Phoenix Noodle Cafe

The Phoenix Noodle Cafe, located on Peachtree Parkway across from Triangle Drive, is a mixture of Chinese and Vietnamese cooking. It is a clean and spacious restaurant that serves Bubble tea and traditional Cantonese style dishes and Vietnamese dishes. The Chinese owners are courteous and service is quick however service is not all that is important at a restaurant.


Having eaten here once before, their Chinese dishes were not overly impressive and this time around I can't say the Pho is all that great. The soup lacks body and richness that one would expect of a traditional Vietnamese soup noodle, and after all Pho is based on good soup!

The Chicken satay was a little dry and nothing special. I'm not sure I'll be going back anytime soon...there are too many other great places to explore in Atlanta!

New Pizza Joint

Ok, As I was driving around, and I saw a "New York Style" pizza joint "Johnny's New York Style Pizza, and I thought I'd try them for dinner. I ordered the Johnny's Italian Special, consisting of sausage, mushrooms (fresh...I checked before hand :)), pepperoni, onions and green peppers. The crust is good, but not quite up to the standards I would expect from a place that claims "NY style". The crust didn't stand up to the sauce and toppings very well. The sausage was not slice...but rather ground sausage. I'm not sure why it makes such a big difference, but I've found that sliced sausage tastes much better.

Ok, the picture is of only half a pizza...I was hungry! I paired the pizza with a pale ale by JW Dundee's. Nice, cool and palette cleansing!

Japanese Cheesecake

So this is my first real weekend in Atlanta. I decided to make a little trip down to Buckhead to check out this little Japanese Bakery I had heard about. Joli Kobe. It is located in a shopping center called The Prado.

I have to say the parking was atrocious. Very hard to get in and out, but they were building a new parking structure adjacent to this shopping center.

The front of Joli Kobe is fairly quaint. The left side of the store was reserved for the cafe. The right side is reserved for the bakery. The atmosphere in the cafe was pretty quite during my visit. Service was prompt and polite.

Lunch consisted of Jasmine Tea and an Almond Curry Chicken salad. The Almond Curry Chicken salad was quite good. Very unique. Other specials were quiche, crepes and Philly cheese steak...yeah I know...that struck me as odd too. Maybe I will try that cheese steak next time.


Dessert was of course consisted of a slice of Souffle Cheesecake. The slice of cheesecake came on a plate lightly dusted with caster sugar. It was light and airy and not too sweet, a pleasant contrast to a heavy New York Cheesecake. The top was glazed with some apricot glaze adding a slight sweetness. It was very well made, but may not be suitable for those with heavier tastes when it comes to sweets.

I'll definitely have to go back to try some of the other goods from the bakery!

Simple but yummy

After my heavy dinner of steak and fries yesterday, I decided to go much lighter tonight. A simple dinner of stir fried watercress and tofu in chili sauce and pot stickers with a side of rice completes this nutritious meal.

I feel like steak!

I got sick last week and haven't been able to taste anything all week. My nose has finally started to clear up and I wanted a nice piece of steak.

I read a piece in the NY Times about the under used broiler and decided to put my underused kitchen appliance to good use.

10 minutes under the broiler and my NY Strip was done. MMM!

I didn't have much at home in terms of sides so I just broke out the Ore Ida fries in the freezer. Those worked pretty well under the broiler too.

Pair this with a beer and it is some good eating!