A couple weeks ago my friend and I went to the 10th annual Taste of Atlanta. If you don't know, this event hosts a crap-ton of restaurants from around the Atlanta area from Iberian Pig to Morelli's to even Waffle House (sorry no pics of cheese n eggs here). The streets are blocked off around the Georgia Tech square in midtown, and booths are set up for each of the restaurants to serve tastes of food. When you purchase a ticket, you receive 10-15 taste tickets depending of whether you paid for general admission or VIP. These taste tickets are what you use to "buy" tastes from each of the restaurants.
This was my 2nd year attending the annual Taste of Atlanta and of course the second year I found a deal for tickets. Last year my twitter scouring led me to a $10 discount for general admission tickets, which my friend and I were very excited about. However, as it was our first year attending, we were not aware of the perks of having VIP tickets and we quickly realized our naivety. Therefore, we decided the next year we would find some way to afford the way better, more expensive tickets and indeed did we find that way! Turns out if you test drove a Cadillac at any of the Atlanta Cadillac dealerships you could get a pair of VIP tickets for FREE! So I hopped right on that free train and didn't actually end up test driving anything, but was just given the free VIP tickets. It was pretty awesome. So moral or the story...follow me on Twitter and I will lead you to the land of freeness (@frugalfoodiejg).
Back to TOA and the food. So we get to Taste of Atl early in order to beat all the lines and make sure none of the food has sold out, but since we went on a Sunday, we couldn't get in the VIP tent where all the free alcohol was until 12:30 because of the stupid blue laws! I won't go into politics, but....blue laws are dumb! So we went to the restaurants first and started off with a Korean BBQ pork slider from Takorea. This was pretty delish, but give me Korean bbq any day because I always love. This actually won best taste for Sunday, so apparently I was not in the minority liking this dish.
Another trick I want to share that my friend and I figured out last year was to combine our taste tickets and just order one item from each restaurant and split each sample. This way we were able to try double the amount of food! Yeah, I bet we were the only ones to think of that. We so smart.
Next we had the s'more doughnut from Sublime. I had yet to try one of the Sublime doughnuts, but had wanted one for a long time, and this definitely lived up to my expectations. It was so airy and light and the chocolate and mellow were sooo goooood! I wanted to eat a dozen, but I had to move on.
Then I see the little Iberian Pig sign and I get all giddy! We got the pork taco and the only thing I didn't like was that it was so tiny. I liked the crispy taco shell and the guac, but it was just so small even though this picture makes it look the contrary.
At Rosebud we got 2 of their samples because they both sounded so good and my friend is crazy and isn't a fan of grits. The first taste was slow roasted pork shoulder with creamy grits and the other was a chicken slider with slaw. The grits were delish and the pork was tender, but the bun on the slider was a little too hard for me. The slaw was great too, but the bun just made the slider hard to eat. Also it seemed EVERYONE had made sliders, which makes sense because of the eating standing up situation, but it just got a little old.
Next we had some amazing pork and polenta from Strip. The flavor was so rich and again I love me some grits/polenta any day of the week, and this dollop was very yummy!
The next restaurant we tried, 246, which is the new Italian eatery in Decatur, was a place I was also really excited about. I have not yet been to the establishment, but love Italian food and have heard so much hype about the Ford Fry (JCT Kitchen) and Drew Belline (Floataway Cafe) collabo. From their samples we tried the meatball slider and the meatball was sooooo gooooodd! It was so juicy and a little messy but worth the sticky fingers.
So now it was time for a little dessert break and of course we went straight to Morelli's, and I was floored when they told me they had a bacon brittle ice cream flavor. I was so excited to try it that my mouth was watering as they were scooping it into the cup, and boy, did it live up to the hype! The bacon crisps were like candy. Well, I guess it was kinda like brittle. You don't say! Any who, it was scrumptious and not greasy bacon tasting, but sweet with a slight yummy bacon taste.
The last place we tried before we headed to VIP was Urban Pl8. We decided to go the vegetarian route and had the veggie burger because I thought it looked pretty good, but it turned out to be a ball of mush. Not appetizing at all, and we couldn't even finish it. So on we went to bigger and better places.
Now not only did we get free wine tasting (there was also beer, but I just stuck to the wine), but we also got free food only for VIPers. Inside the tent was the new Italian place that is opening next to the new STK, Cucina Asellina. This Italian restaurant also had meatballs, but just as a tre tre by itself and this did not need ANYthing else. They put some fresh grated parmesan on the top and I just dug in. If you remember, previously, I called 246's meatball slider "sooooo goooood" but this meatball was soooooooooooooooooooo gooooooooooooood!! Get the picture? Ha- get it...down below....
The last place we came upon was Three Sheets and at this point I could hardly walk up-right because I was so freaking full (not because of too much vino), but I pushed through for the the cherry on top. Three Sheets had both grilled cheese sandwiches and deviled eggs. I mean who doesn't like grilled cheese, and I could probably down half a dozen deviled eggs in one sitting, so I thought this was a pretty good ending to a delicious day. This deviled egg wasn't any kind of deviled egg; it was a truffle deviled egg. Nuff said! The sammie was an applewood smoked cheddar grilled cheese that was creamy and crisp.
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