Happy New Year!

I know i said I would blog while I was in Atlanta, but i was too busy overeating and enjoying my vacation to sit down and discuss my culinary excursions.  Here is a quick overview of a few places in Atlanta.

Spice Market-in the W hotel downtown is a replica of the one in Midtown New York City.  Often times restaurants in hotels can be a hit or miss and in this case it was a miss.  The only reason we went there was because we had groupon for $25 worth of food.  The interior design was beautiful with wood accents and asian art decorating the walls and the food is mostly tapas with a focus on southeast asian cuisine.  Nothing was terrible but nothing was good.

Plate score: 5


Hong Kong Harbor restaurant- My mom had read a positive review by a local newspaper critic who raved about the food at this place so we decided to try this for lunch one weekend.  Unfortunately when we arrived around 11:30 for lunch, the only Asian people at the dozen or so tables were NON asian.  As terrible as this may be, it is a good indication as to the authenticity of the dim sum and other asian dishes.  The dim sum was sub par, as the wrappers on the steam dumplings were stiff or too thick or the filling tasted processed, denver (star kitchen, super star asian cafe) might have them beat.  My mom then proceeded to tell me that the critic had not had the dim sum, just the regular stuff, so we bravely ordered a classic noodle dish which translated into english would be "dry beef noodle".  As I was quite disappointed already, the flat rice noodle dish actually turned the lunch experience around.  It was nicely prepared with tenderized slices of beef, wilted bean sprouts, onions stir fried together with soy sauce, reminded me of Hong Kong.

Plate score: 6.5
Side note:  Had a super dim sum experience at star kitchen again this past weekend!

Hankook Taqueria-  I first caught glimpse of this place while watching "Best Thing I Ever Ate" on the Food Network and was even more excited when I saw that this place was in Atlanta!   This fast casual eatery is located in an obscure industrial area of Atlanta, probably a place I won't venture to alone or at night.  However if you do make it there, you will find fusion menu of korean inspired tacos.  We sampled a few of the their tacos and an order of bimbimbap though i really wanted to try their sesame fries.  We enjoyed the fish tacos (tilapia) with hoisin tartar sauce and the taco with calamari rings with a sweet chili sauce.  All of the tacos were freshly prepared and served with an soy cabbage salad atop the small flour tortillas.  The large order of bimbimbap was standard with marinated beef, fried egg, and marintated veggies.  This was a solid dish but there was too much korean red pepper paste which overwhelmed the other components.

Plate score: 8

Denver restaurant week is February 26- March 11th-  Make reservations soon and often! Over 300 participating restaurants sounds impressive until you see the ridiculous number of national chains...should still be a good time with good deals