Catching up with Richard Blais & Jared Lee Pyles @HD1

Chefs Richard Blais and Jared Lee Pyles of HD1 Restaurant.

This is what a soft opening is all about - I drove past HD1 Restaurant in Poncey Highlands twice before I realized it was the place I was supposed to be for lunch. (Of course, that could be a statement about my driving and directional abilities and the fact that these days it's a bit of a deal for me to drive anywhere other than the traditional Atlanta mom-stops of the Varsity, the botanical garden, the zoo and the aquarium.)

But the building is just the slightest bit off the street and the sign didn't grab me, and so I circled the block twice before parking across the street. I was there for a media lunch with Chef Richard Blais, the Top Chef All-Stars winner and partner in Atlanta's gourmet burger boutique, FLIP Burger. For HD1, Blais and Executive Chef Jared Lee Pyles have created another fun venue, more casual than FLIP, with an inventive menu that pulls the hot dog and all its possibilities off of the kid's menu and out of the ballpark and drops it smack in the middle of the adult's plate before topping it with everything from barbecue and cole slaw to tripe and tongue.

We began by nibbling on pressure-cooked boiled peanuts with African spices (barberry, dried chile, cumin, garlic and onion). They were unbelievably good, as were the lemon pepper chicken wings, gussied up with lemon curd and Szechuan pepper.

HD1's boiled peanuts with African spices. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

As delicious as these items were, we flipped out over the Waffles fries with maple-oy sauce. Chick-fil-a needs to send its fry cooks to apprentice at the hand of the cooks here - these fries were perfectly crisp and not greasy and the Asian-inspired sauce had that sweet and sour thing going. Chef Pyles' sauce is a play on Mae-Ploy chili sauce - it's made of maple syrup, honey, Sambal, rice wine vinegar, cilantro and lime.

Waffle fries with maple-oy dressing. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 And now to the dogs: we tried three and all were very good, but one stood out to my barbecue-loving tastebuds - the Eastbound and Down - a frank topped with Carolina pulled pork, sweet mustard slaw and mop sauce. I liked the combination of the tender, smoky pork and the crisp slaw, that was shredded just right - not too coarse, not too fine. In keeping with the "super-local" mandate of the restaurant, the franks are all made by Atlanta charcuterie The Spotted Trotter. Just as much attention was given to the buns - they are a Northeastern style bun, according to Blais, meant to cradle the dog and toppings. The buns are made according to HD1's recipe, but at an off-site bakery - the recipe is a "Ghana sweetbread, a little like broiche or media noche."

Haute dogs. Photo provided by The Reynolds Group.

We finished the meal with soft serve ice cream - Chef Pyles likes to experiment with flavors, drawing inspiration from the supermarket candy aisle. The flavor of the day was inside-out Whopper - chocolate with malted milk topping.

In addition to showing off the menu at HD1, Chef Blais was very accommodating during the lunch, answering questions about all of his business ventures - including a new restaurant, The Spence, opening at Georgia Tech; a cookbook to be published by Clarkson Potter in Fall 2012; and his stake in a t-shirt company called Tasty Cotton, which features the Blaisian (noun):

"Any individual possessing a fixation towards liquid nitrogen, sous vide or faux hawks."

If you need directions to HD1, I can happily oblige, now that I know the neighborhood so well. HD1 opened without a lot of fanfare and because of the walk-up counter, the waits for food are not long, Blais said.  Parking is conveniently located across the street at the Chelsea building. 664 N. Highland Avenue, Atlanta 30306. (404) 815-1127. www.hd1restaurant.com


Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer, unless noted otherwise.

On the Road: Hot Dogs

Hot dog by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Just like Charles Kuralt, this week I’m on the road for the Salon Kitchen Challenge, checking out hot dogs in Chattanooga, Tennessee, home of the Choo-Choo (pardon me, boys, while I hum a few bars), spectacular views of and from Lookout Mountain and a really cool aquarium. And yes, the All-American hot dog.

For me, hot dogs taste of sweat and sunscreen, saltwater and chlorine. They are staples of ball parks, tourist trap beach towns, children’s birthday parties with clowns, and kid menus all across town. I like hot dogs beefy, with a Pollock-like squidge of ketchup, mustard and pickle relish from little plastic packets, like the one above from the stand outside the Tennessee Aquarium.

When I'm traveling, I try to eat where the locals eat, and on this visit to Chattanooga, my brother recommended Nikki's Drive-in, a diner on a hill just north of the mighty Tennessee River.

Nikki's Drive-In by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Nikki's advertises itself as the "Best Little Seafood House in Town" and the fried shrimp, in all their Gulf-advertised glory, looked fine, but today we went diner-style, with cheeseburgers and chicken strips for the kids and a chili dog for me.

Nikki's Drive-In by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

That's chili-slaw dog, my friends, and Nikki's served it so you can't even tell there's a hot dog underneath the chili. And yes, those are beans in the chili. In fact, the chili is just the way I like it, not the finely ground "hot dog chili" that you find at places like Atlanta's Varsity. ("What'll ya have? What'll ya have?"). There's a place in this world for that fine product, but I prefer a meaty, chunky chili with beans. This dog was topped with a mildly sweet, coarsely shredded coleslaw, the perfect counterpoint to the spicy and meaty goings-on.

Nikki's chili slaw dog by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I'm not going to pretend that we ate wheatberries and seitan for the rest of the meal. We indulged, and ordered a large platter of onion rings, and they were the best I've ever eaten. Not greasy, nor overly salty. Just crunchy, oniony, fried heaven. I suppose in diner-speak, this meal may be considered a "tube steak and lube job." Get your mind out of the gutter, tube steak is another phrase for hot dog and a plate of onion rings should be an indulgence taken no more often than you get the oil changed in your car.

Nikki's onion rings by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Hot dogs are not typical home food for my family- I have young children and hot dogs are a staple of restaurant kids' menus - we eat enough nitrites and nitrates as it is. But, when I do make chili slaw dogs at home, I'd buy high-quality franks and buns and make this chili.

Chili with Beans

1 pound lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
2 (15 oz.) cans chili beans or red kidney beans
1 (14. 5 oz.) can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chili powder

1. In a large pan, cook beef until browned thoroughly. Remove from heat. Pour grease from pan.

2. Add onion and a tablespoon or two of water and cook until soft. Add tomato paste and stir about two minutes. Add beans, tomatoes, water and seasonings and stir completely. Let simmer about 30 minutes.

(adapted from the back of the Bush's beans can.)

For the topping, I make my usual slaw but add a spoonful of sugar. Coarsely shred cabbage, then dress with mayonnaise thinned with a bit of pickle juice, salt and pepper.

Images & Text © 2010, Lucy Mercer.

Miss Abbey by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books