The Edgewood

Disclaimer: Theoretically my boyfriend-roommate J and I eat out once a week. Since I started this blog, my plan was to eat out once a week. Like, you know, leave the house and find somewhere cool with food. Well, fun fact, we both get home from work, toss around food ideas if we don't feel like cooking and nine times out of 10 order Chinese food.

This particular night, we "ate out" thanks in part to Zifty, which is a fabulous-yet-quite-pricey delivery service that goes to restaurants, picks up our orders and brings them to our doorstep. For like, a $5 surcharge plus tip, which hurts my soul a tad bit.

But on the plus side, we actually tried somewhere new this time instead of our Chinese, Thai or pizza standbys (which I will also blog about, because there's a reason we get food from them so often. It's GOOD).

We ordered from The Mercantile.

The Edgewood sandwich is a play on a Cuban, featuring ham, Swiss, dijon
and homemade pear preserves. It's equally sweet and spicy and comes pressed.

The Atmosphere: Well, since we didn't eat at the restaurant, the location we did eat at (which was our couch) was quite clean and well-kept. Recently vacuumed and an excellent view of the television. But for realskis, check out the website. The Mercantile is an Atlanta bakery, sandwich shop and family-style meal kitchen that has a weekly menu change plus regular staples. It looks quaint and cute, but probably more of a grab-and-go style locale than a sit-down restaurant. Also, I like the logo. I am a big fan of logos. Yes, I am also that person who judges wine based on their labels. Don't hate.

The Food: I took a gander at The Edgewood, a sandwich inspired by the Cuban (ham, Swiss, banana peppers, mustard). The Edgewood featured dijon mustard and homemade pear preserves. But no banana peppers, which I initially found disappointing, but the sandwich was different enough that I didn't miss them much!

The Flavors: Not too shabby. I enjoyed how intensely spicy the dijon was, actually. It melded quite well with the pear preserves, which was a thick spread without chunks of fruit in it. I also liked that the sandwich was pressed, but I think some of that presentation factor was lost given that we ate it out of a Styrofoam box instead of a pretty plate in a cute little Atlanta shop.

The Verdict: The sandwich was good, but expensive given its small size. It also did not come with a side or drink (chips were approximately $2 a bag). I'd like to check out the restaurant itself, as well as some of its other offerings, but probably won't order this one again from Zifty.

Since I'm willing to try here again, here's a sneak peek at my next choice, The Cabbagetown (all of their sandwiches, by the way, are named for Atlanta-area neighborhoods): Peanut butter, chili paste, raisins, apples, cucumber and arugula. I would also add bacon, because homie don't play vegan very well.

It also appears that The Mercantile has free wine tastings. Yo, who's in?

An Eating Habit.

Some people have a coke habit.

I have an eating habit.

I mean, I have a Coke habit too, but mine comes in either an aluminum can or a glass bottle and will give me a heart attack before it gives me an overdose.

That's the premise for this here little journal o' food: not to serve as a food journal to lose weight (because I may work out, but homie don't count calories); not to provide hoity toity, pretentious reviews of restaurants (I tried that once. Atlanta Magazine didn't hire me); but rather to share my eating habit, try some new food and maybe meet some cool people and chefs along the way.

Let's start with the basics.

Me, with "one scoop" of salted caramel pretzel ice
cream in Anna Maria, Fla., during Thanksgiving.
Photo creds to my mom. <3

I am 25. I live in the Virginia Highlands area of Atlanta. It's a pretty swanky place with lots of character, what my mother calls "Craftsman-style" homes and bookoodles of restaurants and shops and somehow like 17 frozen yogurt igloos all within walking distance of my apartment. Sa-weet.
But with my jobs (I work for a tech company and have Mary Kay and knitting customers spread all over the state), I get to do a lot of traveling. Plus my family is still in Augusta, Ga., (ever heard of the Masters? Yeah, that place), so the Meatetarian goes around the country with plenty of places to check out.

I've pretty much been the Meatetarian since I was born, but I came up with the moniker in college when I started my first blog, not-so-coincidentally of the same name. My background is in ag and science reporting, so Meatetarian is a blog centered around the meat we eat, how it's raised and how it goes from animal to carcass to incredible edible. I decided to branch out a couple of years ago to Meatetarian: Foodish, which was supposed to be recipes with meat and animal-based proteins as key ingredients, but I didn't really cook that much, so we see how that ended up.

And that brings us to this latest venture. I credit all inspiration to my little broski, who bought me this book called Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan. I didn't know who Jim Gaffigan was, but dang y'all, did I enjoy that book. It's a series of essays on Gaffigan (he's a comedian) and his forays into food. It's funny. It's engaging. It got me thinking.

Here's my take with Meatetarian Eats. My eating habit takes me lots of places. It's completely paid for by Mary Kay and knitting profits and the money left over from my real job paycheck after I shell out for rent, gas and those unfortunate things called income taxes.

I hope you enjoy eating with me. Who knows, maybe I'll become a famous writer not through my actual writing, but from my ridiculous musings about insatiable cravings for hamburgers.