Atlanta

Is it true that Atlanta is the South's food mecca?

I hear you can get really good versions of everything from Mexican taco cart to Southern soul food to ultra high-end molecular gastronomy shit all within in the Atlanta downtown core.

Atlanta is a flyover sprawl ""city"". Try new orleans

That's now how you spell Asheville.

>all within in the Atlanta downtown core

Nah, the actual downtown area is shit. Midtown and the West side is where the exceptional restaurants are. Buford Highway in the northeast part of the city is several miles of food from everywhere, which is pretty awesome too.

Pic is from Gunshow, Lamb Belly with fava beans and pistachios

You mention tacos and soul food as if those are particularly rare things to find in a city, especially in the south.

No, it's NOLA, followed probably by Houston.

For bbq, probably Memphis, Austin, and Bumfuck SC.

Good stuff are hard to find pretty much anywhere.

looks like vomit on a plate.

This man knows his shit. Decatur and EAV have some decent spots too.

Maybe if you're a flyover yeah but in any decently sized city neither of those cuisines are even remotely impressive. Can you get a good hungarian goulash in Atlanta? Burmese tea salad? Do you even have an Afghani restaurant?

t. some UNC kid who thinks he's a southerner now despite the fact that he spent 18 years of his life in Washington, D.C. and he's only 21 years old now

Why do you pretend to like poor people food? Do you really get a dopamine rush from "impressing" strangers on the Internet?

23 actually. Grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, moved to NC when I was 12. Unironically some of the best food and beer I've ever had, granted I haven't traveled much. I'd put it on the same level as NYC, which I have been to.

Guilty as charged on the UNC part though. What can I say? The in-state tuition is dirt-cheap for a university and the quality of education is pretty great too. There's a reason we have students from all over the world attending.

Poor people food is usually better than rich people food because the upper class often ate really bland food devoid of seasoning because seasoning was associated with the proles

The ATL sucks, I've never been there but just reading the Wikipedia page makes me want to puke

This
Memphis all the way
Try Miami
The only thing worthwhile is Atlanta is the airport for layovers to go somewhere else.
>on the same level as NYC
Just fuck off already.

I would say that Houston has a better variety and selection of both quintessential Texan/southern foods, as well as a massive spread of international hole-in-the-wall restaurants that have really great food.

Having that kind of variety isn't impressive. It's like a buffet. Either you overpay for a somewhat decent experience, or you're eating out of the trough like swine.

Not a great picture but this is correct.

Dekalb/Decatur has some good spots. Dekalb has the best farmers market in the state.
Buford Highway is god tier. For some reason all the "ethnic" restaurant owners decided to set up shop on Buford Highway. (Probably because of all the cheap "ethnic" grocery stores that popped up on the road to support the local populations that were also quite "ethnic") Buford highway is cheap establishments serving worldclass tacos, pho, chinese...

There are a couple good places that are just south of the grady curve like The Optimist and Augustine's that I truly love. The fried chicken sandwich at Augustines is just beyond an their beer menu includes price, size of glass, and percent volume - so with a simple spread sheet app and some OC software you can figure out the most frugal way to get shitfaced, and I really appreciate this sort of attention to detail in gastro pubs.

>The ATL sucks, I've never been there
Thanks for the input, totally worth my time to read it.

Goulash at Palacsinta or Stephan's in Marietta. There are several Afghan places.
>Burmese tea salad?
I'm not even sure what that is and don't feel like googling it.

As mentioned, the best restaurants are not in the downtown core; they are spread out all over the place. After NYC, Chicago, LA, and San Fran, Atlanta really does have the next best food scene. Well, actually Atlanta, DC, Philly, Boston, and Miami all kind of end up in a similar group. Any of you Mexicans that mention Dallas and Houston should castrate yourselves (also fuck off with your beta world city classifications).

I should point out that when Michelin was picking a new US city to review they were deciding between Atlanta and DC. Atlanta will be next. It will fare about as well as DC. I expect there will be no 3-star restaurants, 3-4 2-star, and 8-12 1-star.

Former Atlanta cop here. Zone 1 "the bluff" was my beat. Don't come here, it's a big shit hole. The food sucks too.

Baccanalia could get 3, especially with the new location

Southern soul food in Atlanta?

You couldn't be more incorrect. Seasoning was expensive, fats and oils (stuff used for frying) was cheap. Please learn history before posting shit like that ever again

I've heard ATL get referred to as Altantafrica... How accurate is this?

It's extremely segregated, you're either in maumau land or you're not

Not the high school bully, but I have been there

Go to NYC, LA, Boston, or SF, and eat there for a month and tell me you haven't changed your opinion about that.