Tag: East Atlanta Village

There’s plenty to eat in Atlanta for less than $13. Off the top of my head: Cheeseburgers at Little’s Food Store, banh mi at We Suki Suki, fried catfish at Harold’s Chicken and Ice Bar, and a burrito at Bell Street Burritos. But what about a plate of food, a real meat and three that covers more levels of the food pyramid?

You’ve likely never heard of the Cake Hag. That’s because for the past 13 years, mother-daughter team Maggie and Katie Sweeney have lived on word of mouth.

Two George Foreman grills, a run-of-the-mill coffeemaker, and just $99 in the bank—that’s all Quynh Trinh had when she opened We Suki Suki in East Atlanta Village in 2012.

After East Atlanta Village resident Patrick Cotrona was [fatally shot last May][1], his sister Kate Cotrona Krumm drew attention to his case by posting a poignant hand-lettered sign on a telephone pole near the spot where her brother died. Block letters on a big sheet of cardboard paid tribute to a “brother and a kind and loving son and uncle and friend.” On Thursday afternoon, Krumm unveiled another sign—a massive billboard advertising a $25,000 reward for tips leading to the arrest of two people suspected in the death of her brother.

Atlanta’s music community is so vast an industry veteran can get lost in the mix. That’s not exactly what happened to Dean Roland, rhythm guitarist for the multiplatinum Stockbridge, Georgia band Collective Soul (and baby brother to its lead singer, Ed). But when Dean’s side project–the Britrock-influenced Magnets and Ghosts, a collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Ryan Potesta–released its debut album, Mass, in 2011, few trumpets sounded up and down Peachtree.

In the two weeks following the May 17 shooting of Saman Balkhanian as he walked from a Braves game, there has been substantial media attention paid to the crime spike in south Atlanta. This intensified after the Memorial Day Weekend murder of Patrick Cotrona in East Atlanta Village.

Quynh Trinh goes by “Q” and calls everyone “honey” or “babe.” A former brand manager for Singaporean Tiger Beer who grew up in Chicago, she took over a sliver of an ice cream parlor in East Atlanta Village last year to open We Suki Suki, a spunky sandwich and tea shop. If her kitchen equipment (a Foreman grill and a toaster oven) at first gave me pause, any doubts about the seriousness of her intentions vanished after one bite of her traditional banh mi subs. The crisp, airy Vietnamese-style baguettes are showered with marinated meats or tofu and garnished with slivers of carrot and daikon, sprigs of cilantro, and slices of jalapeño. They’re as skillfully composed as any banh mi you’d find on Buford Highway—and at $5 apiece, they’re nearly as inexpensive.

It took me way too long to finally eat at East Atlanta Village’s Octopus Bar, a fringe endeavor—call it a restaurant addendum—that came to life last fall. Nhan Le, owner of Vietnamese pho joint So Ba, and Angus Brown, a chef who previously worked at Miller Union, devised a win-win brainchild: Brown, assisted by Le, takes over So Ba’s stoves at 10:30 every night except Sunday and cooks until 2:30 in the morning. The late-shift kitchen crew and waitstaff swoop in, and So Ba’s menu full of noodle soups disappears, replaced by a brainy list of mostly small plates, rife with provocative, primo ingredients that mingle Asian and American flavors. Brown and Le aim to please restaurant pros who start knocking off work right as Octopus Bar mobilizes. A similar chefs-cooking-for-chefs intent fueled the opening of Holeman and Finch Public House in 2008, and it’s a recipe other aspiring chef-owners would do well to follow. Octopus Bar’s setup, however odd, yields some of the most focused and individualistic cooking in the city.