Eat Me at Candler Park Market
1642 McLendon Ave., Atlanta. 404-373-9787, eatmecpm.com, $$
On Monday through Friday evenings, a young upscale-dining refugee named Jarrett Stieber cooks his brains out from behind the deli counter at Candler Park Market. He plates the food inside cardboard sandwich baskets with all the Zen sauce swooshes, organic produce and frilly microgreens you’d expect from a five-star kitchen.
Usually he prepares a half dozen or so dishes each night. If two of you get it all, you’ve spent about $60 total for an intriguing tasting menu.
An heirloom tomato salad topped with crunchy, three-alarm spicy serrano chile hard candy and doused in a vinaigrette flecked with ground coffee took me a couple of bites to get with the program, but I was soon convinced.
Tofu, marinated and burnished on the griddle, arrives set with zipper peas, okra and a sweet-tart muscadine sauce. If you ask nicely, Stieber will tell you about his secret menu of Fun Things, such as blood sausage and pig testicle schnitzel. Fun!
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