Hi everyone. I wanted to ask you all your opinions on what to do while I am in Atlanta. Like you all I am a huge gardening girl and I am sure that things that you guys think are great I would love to. I know that I will spend an entire day at the botanical gardens, but what else do you think I should put on my list. I will fl in on May 8th and fly out the 13th. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Steph
Traveling to Atlanta in May
The Georgia Aquarium is pretty nice to visit but buy your tickets online so you can be assured you will get in. Stone Mountain is an interesting place to visit (it always seems to have some events going on but the big arts and crafts fair - the Yellow Daisy Festival is the weekend after Labor Day) with the laser show after dark being the thing to see and do if you've never been. Callaway Gardens which is also known as Victory Garden South is about 1.5 to 2 hours away but well worth the trip.
Hi Steph,
Atlanta in May will be beautiful- great weather and the botanical gardens should prove delightful. Here is a link to the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau which will list events,sights to see, etc. .http://www.atlanta.net/visitors/index.html
The Georgia Aquarium is not to be missed and is a short walking distance to Centennial Olympic Park which also has beautiful plants, shrubs, trees, etc. Across from the park is CNN which has tours daily.
I don't know what your schedule will be like but if you have a rental car and don't mind a 50 mile drive, you should check out Callaway Gardens http://www.callawaygardens.com/info/attractions.asp Acres and acres of native shrubs and plants, a horticultural center, a butterfly center, great restaurants, walking trails to name a few.
Hope you have fun!
lIZ
Does the history center have the Swan House? I saw something about that and it looked amazing. Thank you guys for all of the great suggestions. I do have a rental car so I think that I will drive to Callaway Gardens. Anyone from down there want to join me? I will drive and pay.
Steph
Second on the Aquarium, Botanical Gardens, Callaway (especially if you go first or second week in April - the azaleas are gorgeous),,, If you are coming end of March, come down to Macon and see the Cherry trees in bloom (90 miles south on 75). We have lots more than Japan or Washington DC....
Elaine
Atlanta is nothing short of elegant in the spring! I ditto on the Aquarium, we went last summer and I would love to go again. The beluga whales took my breath away and the penguins were a hoot!. And of course, I LOVE to shop in Atlanta.
Not to take away from how gorgeous it is around here in spring...but bring some CLARITAN! I'm not kidding. I would hate for you to be down here and be sneezing and itchy and unable to enjoy it!
Steph thank you for starting this thread.......I'm busy studying everyone's suggestions here. :) My DH has to go to Atlanta sometime this year for a course. I hope you don't mind me asking the local experts:
Which restaurants are the ones you would suggest going to? Guaranteed, after coming back, we'd run into someone that would say........."you went to Atlanta and didn't go to __________!!!!!
Lilypon, go right ahead and grab all the info that you can, glad this thread is helping :) Hubby and I went to Atlanta last year, me tagging along on another business trip, and we ate at Fogo De Chao. It was a really cool experience and the food was amazing. We are going there again on our trip in May. Here is the link if you want to check it out. http://www.fogodechao.com/
While you are in Atlanta, you have to go to the botanical gardens, I love them so much! This kids garden in the botanical gardens is also absolutely darling!
Steph
Fogo De Chao is awesome!! Also Taverna Plaka or Kyma if you like Greek food.
Susan
Ooooooooooooh thank you Steph! Ü Wiping the drool off my keyboard now. Ü
Susan we LOVE Greek food as well.......thank you! Ü
I also LOVE seafood........the fresh stuff is pretty rare on the prairies. ;) Where would y'all suggest we go to sample (pig out) on it?
Pam
p.s. the Botanical gardens and the Atlanta aquarium are at the top of my *must see* list!
Atlanta Fish Market is pretty good.
ecobiangie :) would this be it: http://www.buckheadrestaurants.com/afm.html (looks like a # of restaurants are listed there).
What dishes are a *don't miss" truly Southern dish?
That's a hard one to answer. Depends on who you ask. My dad would probably say hog jowls or liver and onions, black eyed peas, and turnip greens.
Some could eat barbeque every week but once a month is plenty for me. Brunswick stew is a popular side item with barbeque here.
I used to love fried chicken (seems like we had it once a week) but my wife won't make it anymore so now I have to make do with chicken fried chicken and white gravy at Cracker Barrel.
Thanks hcmcdole :).........Southern Fried Chicken with white gravy; a southern BBQ; liver and onions, black eyed peas, and turnip greens; Brunswick Stew; I'd be happy to try. I think I'll skip hog jowls however........for some reason or other my tummy thinks of it in the same way as *prairie oysters,* Not that strong stomach here. ;S
Edited to say after reading this I'm thinking I might try them:
"Hog jowls are the star of the menu. I was just as reluctant to try them as I was to try frog legs - they don't sound very appetizing.
Hog jowls are seriously in need of a classier sounding name - like caviar instead of "fish eggs", because hog jowls are actually very good.
Looking for the rationale behind hog jowls, I found this:
Pork is traditional because the New Year is a time to look forward and a hog can not look back.
If you've ever considered starting your own blog, I can think of no better reason than hogs not being able to look backwards. It's amazing what sort of information you can dredge up with Google, and it never hurts to increase your store of useless knowledge.
I'm all for looking forward, but taking judicious looks backward has it's advantages, too. Just ask the hog.
I'm not sure why jowls, and not pork chops or ham or a yummy rack of spare ribs or a nice pork roast - along with everything else, the price of hog jowls has soared.
I'll hazard a guess that at one time, jowls were cheap because - well, who would buy them?"
Will check the ingredients for Brunswick Stew........just to be sure. ;)
This message was edited Mar 15, 2007 6:07 PM
minus the smoky additive I think I could handle it. :)
Dreamland has the best BBQ and Brunswick stew in my opinion. Their stew tastes exactly like my mama's did and it doesn't have that smokey additive.
I cook good ole southern food at least once a week. Hubby brings fresh turnips or collards, sweet potatoes in from north Ga mountains when he works up there.
hcmcdole, you are lucky! Hubby won't take me to Cracker Barrel any more. We used to go there all the time when we were dating. Guess I shouldn't have learned how to cook LOL!!!
Susan
ecobioangie I just looked at the Atlanta Fish Market's menu and am going to start putting the $$$ away. :^))) My, oh my, that looks GOOD! Ü
Dreamland and Cracker Barrel have just been added to our list! :D
We used to go to middle TN in the summer for two weeks to visit my grandmother and step-grandfather when I was a kid. They raised pigs and chickens for eating but the few cattle they raised were for money. Anyway after they slaughtered a hog, it wouldn't be a surprise to see a hog's head (the brain was already sitting in a dish for the next morning's scrambled eggs which my dad usually had - yuk) and feet in a cast iron pot boiling away on the pot belly stove. They usually stripped the meat and fat off of this and added salt, pepper, and some other spices (kind of like sausage) and put this concoction in a loaf pan. The pans went into the freezer and anytime you wanted a sandwich, you would slice off a slab of this and slap it between two pieces of bread. The common name was souse but it tasted like chilled grease to me.
That's the one Lilypon!
Atlanta Fish Market is my favorite. I usually ask to go there for my birthday.
Just my .02 worth!
If you can find a place that really does fried frogs legs justice .... it is a treat not to be missed, sweeter than clams, more tender than chicken, too die for.
I took a friend out for a frog leg dinner (while our wives were doing a baby shower thing) at a good restaurant in Seneca NY. he had never had them before (yes there was a good restaurant in Seneca)(I think it was called the hotel Romulas) anyways when we returned to retrieve the wives he had a frog leg bone behind his ear,
Nights (and dinners) like that are not soon forgot (even with my failing memory).
Ü This is sounding soooooooooooooo incredibly awesome! Ü Guaranteed we *will* be going to the Atlanta Fish Market!!!!! I'll also bring smelling salts for my DH (he'll need them after seeing the bill ;).
hcmcdole I'll be avoiding anything with souse!!!!!! :S My FIL talked about his mother making him sandwiches like that in the dirty thirties.
Dyson I haven't gone out of my way to eat Frog Legs but years and years ago I waitressed where they were on the menu. Like you I've heard they taste wonderful. Actually I did unknowingly try them........my mother made a Chinese stir fry dish with them (didn't tell us beforehand). Afterwards, when my father found out, his face turned a unusual shade of green. None of us trusted her cooking for a loooooooooooong time after that. But I must admit we thought it was a very tasty chicken while we were eating it.
There is an out of the way Chinese buffet in Duluth called Grand Buffet, in the same parking lot with Home Depot that serves frog legs. They have the freshest sushi I have found around here too. It is all made fresh right in front of you along with the oysters that they crack open. Ya'll are making me hungry!
Oysters!, In my youth - (long ago & far away), I worked in a seafood processing plant, my official title was "oyster shoveler" the job involved using a snow shovel to place oysters on a conveyor which took them through a steamer to the next room where the "shucker's" would remove them for packaging. If I properly loaded the conveyor i could "overload" the shucker's and gain about a five minute break & so started keeping an oyster knife in my back pocket. I ate a lot of oysters that year. I think it was a good year.
Dyson my DH was wondering if you also had Tabasco and lemon juice in your back pocket?
The way Oysters are best is when you knock them against the side of the boat to get some of the mud off and pop them open - no seasoning required. Man I miss those Oysters,
I prefer mustard greens to turnips,,, or a mix of mustard, turnips, kale.. with cornbread, fresh peas (any kind.....)and lots of fresh vine-ripe tomatoes... sigh,,, come on summer. Oh yes, how about peach cobbler for dessert... LOL, Elaine
Something I did last fall and enjoyed enormously was the CNN tour. I'm a big fan of CNN anyway. It's right across the street from the Aquarium, which I really didn't enjoy at all. I don't like to see the critters endless circling looking for a way out. There is a fabulous seafood restaurant in the CNN complex, fresh fish flown in daily, pricey but worth it, imo.
Before you go to the Botanical gardens, you should eat breakfast down the street at the Flying Biscuit. :) it's the one on Piedmont.. if you go on a weekend, be prepared to wait for a table!
http://www.flyingbiscuit.com/
Also, the aquarium gets very busy as well.. If you go, buy tickets online and go first thing in the morning before the crowd gets there.. I'm a season pass holder and they just cut down their hours for those of us that enjoy peace and quiet.
Love fish market.. Lunch menu is more reasonable $$ I think. My husband and I use to Love Nava to.. also in the group, but then we had kids and don't get to Buckhead for dinner as much any more. A fellow diner there told my husband and I that we were surely "In love" while on our second date.. My then boyfriend was embarrassed to the point of turning red.