballpark to ballpark, try the hot dogs at each to see how they’re done differently.
• Proceeds from Bennett’s book go to Second Harvest Food Bank.

 

Food for Thought

• Q: In what year were Cracker Jacks first served at a baseball game?
• A: 1896 in Atlantic City.

 

Out of the Frying Pan

Here’s what Bennet recommends you try at each ballpark:

• Yankees Stadium in New York City: Chicken and Waffles.
• Fenway Park in Boston: Lobster Roll and a cuban sandwich.
• Wrigley Field in Chicago: Chicago-style hot dog with Vienna beef.
• Turner Field in Atlanta: Boiled peanuts.
• Marlins Park in Miami: Cuban dishes.
• Safeco Field in Seattle: The Ivar’s hot dog (with fish) and cream cheese hot dog.
• Nationals Park in Washington D.C.: A cauliflower hot dog and presidential cupcakes.
• 

  Chicago White Sox Chicago-Style Hot Dog

  Busch Stadium in St. Louis: The BBQ.

• Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles: Tommy Lasorda Spumoni ice cream.
• AT&T Park in San Francisco: Crab salad, lamb sausages, and Gordon Biersch garlic fries.

Try a Food Tour

More in this City

Atlanta Street Food Festival
July 12, 2014
Piedmont Park, 1320 Monroe Drive NE, Atlanta, Georgia
Buy Tickets

 
It’s been called, “One of the Top 5 latest and greatest things to hit the South” by Southern Living magazine. For the third year, Atlanta’s food truck fanatics can experience a day dedicated to the city’s finest food truck fare when the Atlanta Street Food Festival rolls into Piedmont Park. The event is presented by MARTA and supported by numerous other exciting and generous sponsors. This festival offers foodie fans a full day of Atlanta’s favorite street food cuisine and fun.
 
 

1. Piedmont Park is a beautiful location with a long and rich history.

Piedmont Park’s Atlanta Street Food Festival provides food truck fans with an entire day dedicated to the city’s finest food truck fare at one of the Southeast’s most beautiful public parks. Piedmont Park has a rich history that spans over the course of nearly two centuries. Since 1822, Piedmont Park has continuously evolved, changing hands in the process, and going through several phases – first from a forest to a farm, then to a fairground and suburban park, and finally to the urban park that it is today. It is the perfect spot to join neighborhoods together to enjoy delicious street food and fun!
 

RELATED: Five Unique Barbecue Experiences in Atlanta.

 
 

2. We help The Giving Kitchen support the local restaurant community.

Renowned as Atlanta’s first and only event dedicated to street cuisine, the festival is proud to announce that a portion of this year’s proceeds will support The Giving Kitchen, the beloved culinary charity with the unique mission of providing crisis grants to members of Atlanta’s restaurant community facing unanticipated hardship.
 
 

3. You won’t find more food trucks in one spot anywhere in the Southeast.

The Atlanta Street Food Festival represents the largest gathering of food trucks in the Southeast. More than 40 food trucks, including Champion Cheesesteaks, Yumbii, Ibiza Bites, Mix’d Up, Viet-Nomies, Angel Fire7 BBQ and Masala Fresh will gather for the occasion for guests to partake in more food and fun.
 
 

4. We’ve got music, merchants, beer, and more.

Not only does Atlanta Street Food Festival give event goers access to the city’s finest street food cuisine, but the festival also features some of Atlanta’s most highly regarded craft brews, local merchants and artisans, and live musical entertainment from the area’s favorite performers. In between bites, patrons can receive complimentary Red Bull samples from the Wings Team while supplies last, shop around various local vendors, and experience a variety of amusement rides for children and adults.
 

RELATED: Everything You Want to Know About Food Trucks.

 
 

5. We’ve got an app for that!

New this year, the Atlanta Street Food Festival app is available through the Apple App Store and Google Play. Once downloaded, smart phone users can view featured menus, peruse the entertainment schedule and upload photos of their favorite food truck fare. Additionally, festival goers can stay up-to-date with the event’s latest details on Facebook or by following @StreetFestATL on Twitter, and by using the event’s official hashtag: #ASFF14.
 

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By Julia Ott of the Atlanta Street Food Festival

One of the meanest things that has ever happened in the last forty years of people writing about regional food was somebody, somewhere, up and decided that Atlanta, Georgia was not a barbecue city. Since then, scores of misinformed food writers have made the poor decision to give the Peach State short shrift and focus on barbecue in other places. Make no mistake, I bow to nobody in my admiration of the awesome barbecue traditions of Texas, Memphis, North Carolina, and all points in between. But this nonsense that Atlanta’s not a barbecue town, that Georgia’s not a barbecue state, has gone on long enough.
 
Atlanta is more than just a cultural melting pot, where the barbecue traditions of every other region come to life. It’s a vibrant and wonderfully diverse city where new traditions carve out their own niche. If you’ve got a weekend, come to the ATL and try these five places for five very, very different takes on wonderful barbecue.

 

1. Big Shanty Smokehouse

Chic Dillard had been working as a consultant in the restaurant biz for something like thirty years before opening his own place about two miles west of I-75 in this northern suburb in 2007. Since then, he’s received awards and acclaim for some of the best pork in town, offering “inside pulled” or “outside chopped” meat that smokes over hickory for twelve hours overnight. So richly seasoned that the meat is a dark red and brown, it genuinely doesn’t need a drop of sauce, although a pretty good tomato-vinegar blend is available on the side, along with some killer potato salad and heavenly banana pudding.
 

3393 Cherokee St NW
Kennesaw, GA 30144
(770) 499-7444
 

 

 

2. Heirloom Market Bar-B-Que

If you’ll pardon me mixing my metaphors, Cody Taylor and Jiyeon Lee have been the new 800-pound gorillas on the block in Atlanta since they opened Heirloom Market in the too-small space next to a convenience store in 2010. They’ve been waging war with county officials for having too many cars parked up and down the roads ever since. Those who brave the very long lines for takeout here – in an uncomfortable compromise, they have been limiting dine-in customers for several months – will find some amazing pulled pork given a sparkling, Korean flair, with novel, constantly changing sides like their kimchi cole slaw, several great sauces, and arguably the best beef brisket in town.
 

2243 Akers Mill Rd
Atlanta, GA 30339
(770) 850-1008
 

 

3. Hudson’s Hickory House

 

Buford Hudson opened this popular family restaurant in 1971, and created a style only found in the city’s western suburbs. His hickory-smoked chopped pork is served completely drowned in a thin, blood-red vinegar / Worcestershire / pepper sauce that nobody anywhere outside of this region replicates. Hudson-style sauce can be found at nine or ten other restaurants in the area, like Wallace in Austell, Johnny’s in Powder Springs, and J & W near Carrollton, all of whom accompany it with a bottle of magma-hot mustard and cayenne. Absolutely unique and utterly unforgettable.
 

6874 Bankhead Hwy
Douglasville, GA 30134
(770) 942-4828

 

 

4. Miss Betty’s House of Ribs

Betty Patterson set up shop in this old trailer in 2006. Various family members tend to the pit in a screened building out back, and inside, she’s greeting old friends and new with the sweetest charm of the south, and one of the most curious sauces. Arguments have been started over the ingredients in the Boss Sauce: is it soy sauce and Caro syrup? Honey with Worcestershire? Whichever, a thin drizzle over these thick, peppery ribs is a fabulous treat. The ribs, incidentally, never taste quite the same, owing to differences in wood and preparation time, but they always taste perfectly fresh. Sometimes, you’ll have to wait a few minutes while the smoke is making your ribs just right.
 

1281 Bouldercrest Dr
Atlanta, GA 30316
(404) 243-8484
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5. Wyatt’s Country Bar-B-Que

 

The intown neighborhood of Kirkwood is home to a ramshackle green and yellow building so garish that it looks like the Bugaloos have fallen on hard times. You’ll thread your way through a very narrow corridor to place an order to go, and possibly carry it to an adjacent screened porch to kick back and consider what you’ve selected. Pig’s ears and oxtails are popular here among the older customers. The chopped pork is smoked and then steamed, and you’ll definitely want to order it with the sauce on the side. It’s never technically dry, as it’s been marinating in its own gravy, with a texture similar to pot roast. The Kansas City-style sauce is a very good accompaniment, and, in a really neat magic trick, changes the flavor of the meat completely. I like to alternate tastes, one bite with sauce and one without. They taste not a darn thing alike, but boy, do they taste good.
 

1674 Memorial Dr SE
Atlanta, GA 30317
(404) 371-0311
 

 
That claim can be made about Atlanta barbecue in general rather than one single, fun, restaurant. With so many restaurants here that are so radically different from each other, I’d argue that one reason we’re overlooked is that we represent too great a challenge. There is no flavor that can honestly be called “Atlanta barbecue.” We’re too broad, too wild, and too tasty to be shoved under a single umbrella. Don’t overlook us on your way to more storied temples of smoked meat. Pull up a chair and stay a while.
 
What’s your favorite barbecue joint?
 

 

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Grant Goggans has co-written, edited, and taken woeful photographs for the blog Marie, Let’s Eat! since February 2010. When he is not eating barbecue, he is eating something else.

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In this episode of the Find Dining Podcast, Malika Harricharan of Atlanta Restaurant Blog offers up another great restaurant recommendation: Wisteria, where Chef Jason Hill serves up Southern dishes like molasses-rubbed pork tenderloin, fried catfish, and shrimp ‘n grits. We discuss the ethics of food blogging, what it’s like to judge a food competition, and why food trucks are gateway drugs for foodies.

• Read more about Wisteria on Atlanta Restaurant Blog
• Visit the Wisteria website
• Wisteria is located at 471 North Highland Avenue
• Buy Malika’s book, Food Lovers’ Guide to Atlanta
• Learn more about the Association of Food Bloggers

Malika recommends:

• Black Eyed Pea Hummus
• Tuna / Salmon Tartare
• PEI Mussels
• Molasses-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin
• Fried Catfish
• Shrimp N Grits
• Bread Pudding

Atlanta Foodie Events:

• Taste of Atlanta (October)
• Atlanta Food and Wine Festival (May)

Food for Thought:

• Q: What state produces more peaches than Georgia?
• A: South Carolina.

Out of the Frying Pan Picks:

• Favorite Place for a Night Out with the Girls: Pura Vida Tapas
• Favorite Place to Eat before a Braves Game: Bottle Rocket
• Favorite Place to go for Valentine’s Day: Modern Restaurant + Bar
• Favorite Brew Pub: 5 Seasons Brewing (Westside)
• Favorite Food Truck: W.O.W! Food Truck
• Favorite Place to Eat on a Budget: La Fonda Latina