GEORGIA
Atlanta Day 1
I’m in Atlanta this weekend to visit my sister, Paula, who is doing grad school at Georgia Tech.
Technically I got in last night at around 11:30 PM but since all we did was yap and fall asleep I am officially counting Saturday as day 1.
I slept in and had a few eggs at home before we hit the road to read, have coffee and study at The Read Shop where we met up with our cousin, Megan. It’s a pretty hip spot, I got a small 8 oz coffee for $2.65 and there were a lot of people and limited seating.
Megan and Paula got pretty hungry and I’m always down for a burger. We went right around the corner to Stockyard Burgers and Bones for lunch. Paula got the chicken tenders, Megan got the spicy chicken sandwich (which she said was indeed quite spicy) and I got their regular burger.
The toppings on the burger were really tasty, they have a spicy aioli I’m a fan of. It might’ve been a bit too salty, and the fries were pretty sad. The BBQ ranch that comes with the fries was a hit though.
After lunch we headed over to Virtue and Vice Body Piercing where I intended to get an industrial piercing in my left ear. I learned while we were there that it’s actually pretty rare to have the right ear shape to accommodate the bar. It turns out my ear is too flat, which would result in the bar pressing against my ear all the time. While it was a bit of a bummer, I was also not really sure how an industrial piercing would affect my ability to put on my motorcycle helmet so I wasn’t completely crushed.
Also I had a backup plan, and went ahead and got myself a new tragus piercing!
It actually barely hurt to get put in, and barely hurts now (famous last words…) and I’m super happy with it! I think in about six months I’ll get it done to the other side as well!
For dinner we headed over to the Porter Beer Bar which is right around the corner from the Vortex where we went last time we were in Atlanta.
This place has an IMPRESSIVE drink menu. They have beers and ciders on tap, by the bottle, and aging in a cellar. I had the good sense and good luck to try a little bit of everything here. To begin with I tried the boozy Thai iced tea, since I’d never heard of that before. I didn’t really like it, and it tasted too much like fruit to really accurately remind me of Thai iced tea. It was also a pretty small glass and felt like bad bang for my buck.
For food we started off with the Bahn Mi steamed buns which were a little messy to eat but pretty dang good for bbq asian fusion! Loro in Austin tries the same flavor combination to a decent amount of success. I was surprised by this item since it seemed out of place on the menu.
For my main dish I got the brisket sandwhich. They were out of sourdough but accommodated me with a burger bun. It was on the specials menu so I’m not sure it’s something you could get again. The sauces they used were really delicious, but the meat was severely lacking. It wasn’t nearly tender enough to eat the sandwich as a sandwich, and I ended up pulling apart a bunch of the meat and setting it aside and ultimately not eating it. But then there was the bacon jam and some kind of creamy sauce that were a delicious combination. So, a great sandwhich if you take all the meat out.
Sidenote - the fries were much better than our fries from lunch but I’m not going to make a big fuss over fries!
Paula got the smash burger which looked pretty dang good but she didn’t comment on it.
For my next drink(s) I got the Sour and Fruity flight which was 110% worth it. Paula and I shared and we loved all of them. The far left one had notes of lavender and earl gray, the middle one I can’t remember any details for but we liked it, and the right one is a pleasant mead with a well rounded flavor. I don’t want to say I liked the middle one the least, I think it was just the most “normal” one out of the three.
Now that I’d had a variety of their normal beer, I finished the night off with some vintage beer. It wasn’t that vintage, I think I got a 2017 Italian beer aged in wine casks or cherry juice or something along those lines. It was pleasantly fruity, about room temperature and flat from aging. That makes it sound bad but I swear, it was a wonderful way to end the night. I helped Paula order a super spicy hatch pepper cider which I also helped her drink!
At some point during dinner Paula listened in on the couple to our left talking. We figured out to some amount of shock the man was proposing to his lady right next to us!!!!! After recovering from initial stupor, I pulled out my phone and made a video so I could send it to them after. I won’t post it here for privacy reasons but it was ridiculously cute and made my whole evening.