THE GURGLING COD

Found in translation: Cinco Y Diez

Readers of this space will know that 1) The Cod is a fan of Whitney Otawka's cooking, and 2) Hugh Acheson hates America. So, after Farm 255 shuttered, and Acheson's flagship Five and Ten moved out of Five Points and up next to the Tri-Delts, we were excited to hear that Whitney would be at the controls of the old 5&10 space, reimagined as Cinco Y Diez, and with a Mexican menu to match the name. (So, if you're scoring at home, a Canadian hires a Berkeley-indoctrinated chef to run a Mexican restaurant in the heart of America, which is to say in an SEC town and practically under the nose of the statue of noted American Vince Dooley. Thanks for NAFTA, Obama.) 

But seriously. In a college town, seems like it would be hard to lose money selling burritos. Hell, you could probably empty the Dumpster behind the Varsity into a Diaper Genie and be able to approximate some college town burritos. Fortunately, Hugh and Whitney have chosen a more serious approach. WO spent months traveling and tasting in Mexico -- sounds like good work if you can get it -- and brought back all sorts of knowledge and some goodies. Did you know they make salt w/ ground up mezcal worms in it? I didn't either. 

All of this is to say that Cinco Y Diez is a heroically brave thing - a serious and upscale Mexican restaurant in a college town. It's not quite at the level of Empellon-style WD-50ish trickeration, but the chilaquiles come with chicken confit, rather than, like whatever the chicken in that usually is. As with her food at Farm 255, WO's mania for details and technique shows. The cinetrix were there on a busy Saturday, exactly ten days after the open, and it felt like eating in a restaurant that had been open for months. (I know Whitney a little bit, and we were well taken care of, but meals at adjacent tables moved crisply along, too.) There's practically nothing on the menu we did not want to investigate, but the chilaquiles and huarache were early standouts. The only slight hiccup came in the sequencing of dishes, which we could have avoided if we'd been clearer about who wanted to eat what.

Between restaurant success in Athens and ATL and soon in Savannah, Georgia has been berry berry good to Hugh Acheson. As such, it's gratifying to see him put one of the best cooks in the state back in a restaurant kitchen, and to push the conversation about food in his home town. One of the impressive things that always impresses the Cod about the Anglo Five & Ten is how it manages to keep regulars engaged with new dishes, while keeping a comfortable base of familiar items for the birthday/anniversary/graduation/semiformal crowd. On the other hand, it's impressive to see that Mexican Cinco Y Diez makes no concessions to the much lower common denominator of the college town Mexican joint. The margaritas cost eight dollars and fit in a standard highball glass. They are available on the rocks or up. Frozen is not in the discussion. The word "burrito" does not appear on the menu, not to mention "quesadilla." There are tacos, but braised lamb neck barbacoa w/ sorghum and mint salsa verde, or wood roasted hen-of-the-woods mushroom, or fried Apalachicola oyster tacos. As the kitchen settles in, there will be still more imaginative dishes, one imagines. 

CYD was busy when we were there, and the Cod hopes it stays that way. From here it looks as if Hugh Acheson is betting some of his success and celebrity that Athens is ready for a place like this. Certainly, Whitney Otawka's talent and focus tilts the odds in his favor. I'll be back soon, if only to see what this pozole is all about. 

Mark Richt has lost control of Hugh Acheson!*

Or, to put it another way, Hugh Acheson STILL hates America. This is an old trick from this Canadian operative. Started in 09, kept at it that year, also openly undermined the 'Dawgs in 2010. Last year, he insinuated himself with real Americans thanks to a cookbook, but it's clear he was biding his time, waiting for an opening. And now, on day of the biggest game the Dawgs have played in some time, he goes and does this (see at right) This time, he nods in the direction of social responsibility by calling the cornish hen a "petite Gamecock," but how will the roasted beets and bavette steaks help Georgia fans FOCUS? 

*An asterisk for that asterisk over there: You better hope your busboy has a smartphone, because that's how you will get "score updates," because The National has exactly one flatscreen TV for each Beard-winning chef in Columbia, SC. 

*Mark Richt loses control of lots of things. It's what he does. 

Farm 255 is the truth.

The Cod does not have much to add to my immediate take on Farm 255. I'd eaten there back in the day, enjoyed it, but I gather in the intervening years Farm 255 had become a victim of the popularity of its own burger. You do that well, that's what people want, and it's hard to escape. But, Whitney Otawka, formerly of 5 &10, and a recent Top Chef participant, took over the kitchen in December, and has it going on. Richman is a fucking troll, and his takedown of Husk is bullshit, but I'd agree, in general, that reverently sourced ingredients might be necessary for a good meal, but they are not sufficient. Farm is serious about what comes in the back door, but they pay a lot of attention to what happens in the kitchen, too.

It's a big, energetic room -- the cinetrix was holding it down at Strange Beauty, so I was solo, sitting at the bar w/ a view of the open kitchen. Started with a winter salad that did the fried Brussels sprout thing better than anyone I'd experienced. I know Whitney from 5&10, and good goodguy treatment in the form of a shrimp roll (like a lobster roll, but tiny, and shrimp -- a blast of summer and New England on a rainy Feb night in Georgia). The main was braised pork shoulder w/ heirloom Santa Maria (?) beans. It's exactly the kind of dish where sometimes you see a restaurant spend more time writing the menu than cooking the food, but technique here made for a hearty but refined plate of pork and beans. Dessert (foisted on me) was a chocolate and banana thing that transcended its parts. There are other nice spots to eat in Athens, but there is always room for another spot that does it the right way, and does it well. 

Hugh Acheson -- hating America less than usual?

After decades in the USA, has Canadian chef Hugh Acheson softened his steely rejection of us and our cherished customs? 

Signs point to yes. For one thing, some love from the Oprah Winfrey, #1 American for Acheson's pimento cheese.* The receipt is from Acheson's jawn A New Turn in the South, the which just fell into the Cod's grubby little fins. First thing out of the box was a roasted cauliflower soup that was ridiculous. More on the book soon here. Second, this week's prix fixe at Five and Ten involves spicy Buffalo sweetbreads. Sweetbreads fried crisp, tossed in  hot sauce and served with blue cheese, carrot and celery slaw? Indubitably wrong, but wrong in a way that makes right seem overrated. 

What with the pimento cheese and the Buffalo sweetbreads, Five and Ten is only a dozen or so flat screen TVs shy of becoming a reasonable facsimilie of what a BW3 in Valhalla would look like!

 

*November is pimento cheese awareness month, so get ready! 

Hugh Acheson still hates America*

 Last year, we uncovered a conspiracy whereby the Canadian government was traning chef/owners, sending them to America, and embedding them in college towns where they would undermine the fabric of the community by serving delicious prix fixe meals on gamedays, in restaurants WITHOUT EVEN A SINGLE TELEVISION MONITOR. Disgraceful. Amazingly, not only did the National do this openly, they did it more than once. 

One might imagine that last night's debate between the next President of America and the lady and the health care nut would have us all suffused with new flushes of patriotism, and focused on the family, college football, and other key American values, but some people you just cannot reach. During one of the most critical early season contests for the second most powerful half of the most important football conference in the USA, the National is doing this.  During the game! While young Gamecocks and Bulldogs play their hearts out for America, the National would have you nibbling on "braised rabbit orecchiete pasta," or "roasted Boston blue cod, with a GA shrimp remoulade." Disgusting.

In a followup investigation, we asked if televisions had been installed since last season, National proprietor admitted Peter Dale "No TVs but we can stream on the 13" MacBook."   

A 13" Macbook. As if an Internet connection and a tiny screen could convey the genius of the one they call Don Esteban, AKA Stephen Garcia, the only Division One college football player with a Tiny Floating Matthew McConaughey guiding him? Sad.  

If you find yourself in Athens this Saturday, you will be able to find lagers in aluminium bottles, multiple hi-def screens pumping ESPN, and chicken wings of many degrees of hotness. Everywhere except for The National, that is. Forewarned is forearmed, Bulldogs and Gamecocks.

*Technically, Hugh Acheson's partner Peter Dale runs the National, and handles the details of this Canadian conspiracy. 

  

 

Monobrow Preservation Society swag coming soon!

UPDATE: The actual shirts will look like this.

Cod fave Hugh Acheson tweeted: Check our fine t-shirts at the Empire State South shop! And coming soon is my "Monobrow Preservation Society" t-shirt! Evidently, the brow is taking on a life of its own, and props to Hugh for rolling with it.

Through sources, we were able to get a leaked version of an artist's conception of this design:

Save an XL for the Cod! 

Party in the CSA

Hrr in the Dirty, CSA warrants some disambiguation, but in this case, it's a a Georgian who might be stewing about the Plains of Abraham instead of Appomatox. Cod fave Hugh Acheson walks you through his CSA box, which about what those of us in zone seven can expect nowadays. I encourage getting after the grilled romaine. Contrary to appearances, Duke's mayonaise is not part of the Woodland Gardens CSA distribution, which is too bad, because that would be awesome. 

An Intown Empire

Stop me if you've heard this one: a much-loved chef muscles on out of his empire in a relatively bohemian neck of the woods to open up an high stakes kind of place in a big hotel in a fancier part of town. 

It happens in the 404, as well as the 212. With Empire State South, Hugh Acheson heads on down the Atlanta highway from the relative comfort of his Athens troika of Five and Ten, The National, and Gosford Wines, and opens Empire State South, in a big office building in downtown Atlanta, hard by the Wyndham Hotel, and a restaurant called Mojito's.  

I must begin at the end. If you do nothing else there, no matter what your business in Atlanta, at whatever time of day, the Resentin is a must. It's a shot of espresso with a shot of Marolo Moscato grappa back. You drink the espresso and swirl the grappa in the cup. Just go on in and ask for the Friulian Speedball, and you will be pleased with the result -- drinking this is like one of those nights when you are wandering around, minding your own business, when you pass by Lawrence Taylor and Asia Argento's karaoke wedding reception, and LT asks you to sing backup on "Ace of Spades," and Asia's kid sister winks at you, and the next thing you know the two of you are playing chicken with hydrofoils and she jabs you in the neck with an Epi-Pen and you wake up drifting in a dinghy off the coast of Sardinia, not regretting a moment. Seriously, any Atlanta undertaking, from a sales meeting, to chasing Matty Ice around the Georgiadome, to going ham at a Junior League tea, you will do better with a Friulian Speedball under your belt. 

And the food is good, too. It was what is notionally "autumn" in Atlanta, so I went with a pork belly starter, and short ribs for the main. The cinetrix had the tuna crudo, and catfish. The mains, are for the most part, consistent with what Athenians have come to know and love at Five and Ten -- there is a conceit of ESS as a haute mean n three, so the sides are serious -- radishes w/ salsa verde were especially nice, though the collards were weirdly sweet, the only food misstep. The (comped) oysters were impeccable and included a remarkably meaty PEI variety I'd not seen before. 

Since it's Acheson, there is a serious beverage program, both in the wine and cocktail department. I started with a riff (port) on a Manhattan of which I was suspicious, but revealed its impeccable logic with each sip. The bar area is cozy, but it is worth remembering that as a Canadian, Hugh Acheson hates America, which means there are zero televisions in the restaurant. 

The service we got was friendly and attentive, without being too much of either, which transplanted Yankees appreciate. Considering the dystopian, Robocoppy vibe of the location (not far from where Phillipe Fernandez-Armesto was arrested for jaywalking), it's a remarkably warm room. There is a bocce court outside, and if you think I am mad at that, you don't know the Cod. Still, the location means it's a verry different crowd than Acheson's Athens spots -- more cosmetic dentistry and hair laquer, fewer folks who have a copy of Chronic Town on Hib-Tone somewhere. Some sense of this challenge was evident when a trio of ladies came in and sat near us, perused the menu, then informed the waiter that they "had a problem with the trout," and that they "didn't like gin" (3/6 of the specialty cocktails featured gin). Acheson is clearly ready for Atlanta, and the Cod hopes that Atlanta is ready for Acheson. 

 

Dorito Salad!

Busy times here. But enjoy the Dorito salad reportage. Also, the secret to delicious collards? Infant. That's something the Lee Bros. won't tell you.

Bad news from GA/Good news from SC

The Gurgling Cod's efforts to speak truth to power have availed not. Not even a foe as formidable as LSU can persuade The National to get with the program and abandon its pernicious turn-your-back-on-the-Bulldogs-eat-delicious-food initiative. Once again, Hugh Acheson's band of Bolsheviks will be offering a prix fixe special during the LSU game. It's a shame, esp. when one considers that the same effort applied to , say, leaving corn dogs in the middle of busy intersections could really reduce LSU's rooting presence.

The news is better a few exits up I-85. At a small agricultural institute, a group of revolutionaries are dedicated to spending Saturdays the right way. This is tailgating Realpolitik -- it's not what you want to know, it's what you need to know. Viva la Revolucion!