Around the World in Five Miles

publication date: Jun 23, 2008

 | 

author/source: Alan Sverdlik / STAFF

By Alan Sverdlik / STAFF

Whether seen by the sun-dappled light of day or when the street lamps float shadows among the leaves of towering oak trees, a five-mile strip of Windward Parkway is as true a restaurant row as you’ll find in the metro area.

A recent count found 60-odd restaurants within a span that begins at the juncture of Highway 9 and dead ends after the busy thoroughfare crosses Ga. 400 in the eastbound lane. From a motorist’s vantage point, the effect of all this culinary commercialism is kaleidoscopic; at 10-plus restaurants per mile, the neon-lit names are at best a blurry, split-second frame, especially since people fly by as if Windward was a NASCAR straightaway.

But it doesn’t take a photographic memory to recognize the wide range of cuisines. You’ll find multiple versions of American-style bistros, Pacific Rim, South of the Border, pizza joints, upscale Italian, Mediterranean and that overused catchall known as eclectic. As Alpharetta and Roswell restaurant goers fill in the gaps in their local dining knowledge, they’ll find an unusually high percentage of good food to bad, at all price levels. Moreover, the restaurant scene is dominated by independent chef/owners who have yet to be squeezed out by the chains.

“It dawned on me how many good choices we have when I took my wife’s parents out to dinner,” says Eric Golden, applying chopsticks to a plate of cold noodles with sesame sauce at Chin-Chin, a Chinese eatery whose neighbors serve Greek and Indian fare as well as sandwiches and pizza. Cooling his palate with iced Oolong, a murky herbal tea, Golden adds, “We ended up at Mama Fu’s,” a popular pan-Asian lunch spot, “because her folks like the Ahi tuna appetizer.”

Unlike the strip mall feel outside the entrances of Windward Parkway’s dining spots, restaurant rows are traditionally urban set pieces, bunched together on quaint but touristy blocks, romantically lit to allure pedestrians. In intown Atlanta, the cluster of restaurants in Virginia-Highlands and Inman Park evolved from the classic model.

With suburbanization, however, a new configuration emerged in boomtowns like Alpharetta.

According to those who’ve watched Windward Parkway turn into a restaurant row, the vital ingredients were cheap land, an affluent populace and the growing sophistication of the American palate.

“The main restaurant goers and the main spenders are now in the suburbs,” says Annika Stensson, spokeswoman for The National Restaurant Association, which ranks Georgia ninth in a recent survey of the fastest growing restaurant markets, one ahead of Florida but just behind North Carolina.

“These are people at the peak of their careers, whether they’re parents or empty nesters,” she goes on. “Restaurants tend to look carefully at market research and demographics before they open, and they have a good idea of the ideal audience.”

Atlanta-based Tom McElhinny, southeast regional director for Nation’s Restaurant News, the industry bible, says the dynamics of Alpharetta’s restaurant row are favorable because there is enough variety to let uncertain diners “decide on a restaurant on the fly.”

The dense concentration doesn’t necessarily hurt business, he says.

“You put all these restaurants together and they’re going to feed off each other,” McElhinny says.

And if you’re an adventuresome eater, restaurant row allows you to go around the world in five miles.

CABERNET STEAKHOUSE
Night after night, the parking lot is jammed with expensive cars as patrons drop in on Windward Parkway’s most illustrious culinary tenant. Cabernet is not the place to learn the names of obscure French mushrooms, nor is the presentation so artful that you feel like a barbarian when you eviscerate the 54-ounce ribeye. It is a steakhouse in all its manifestations. To wit: The menu needs no translation and the food laps over the plate.

Clubby? No doubt. From the rich stain of the wood to the vaulted ceilings to the onyx leather booths, Cabernet conveys the nouveau-riche sensibility of the asset-rich North Fulton zip codes from which they draw their customers. After all, steak is a symbol of doing well.

Windward Parkway’s 60-plus restaurants provide a wide variety of dining options in a concentrated area to create North Fulton’s version of a restaurant row.

And at Cabernet, it rules: The ribeye for two, rubbed and roasted in rock salt and herbs, is a shock-and-awe campaign against the arteries; while less marbled, the fillet and porterhouse are nutritional minefields as well. But as one GOP heavyweight said long ago (faded Bush-Cheney stickers have stayed the course on the bumpers of the caddies and beamers), moderation is not necessarily a virtue.

Live and let live. And if red meat is not the heart of your matter, try the crab cakes, Chilean sea bass or the signature salad, a pastiche of pear tomatoes, hearts of palm, shaved asiago cheese, artichoke hearts and a creamy basil dressing.

DOSA HOUZE
Dosa is a thin, crisp sourdough crepe made of fermented rice and lentil batter. They are often filled with vegetable medleys or mixtures of vegetables and chicken, but in deference to western palates, chefs sometimes stuff dosas with turkey or tuna. Many are spiced with combinations of ginger, garlic, chili and other less identifiable but equally potent flavors, and they arrive with a side of fresh chutney, “an Indian version of salsa,” as co-owner Raghu Goverdhana puts it.

Dosa houses are more plentiful in south India, the restaurant’s source of inspiration, than curry parlors. A dosa a day? Why not?
The menu, however, offers much more.

A piquant aroma swirls perpetually through Dosa Houze, a no-frills dining room with four columns of tables and helpful, if taciturn, waiters. For connoisseurs, there is little doubt as to the identity of the predominant scent: It’s cardamom, the dusky cousin of ginger and the world’s second most expensive spice. Cardamom also happens to be the subcontinent’s favorite seasoning.

In its chicken, fish and lamb offerings, Dosa is particularly adept at mixing this staple with almonds, saffron, cumin and bay leaves in just the right balance of hot and sweet. Chicken Tikka Masala, cubes of chicken in a thick creamy sauce, and Saag Paneer – finely chopped spinach and cheese rectangles in a similar orangey concoction – arouse the taste buds without overwhelming them. Both dishes cost an average of $12.

In the lilting cadence of their Hindi accents, Dosa’s waiters playfully avoid giving away all the kitchen’s tricks. For instance, some of the starters, like Mulligatawny Soup, a thin, lentil-based broth, go down with a kick. The aftertaste is smoky, a bit like chipotle, but subtler, sexier. See if your server carries on a Dosa Houze tradition and deflects any inquiry into the unnamed spice.

There is hubris in almost every dish, but very little in the minimalist décor: A grand mural of the Taj Mahal is strewn across one of the walls, next to a series of Kama Sutra-inspired prints.

If you choose, you can cool down your palate with a helping of the dessert Ras Malai, dumplings of delicate cheese soaked in sweetened, thickened milk and lightly infused with rosewater and cardamom.

But as the summer broils on, you can also take the staff’s advice and let the savory main courses cleanse and cool your insides.

“Gustatory sweating” is how western authors of Indian cookbooks describe it. It’s a curious concept for a charmingly curious place.

TARAHUMATA MEXICAN GRILL & TEQUILA BAR
You and a date are sipping a 42-ounce lime margarita for two, straws protruding from the tropical green slush in a glass the size of a small flowerpot.

You’re a doomed lover in a Tom Robbins novel? No, you’re seated at the long, sleek bar at Tarahumata, a colonia of the empire that guacamole built, eyeing the exquisite design of a Corazon tequila bottle.

Every Mexican restaurant above the taco-stand must answer a fundamental question at the outset: Will it take the pledge and swear to serve authentic fare with respect for regional differences and prime ingredients, or will it saunter down the cash-strewn path to Margaritaville?

With every dash of ground jalapeno, Tarahumata strives to be virtuous, even if the din of euphoric young voices drowns out waiters’ earnest descriptions of the food and the staff’s endearing, sing-songy Spanish.

Tarahumata specializes in coastal cuisine, a misunderstood element of Mexican cuisine that’s been eclipsed by Americans’ passion for burritos, refried beans and combination platters. Thankfully, there are no ersatz Mexican tapestries on the walls, no sombreros on display, no retro Mariachi ditties blaring from speakers. The use of mission-era wooden chairs and tables, harking back to a more expansive Mexico, is a high-minded concept.

Among executive chef Rudolfo Ramone’s most popular dishes are tilapia tacos, calamari marinated in a red-hot chile sauce and several salmon. The tilapia is bite-sized and dainty, served on a bed of red cabbage. There’s little margin for error in the calamari, a ceviche-style appetizer, but Ramone doesn’t allow the squid to end up either too tough or too mushy, a common pitfall. The salmon is spread on toast points or stuffed inside shrimp.

Specify the degree of hotness when you order guacamole. It can be a superlative avocado experience, achieving the perfect creamy-lumpy balance, but what a waste if your tongue is seared, your taste buds scalded.

You can bid Tarahumata adios without splurging beyond $30 a person. But with 160 premium labels of tequila to choose from, it’s easy to run up the tab much higher. Those who succumb to tequila’s allure need not fret.

You’ll have plenty of company.

ROAM CAFÉ
A cheerful, synthesized voice coming from a Hewlett-Packard laptop greets a guest arriving at Roam Café:

“Name? Number in Party? Modem-ready?”

A habitué of Roam, a techie with a postmodern sense of humor, programmed his notebook to frazzle the already frazzled folks who frequent this sprawling patchwork of café, lounge and business center.

Here, you can take bytes between bites.

At newly-opened Roam, there are eight conference rooms, a 50-seat theater, a spacious patio, free wireless access and a café whose menu is simple but delectable, a mix of mom’s cooking and New American flourishes: butternut squash soup and chicken noodle, BLTs and paninis, salads with Gorgonzola and dried cranberries and even Gouda grilled cheese.

Lunching on cheese tortellini one recent afternoon, Greg Chalmers, a 42-year-old telecommuter in the memory chip business, appeared as animated about the technology around him as he did about his pasta.

“I’m a computer-gadget kind of guy,” he said, “but I kind of feel a step behind the room now.”

Roam is a next-generation Internet café, one of a kind along Windward Parkway’s cheek-by-jowl line restaurants. With its sprawling conference rooms, leather armchairs and plasma-screen TVs, it attracts both the bricks-and mortar and clicks-and-mortar crowds, and at the same time caters their business meetings.

Roam’s house coffee, A-Roam-a, will fire up your synapses. As if these people needed to be any more wired.