Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts

1.14.2010

Atlanta - Where to Eat pt 1


As most of you know Paul and I spent a wonderful long weekend in Atlanta just over a week ago. We had a lot of fun on our child free weekend and I thought I would devote a couple of posts to sharing some of things we did, where we ate and where we stayed while in Atlanta, as well as any money saving tips we used while on our vacation. 

One of our favorite things to do is to eat good food. Not high end, expensive food. But good, unique food. Places that have a story. Places that might be a little out of the way. Places that not everyone goes to, but if everyone knew about them everyone would be wanting to go to them.
We love to eat out because we love to recreate the dishes at home for ourselves.
While in Atlanta we discovered some really neat places and if you are ever in the area you must check these places out!!  So as not to be overwhelming with food pictures and details I am only going to post two places we ate at today.

The first place I had read about in a magazine a couple months ago and tucked away the page in case we ever went to Atlanta.

 
West Egg Cafe was everything we could have wanted - all day breakfast for Paul and other menu options available for me. Paul loves breakfast foods and I don't share his passion - so a place that does all day breakfast and makes fabulous sandwiches is a perfect compromise.

The full menu and prices are listed on their website, but let me share with you what we ordered. Photos compliments of Paul's iphone.



Eggs, biscuit and bacon. It doesn't take much to please that man.

 
I opted for the Turkey, Bacon, Gouda on Marbled Rye. It comes with soup or salad so I chose soup, which I wasn't crazy about but the sandwich was amazing.
There was marmalade on the bread. It added an amazing taste to the entire sandwich and is something I am going to be trying to replicate at home. The sandwich had, of course, turkey (sweet tea basted), bacon, smoked gouda cheese, onion, marmalade and dijon mustard. It was an incredible sandwich and there are many other unique sandwiches on the menu.

But the best part was this:

A Coca Cola muffin - I had read about these in one or two different magazines and we had to try one. We regretted only buying one. It was delicious. Definitely worth stopping by to pick one up!


This next place has several locations open in 12 different states. It was our first time ever going to California Pizza Kitchen and we were both amazed.

The pizzas are all in the $12 range and we opted to each get one. Paul easily finished his and I came close. If you order a soup or salad on the side one pizza could feed two people. You'd be eating a tad bit healthier, but not saving much more money.

 
All of the pizzas are unique and we had a really hard time deciding! Paul finally chose the Goat Cheese with Roasted Peppers which, on top of those ingredients, also had grilled eggplant, mozzarella cheese, caramelized onions, parsley, tomato sauce and bacon. To me it was a really heavy, woodsy pizza. I don't know how a pizza can be woodsy, but it was. It was good, but I liked mine much better.

 I chose the Pear and Gorgonzola pizza. It was amazing and is one I shall soon be attempting at home. The pears were caramelized then there was the Gorgonzola, Fontina and Mozzarella cheese, caramelized sweet onions, and hazelnuts. They topped the whole pizza with field greens and Gorgonzola Ranch dressing.

It was simply amazing! Check out California Pizza Kitchen for the full menu and to see if there is a location near you. If you enjoy pizza this is a must try place! I just saw that they carry their pizzas in the frozen section at the grocery store - has anyone tried these and are they any good?

1.13.2010

Atlanta - Where We Stayed





As most of you know Paul and I spent a wonderful long weekend in Atlanta just over a week ago. We had a lot of fun on our child free weekend and I thought I would devote a couple of posts to sharing some of things we did, where we ate and where we stayed while in Atlanta, as well as any money saving tips we used while on our vacation. 

The reason we chose to go to Atlanta is because it is relatively close, we wanted to shop at Ikea and Trader Joe's - both of which we don't have in our own city, and from a brief day trip a couple years ago we already knew we liked the city.

When it comes to choosing a hotel we're usually die-hard Courtyard Marriot fans. We've always been very pleased with the service, had clean rooms, often been upgraded for free and we've just grown an attachment to that hotel chain.

This time around we decided to try something a little bit different. We waited until a few days before our trip and then checked www.hotwire.com for prices - we were excited to find great deals on 3 and 4 star hotels and opted for a 4 star hotel at the rate of $55 a night - which included a Saturday night!

 
 The challenge with Hotwire is you don't actually know which hotel you are going to get until you have paid - they tell you the price, the star rating, trip advisers star rating and the general location within the city.
Even though we could have gotten a 3 star for quite a bit less we opted for the 4 star since we'd never tried this before. Next time I think we will go for the 3 or 3.5 star ratings - both to save money and because the 3 star hotels are still nice hotels - the Double Tree and Hilton are examples of their 3 and 3.5 star rated hotels.

The hotel we ended up at was the Westin. The room we got for $55 a night was regularly slightly over $200 a night! The hotel was beautiful, with beautiful views, and we were really pleased with it.

No matter where you are visiting I would recommend giving hotwire.com a try before booking elsewhere. We kind of liked the adventure of not knowing the hotel name until after we had paid! 

Related Posts with Thumbnails