Crawfish Shack Seafood - Druid Hills - Emory - Atlanta Georgia

You can find Crawfish Shack Seafood at 4337 Buford Hwy Ste 170, Atlanta, GA 30341 in a small shopping center on the east side of Buford Highway. Parking is in a small lot out front - typically there's plenty in the evenings but during lunch it may get a bit full.

Crawfish Shack Seafood is one of a very popular trend in Vietnamese-Creole cuisine that makes tons of sense when you think about how these flavors compliment each other. This is some tasty spicy food that will get your mouth tingling and other parts heated up. I love, love this style of seafood goodness, which is clearly defined by the seafood boils but widened out a bit with fried items, fresh raw eats (oysters), creamy slaw and steamed/boiled veggies (broccoli and potatoes).

On this latest occasion I met up with my regular Buford Highway Restaurant Crawl group and quite a few people showed - seems they all wanted to try Crawfish Shack for the first time to again. We even had an appearance of our vegan member and she managed to have quite a bit to eat. 

Come here with the thought of having your arms elbow deep in steamed goodness and you'll do fine - don't wear anything nice as opening up some of these will get you covered is spatter. I particularly like the extra spicy everything boiled Shack-tastic Seafood platter (Cajun boiled snow crab, blue crab, crawfish, mussels, shrimp, corn, Andouille sausage and red potatoes) or the mixed Fried-Tastic Seafood platter (fried crawfish, shrimp, soft-shell crab fish (choice of catfish, lilapia, swai, red snapper or grouper) with fries and hush puppies. These are priced per person but you get a little break the more people you add. This last time I also splurged with a cup of gumbo and it was surprisingly good - next time I'm ordering a bowl. 

In all this was a great experience with plenty to gnaw on and great times had by all. I liked everything I tried and would recommend this place for someone new to this style of cooking. Service was quite good even with our large party - the people here are efficient and good about answering questions about the food (and what's vegan/non if that's a concern).

(also posted to Yelp)

Sabor Dominicano - Druid Hills - Emory - Atlanta Georgia

You can find Sabor Dominicano at 4186 Buford Hwy NE Ste M, Atlanta, GA 30345 in the same shopping center as Pho Dai Loi 2. This is just up the hill and north of Plaza Fiesta. Parking can be a bit of a challenge as there are several businesses that feed into the same lot - best to go on slightly off times. Late night Sabor becomes a disco, I believe as there's a DJ booth (but that may just be on the weekends) - something that's rather common in restaurants on Buford Highway, especially closer towards Atlanta.

I met a few friends as part of my Buford Highway Restaurant Crawl group - besides offering up some rather authentic Dominican cuisine, the restaurant has a pretty awesome buffet (1-4 I believe) - in the evenings it starts to wind down but for lunch there's some great eats at very reasonable prices. They typically have Bacalao (salted cod) and boiled yucca on the buffet. If you're in a group order the appetizer platter - you'll enjoy an assortment of flavors so you'll get to sample a lot of what Dominica has to offer.

The people here are really nice and good about describing the various dishes. My favorite time to come is during lunch after 1:00 - it's definitely a winner and you don't get stuck trying to find a parking space. I think everyone enjoyed the food quite a bit.

-- John

(Also posted to Yelp)

Carnitas Michoacan - Druid Hills - Emory - Atlanta Georgia

You can find Carnitas Michoacan at 4166 Buford Hwy NE Ste 1050, Atlanta, GA 30345 about in the middle of the Plaza Fiesta shopping center/mall. Plenty of parking out front provided one of the frequent carnivals isn't taking up half the lot (even then there's space on the ends and other side).

John F and I hit this place Thursday night as part of our regular weekly Buford Highway Restaurant Crawl - this is a couple of shops over from Asian Pearl Buffet. This is your typical Latino restaurant where you order from large wall-mounted menus at the counter. After about 10 minutes you get your food hot, so there's really minimal service. I got the impression that the people working here aren't used to your typical American diners, but fortunately there are plenty of photos available to help you make your selections.

Carnitas are a particularly tasty version of roasted pork - the chunks of pork are slow roasted in lard until tender. I've had good and bad versions of this dish - I've read that it originated in the state of
Michoacán so I had high expectations. Unfortunately it appears that I've been jaded as the pork dish here (which is really reasonable, comes with rice, beans, corn tortillas and a drink for $10.49) was a bit dry - nothing like my favorite restaurant for this dish, Los Bravos (which serves huge chunks and a delicious roasted red pepper sauce). Other than the meal being fairly cheap and filling, I'd call the food here "average" and nothing special.

The restaurant was clean and well lit with only a handful of customers - we did get here at 8 which was near the usual closing time. The people behind the counter were very efficient and did a good job answering questions. I'm giving this place 3/5.

(also posted to Yelp)

Asian Pearl Buffet - Druid Hills - Emory - Atlanta Georgia

You can find Asian Pearl Buffet Hibachi Grill at 4166 Buford Hwy NE, Atlanta, GA 30345 in the Plaza Fiesta shopping center - I believe it's the same space that used to be occupied by a popular dim sum restaurant with a similar name. I'm not quite sure when things changed but it's been Asian Pearl for a few years. Parking is out front and there's typically plenty of open spaces, unless there's a carnival in town (which for some reason carnivals seem to setup here a lot).

I attended a short evening meal with John F from my BufHy Crawler group - on this night it was just he and I - I guess the others didn't find the place too appetizing. The most remarkable thing about this place is the buffet itself - it's modeled from a fairly large fishing boat. If nothing else stick your head in this place and checkout the boat - it's quite impressive. The food, not so much.

I hesitate to not recommend a restaurant and unfortunately this is one of those rare occasions. The food was tepid and dry when it should have been hot and juicy. The hot and sour soup had plenty going on but wasn't much in flavor, authentic or otherwise. The sushi I tried was really marginal and I watched the "chef" make the rolls so it wasn't like the stuff had been sitting around.  John settled on a grilled fish and a few crawdads which I think he said were okay other than being a bit cold (but surprisingly not stale) - he did like the raw oysters but they were slow to refill. I tired an assortment of items and for once left still hungry - hard to do at a buffet. 

The people here were rather indifferent (which is typical at buffets is this part of Buford Highway) - this seems to be another buffet that caters to local Latinos - not much communication going on. It was fairly busy so someone likes it. 

(also posted to Yelp)