2 posts tagged “food”

They originally billed it as a wine tasting, but by the time we arrived at Cobras and Matadors just a few blocks from our house last night, it had been reworded as a Wine Pairing. This was their first event,  basically a prix fixe menu of some of their best tapas served with Spanish wines of their recommendation. It wasn't as geared toward wine tasting as the events we've attended at Silver Lake Wine (no anecdotal coverage of the wines themselves), and wasn't as scholarly a review as those we've experienced at the Irregular Wine Tasting at The Echo. It was really about the food:

• Asparagus and goat cheese croquettas (fried...yum!)
• Pork tenderloin with charred apples
• Bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with blue cheese and almonds
• Apple and cinnamon bread pudding with vanilla bean ice cream

Each course was served with something just shy of a full glass of wine, except for the entrée, which came with two glasses. The pairings did a lot to highlight the food. And at $29 a head, it ended up being a really good deal (we've easily dropped twice that at a regular dinner there, for less food and drink.) Recommended! (Just don't eat lunch beforehand.)

Having been in Atlanta the past few days on business, I found myself on two occasions dining alone at night. It's not a problem except that I become acutely aware of the fact because it happens so rarely in my day-to-day life. Besides, the breaking of bread has been a social occasion since before there was bread.

Usually when I travel to Atlanta, it's either with a group or to visit people who have enough forewarning that I'll be there that they can plan to have dinner with me. The thing about both solitary occasions this trip is that I feel I had more attentive service than had I been dining with others. Maybe it's out of pity, but perhaps it's that there's no barrier between me and the waitstaff. They're serving me in a solitary fashion, so perhaps there's some kindred element to the transaction I hadn't considered before.

Regardless of how commonplace it is for the staff to have solitary diners, it seems much less regular for the diners around me. There's an air about them that is simultaneously acknowledging an outlier and making an effort to seem nonchalant about it. Strange dynamic. Or maybe it's just my perception, which is scarily like my late high school and early college years where I was looking for any excuse to be outside the norm or marginalized in some way. Which I look back on as ridiculous and extra cringeworthy.