Super Pan Latino

Oh, Santiago! I have ventured to Pura Vida a number of times now and I always walk away a bit disappointed in your food. You were on Top Chef last year but did not have a great amount of success on the show. Now, you’ve opened a tiny Latin Sandwich Shop in the basement of Pura Vida and give it a name comparable to a superhero. Bold move! Thank goodness it paid off. Your sandwiches at Super Pan are actually worthy of a superhero’s name. There’s something that is so different about these sandwiches that makes them really special.

I love the fact that this place is truly a “hole in the wall” also. Beware there are only 5 tables and the restaurant is only open Tuesday through Friday from 11:30AM-2:30PM. I was told that sometimes Santiago sells soups on the weekends in the parking lot across the street. I haven’t tried his soups yet but I hear they are very good as well. Also, the prices are expensive (around $12/sandwich), especially for lunch, but sometimes that’s the price you have to pay for good food I guess.

When we went for lunch, we tried two sandwiches- the BBQ Rib Bolillo and the Coca de Jamon y Queso. The BBQ Rib sandwich had a ton of savory meat on the sandwich and was topped with julienned carrots, chopped cilantro and an orange chipotle BBQ sauce on a Bolillo roll. This sandwich was extremely flavorful and was such a large portion that it was sometimes hard to take a bite. The other sandwich was not your typical ham & cheese. This sandwich was on a base of foccacia and layered with delicious Serrano ham, Manchego cheese, and arugula. Date almond butter was spread on one side of the sandwich and on the other side was a sweet piquillo pepper sauce. The flavors of this sandwich were unlike anything I have ever tasted. The dates and sweet peppers definitely stood out but seemed to be a good compliment to the sharpness of the cheese, the saltiness of the prosciutto and the freshness of the arugula. All in all, I thought it was a very unique and tasty flavor combination. Super Pan is definitely not your typical sandwich shop but if you’re in the mood to experiment with some unusual Latin flavors, then I recommend you give this place a shot. Just make sure you make it during their 3-hour lunch interval!

Yumbii!!

Atlanta has joined the new food craze! We finally have food trucks. Not a significant number due to the permitting process but a handful of them have found a way to operate in private parking lots on certain days at certain hours. Yes, to keep up with these locations, you will have to check out their facebook or twitter pages. The first “so-called” food truck I heard about was the King of Pops. He is a guy who decided to make homemade popsicles after losing his job by selling them out of a mobile freezer and at Irwin Street Market. His popsicle flavors range from Strawberry Cheesecake to Blackberry Lemonade and include everything in between. When I talked to him a few months ago, he was making all of these flavors at his house. When the weather was nice out, he would usually sell out of his popsicles in a few hours. He is located at the corner of North Ave. and N. Highland Ave in the Woody’s convenience store parking lot, but again, you have to follow his website, facebook or twitter to see where he will be and when.

Back to Yumbii, this food truck was created by Carson Young, an Atlanta native and Woodward Academy graduate who decided Atlanta needed to be a part of the new food truck craze after tasting Korean tacos from the famous Kogi truck in Los Angeles. Since he did not have a great deal of experience in the food arena, he partnered with the owner of Hankook Taqueria to create a food truck called Yumbii. Yumbii travels all over downtown Atlanta and Buckhead depending on what night of the week it is. Its menu consists of Korean BBQ Tacos (beef, chicken, pulled pork or tofu), Korean BBQ Burritos, a Quesadilla, Pulled Pork Sliders and Sesame Fries. All of the food is prepared and outsourced from Hankook Taqueria and then assembled in the food truck. My friend and I tried an order of the pulled pork sliders, a chicken taco and a pulled pork taco. The tacos are topped with Hankook BBQ sauce, which includes the strong flavor of harachi sauce. I enjoyed the first few bites of my pulled pork taco and then tried the slider. To me, it tasted exactly like the taco except it was on a bun instead of a tortilla. Then I tried the chicken taco. I don’t know how to make chicken taste like pork but all three of the items seemed to have the exact same flavor. Don’t get me wrong, it was not a bad flavor, but it was strong and after a couple of bites, I wanted to try something different. Unfortunately, we did not try the sesame fries but if I go back, I would love to. I’ve heard the fries are very good.

I hope this truck continues to have success because I would love to see more of a street food movement in Atlanta. Hopefully, that day is not too far away as long as we can get permits!

The Shed at Glenwood

This restaurant is located in the recent development off of I-20 and Glenwood Ave that contains adorable townhomes and condos. It opened in April 2008 and the chef is Lance Gummere, who served as Shaun Doty’s sous chef for more than a decade. His experience shows in his menu’s variety and in the different flavors he brings to each dish.

I would love to try this restaurant when the weather is a little warmer because they have a very nice outdoor patio. Parking is also extremely easy since they have their own parking lot and there is on-street parking as well. The restaurant itself is modern, yet simple and unassuming. Specials of the day and desserts are written on a chalkboard hung high on the wall by the entrance. The hostess station is very informal and consists of a person standing by the door as you walk in.

Personally, I was not overly impressed by the wine list, but it did contain a few good choices and most wines were reasonably priced. The special touch I loved, mainly because it was somewhat different, was that instead of bringing bread to the table, the Shed offers a simple bowl of popcorn with a very faint taste of what I assume to be bacon salt. If you don’t mind getting kernels stuck in your teeth before a meal, you will probably enjoy this break from the norm as well. Also, the waiter brought out a small chef’s tasting of mejool dates stuffed with pecorino cheese, which were incredibly simple yet a great way to start a meal. We then decided to order some of the raw oysters and a bunch of sliders. Their slider menu is rather large and adventurous so we decided to try the Roma tomato and mozzarella slider, the Cajun chicken club slider which was topped with crawfish and bacon, and also the specialty Scallop sliders topped with a jalapeno cole slaw. Both of us loved the scallop sliders and I don’t even like cole slaw. The scallop was lightly breaded and perfectly fried golden brown. Two scallops were piled onto one slider and topped with a house-made jalapeno cole slaw that contained the perfect amount of mayonnaise. The tomato and mozzarella slider was also delicious. The Roma tomato was breaded and fried, but was larger than the bun so it became a bit overwhelming as a slider but still tasted delicious. For our entrée, we ordered the bucatini pasta and the moule frites. The bucatini contained large chunks of crab meat, pecorino cheese, organic peppers and red pepper flakes, which made the dish surprisingly spicy. The pasta was a larger noodle than spaghetti but somewhat similar and absolutely delicious. Both the bucatini and the moule frites had the option of a half order or full order, which I thoroughly appreciated after ordering all of the different sliders. The moule frites included a huge bowl of mussels in a creamy white wine and garlic cream sauce and fries, which we ended up substituting for crusty bread to dip in the broth. Needless to say, there weren’t any left in the bowl by the end of the meal.

I wish I could say we saved room for dessert because that day the options included profiteroles, pumpkin cheesecake and a homemade ding dong, among a few other choices. I guess it gives us another reason to go back.

If dessert isn’t enough of a reason to go, this restaurant has a few daily specials including a $3 slider night on Wednesday, a $10 vegetable plate on Thursday night and 3 courses of comfort food for $20 on Sunday night. You can also purchase a $35 coupon for $15 on thegreenhalf.com. Now, there’s no excuse not to try this restaurant!