Steamed Veggies in White Wine
Cafe Michel in Smyrna, GA
I recently visited two restaurants for Sunday brunch. The first, a local favorite restaurant of ours, Cafe Michel in Smyrna, Georgia and the other, an “organic” place in the Buckhead area of Atlanta, Georgia by the name of R. Thomas.
I had been to Cafe Michel many times before in it’s quaint nouveau city centre style, however this time it was different. We immediately noticed at Cafe Michel that the place had been renovated and was looking more ‘clean lined’ in its design and layout. We were at first distracted by the new faces there, (we believe it is now under new ownership) but by the time the food and drinks came, we were very pleasantly surprised. I ordered steamed veggies in white wine, with no salt and for a drink I had an espresso followed by their locally grown organic Blue Mountain house coffee. It couldn’t have been more perfect. The veggies were divinely seasoned with herbs and spices, and steamed to nutrition perfection in a luscious fruity white wine. To die for! After relishing every single one of the veggies, I noticed that on the bill the total sum of my coffees were surprisingly more expensive than the main course of my vegetables! I think my total was about $5 or $6. Nice to the figures! (Body AND bank).
We originally went to R. Thomas thinking that we were going to Huey’s, a special place to my husband and I, since we went there for our honeymoon breakfast for beignets and Louisiana chickory coffee. We sadly found out that Huey’s was now closed and out of business, but next door among cages of singing paradise tropical birds we found R. Thomas. As being one who now more often orders special orders or special preparation, I can only imagine the words and phrases used by the grumbling waitstaff and chefs about me. Now don’t get me wrong, I am generally the type of person who would never make a fuss about anything and would rarely if ever send food back to the chef. For me intrinsically it goes against my being to “order special”, however, with certain diet preponderances, the NEW me (for the last year and a half or so) has little problems being a bit more bold to ask for special preparations. “No butter, no oil, no dairy, no salt or salt substitutes and absolutely no sugar”. At R. Thomas, I was really surprised that a seemingly “organic” and “healthy” type restaurant had a haltingly deliberate waitstaff refusal to prepare my dish with no oil, and no cheese. Unfortunately the veggie omlette was dripping in some strange orange oil and even though I requested no cheese, it was sadly delivered with cheese oozing from the inside. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love cheese, but I decided to not make a fuss since we were meeting an important businessman for the first time, so I picked at it, and paid a hefty price there too. The omlette was about $9.00 and I lost no weight that week! So the lesson was learned to never ‘order special’ at R. Thomas. But the birds were cool. http://twitvid.com/BAA9F
Man! One would think that in our republic of America that I could ‘have it my way’ and order how I pleased at a restaurant, especially if it is food that I am putting into MY body, in an ‘organic’ restaurant, no less. WRONG! The handsome and seemingly accommodating waitress that reminded my ‘important businessman’ of Jamie Lee Curtis around the eyes, quickly and curtly said “oh no, we can’t cook without oil” and ‘we can’t cook with non-stick spray”… “because we’re organic”. What a bummer and what a waste. What was delivered was a plate of oily disappointment under the guise of ‘health food’ that I could hardly eat. Later, one of my ‘foodie’ friends, Polly, a tulip farmer who lives in the state of Washington that I’ve known online for about a year and a half now, snarly suggested to me the next time to I go out to eat to tell them that I am allergic to butter, oil, dairy, salt and sugar. That way they would not have to deal with me going into anaphylactic shock right in the middle of their precious restaurant. I will definitely remember to use that one! Thanks Polly, I will do just that! Not only will I be happier but healthier too.
Ken Cook, (left) American Liberty Alliance http://voter2010.com and Ken Marrero (right) hamming it up
R. Thomas in Buckhead, GA
