Friday, February 20, 2009
Restaurants Friday lunch and dinner report
Posted by Cliff Bostock @cliffbostock on Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 7:41 PM
Brad Lapin, my regular Friday lunch date, is too Catholic to eat meat on Fridays. So, in order to sample the special of bollito misto at La Pietra Cucina this week, we moved lunch to Thursday, and his partner Eric Varner joined us.
Unfortunately, Chef Bruce Logue had delayed offering the Italian classic of boiled meats until Thursday night. So we were forced to eat this special of a thick lamb chop over gnudi and a parsley-based salsa verde with capers and some anchovy. I also had half an order of ravioli and a mocha-flavored dessert that was something like a cross between a flan and pana cotta. I ate all that to console myself for not gettting the bollito misto.
I note that the Buddha of food also showed up when the bollito misto was unavailable.
You'd think with a lunch like that, I'd skip dinner or content myself with some celery and a rice cake. But Wayne was hungry and needed food desperately, so I joined him at The Flying Biscuit's original location in Candler Park. It was an instant hit when it opened in 1993 with its creative but homey cooking and cathead biscuits. Then, two or three years ago, it was sold to a franchise operation and quality started to teeter.
Last night's meal was not good. The problem is a failure to change with the times as much as anything else. Wayne ordered a dish that featured three eggs scrambled with chicken sausage, pasta, spinach mushrooms and cheddar cheese. It was not pretty. He ordered an oatmeal pancake for his side. It was tepid and thick, topped with an unpleasantly glutinous epach compote.
I chose salad -- a ridiculously gigantic salad -- with some grilled chicken over field greens with rosemary-roasted potatoes and blue cheese. The chicken was good enough but the greens were absolutely sopping wet with the dressing. My whole-wheat biscuit was stone cold and crumbled into bits when I took a knife to it.
Service was great. The ambiance is still cozy but almost creepily from another era. And -- come on -- get a restroom door that actually closes.
Comments (5)
Showing 1-5 of 5
i've never been a fan of The Flying Biscuit. The breakfast I had today in La Jolla @ The Cottage killed any I've ever had there. However, La Pietra is bomb.
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Agreed. The food quality has gone way downhill since it was sold to Moe's. The menu hasn't changed, but the taste and execution has suffered. I have the cookbook and tend to cook my favorites at home where I can control the cooking. I'll stick to going out to the Bulebird and the breakfast burritos at Thumbs Up.
Ria's huevos, while somewhat authentic, are effing delicious. I'm sorry, why did we even bring up food at FB again? :) My fave dish at FB back in the day (and we're talkin' 2001) was their fried egg salad thingy. It was a tasty attempt at what I have learned to cook at home for years now. Honest: super like Ria's pancakes, but it's a bit gilding the lily even for a girl like me. I want straight-up no-fuss pancakes I'm always going to choose Gato Bizco. Hoping I can get his secret, though I think he might be---inwardly---the Kenny Shopsin of Atlanta....
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