Fat Matt's with the artistic glow of an iPhone camera

Traveling for business can be good and bad.  Bad that I’m away from family and that it isn’t always convenient to the other commitments I have in my life – have you ever tried to coach a soccer game when you are 1500 miles from the field at game time?  Doesn’t work.  On the good side, there are always new places to eat.

A couple weeks ago I was in Atlanta for some business meetings.  Luckily for us, one of the people I work with lives in Atlanta and she made sure that for our dinner that night we avoided all hint of national chain foods.  We had dinner at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack.  And let’s just say Fat Matt’s is very focused on their food.  Not too much worry about decor, ambience or other ancillary things like those.  That is good thing.

You walk in the front door and run into the order counter.  The menu is focused and to the point.  In the group I was with we ordered a full slab of ribs, a chopped pork sandwich (for me) and several of their side dishes – “Rum” baked beans, coleslaw, brunswick stew – and a slice of pecan pie for dessert.  I’m not much of a BBQ expert so all I can really say is that it tasted good.  The highlight of the night though was the band that setup and started playing about halfway through our dinner.  You can’t really beat southern barbecue in Atlanta listening to some live blues music while you eat.

I would recommend a stop at Fat Matt’s if you are in Atlanta.  Music is live every night of the week.  There is a small indoor dining room and some patio seating out front.

Fat Matt’s Rib Shack
1811 Piedmont Avenue Northeast
Atlanta, GA 30324
(404) 607-1622
www.fatmattsribshack.com

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So for over a year now I have wanted to go back to Roosevelt to try the Round Robin.  Since first hearing about it, with the help of my brother-in-law I’ve learned more about the place:

• When it’s open, it’s only for three days a week, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I think (or maybe it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday).
• I say “when it’s open” because it often closes without warning and will be closed for several weeks before it opens again.  Having family in Roosevelt will be a big help if when we go back, because they can tell us if it is operation before making the two hour drive out there.
• It’s owned and run by a polygamist family, whose leader is known as the Prophet.  He was the one wiping down the tables and keeping the place clean when I was there.
• It was packed the night we were there

And the food…

• they raise cows and butcher their own beef.  Fresh meat on the burgers.
• make their own buns and pickles
• make their onion rings and french fries from scratch
• sell homemade desserts…we bought their sugar cookies and chocolate cake on our visit
• serve incredible slushes (pineapple chunks in the pina colada one) with about 15 flavors to choose from
• make a really good fresh lime slush (definitely don’t miss this one)
• make all their own sodas, True Cola anyone? or Bubbles? or Dr. Robin? or homemade root beer?

So I was there for the first time on a Friday night, late in March.  I ordered a bacon cheeseburger, fries, and their root beer.  And I want to go back and try it again.  I only got tastes of their fresh lime slush, onion rings, fried shrimp dinner, and didn’t try any of their shakes.

It is a unique place with some really good food.  Just be forewarned, even when it’s open the waits can be long.  When we ordered they warned us that it would be about 30 minutes before our food was ready.   Not a place to go when you are in rush, but you can’t say they don’t make it fresh.

Round Robin Drive Inn, location info is on my Utah Drive-Ins map

I have a general rule I follow when trying a new pizza place.   In my mind, if they can’t make a good cheese or pepperoni, then it’s pretty likely they aren’t going to be any better when they add more toppings to the pizza.  So for this first visit we ordered a 20″ pie with half pepperoni and half cheese.  And it was good.  It came hot out of the oven, thin and floppy, kind of a thin New York style.   Oddly enough, the more it cooled, the more crispy and crunchy the crust got.  Don’t take this as a bad thing.  But I’ve never had a pizza quite like it.

Overall well worth the visit and I definitely hope to get back again.  Go eat there before more people discover this and it gets busy.

Slab Pizza
669 East 800 North
Provo, UT
www.slabpizza.com

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I went there with my brother, who tends to the person that is most often with me when trying out new places, especially pizza places.  He was adamant that we get their stuffed crust pizza.  Lucky for us it was a Tuesday night and the Tuesday night special was buy one pizza, get one free.  Pizza one: stuffed crust with sausage and onions.  Pizza two: thin crust with 1/2 pepperoni and 1/2 cheese.

The pizza wasn’t anything that made me put it on my list to get back to anytime soon.  First up was the stuffed crust.  And based on the difficulty of even finding it on their menu board, obviously it is an after thought. A couple layers of their standard crust and some of their standard pizza sauce slathered across the top.  And really heavy.  The toppings were hard to discern in the gobs of cheese on it. My expectations weren’t high on the stuffed crust to begin with and this met them.

While we were eating my brother brought up a good point.  If you go to a Chicago pizza place anywhere outside of Chicago, what kind of pizza do you expect to get?  Not sure about the rest of you, but I definitely expect deep dish.  So either you are a Chicago-style pizza place serving deep dish or you are a pizza place with some really good thin crust pizza.  Why confuse customers by claiming a tie to Chicago and then pushing your speciality as thin crust pizza?   Doesn’t make any sense.  Seems to me that one of the fundamental rules of business is to not do anything that will confuse your customers any more than necessary.  If you are pizza place and you have to justify, on your menu, why your speciality is thin crust pizza because your name has Chicago in it, then change the name.

The thin crust did have some merit.  A cracker-y crust with some straight up sauce and toppings.  If I go back I will stick with that and stay away from the stuffed crust.

Sweet Home Chicago Pizzeria
1442 E. Draper Parkway
Draper, UT 84020
801-545-0455
web: http://www.sweethomechicagopizzeria.com/
on Google maps

Smashburger
542 East University Parkway
Orem, UT 84097
on Google Maps

It ended up being a one day trip. Drive down, sleep overnight, drive home. With lots of stops along the way both going down and coming home. For the one and only breakfast, the youngest brother had been raving for months about the Bear Paw Cafe in downtown St. George. And it was good. Everything you could hope in a breakfast place and which you can’t find anything like, unfortunately, where I live in Provo.

I was torn, as I often am, between something sweet along the lines of pancakes, waffles, sweet rolls, etc, and something not so sweet, like eggs benedict or an omelette. This time I went down the sweet hole and ordered their cinnamon apple stuffed french toast. It turned out to be a good choice. Cinnamon-y, apple-y, sugar-y apples sandwiched between a couple pieces of bread and then french toasted. The other brothers licked off their plates and downed their hot cocoas in an admirable fashion. It’s good that we got there a bit early in the morning. We still needed plenty of time for breakfast to digest before we headed to In-N-Out for lunch.

Just last week I read about Carol’s in an article on the Best of Utah 2009 in City Weekly. Surprisingly, I had never even heard of the place. But having been there now I can see why it might have escaped my attention.

The article in City Weekly claimed they have the best eclairs in Utah, so I put it on my list of places to visit when I had the chance. Fortunately, just yesterday we had to take a trip to the doctors office up in this part of Salt Lake and that provided the perfect opportunity to stop and validate City Weekly’s claims.

Approaching this place from the street for the first time could leave people wondering if they have the right address. The street (Lincoln St, e.g. 945 East) is a residential street in one of Salt Lake’s older neighborhoods (with lots of great bungalow and craftsman style homes).

When you get to the right house number, all that is there is a house. Running along the north side though is an alley way and mounted on the fence is an unobtrusive sign that says “Carol’s in rear” with an arrow pointing down the alley.

With some trepidation we started down the alley, and discovered behind house what looks like someone’s carport. Except that as you can see in the photo, there is a van parked in the carport that says “Carol’s Pastry Shop” on the side. A dead giveaway that a bakery is near.

In this picture (sorry about the quality, all I had with me was my phone) back behind the van in the corner is the actual entrance to this place. At this point I was thinking either I’ve somehow ended at their wholesale location or if this is the entrance and they’ve managed to stay in business for the decades they have, there must be something good here.

Turns out this is the entrance. There is a good sized production bakery in this building with a small retail counter and a couple display cases in front.

Our visit was late in the day and when I asked for some eclairs the gentleman helping said they were out for the day. Oh so disappointed. But he followed that disappoint with this, “…unless you want the big ones.” It took me about 3 seconds to think, “eclairs = good; bigger = better.” And so I said, “I’ll take them.” All of them, I’m thinking, which turned out to be five. Turns out they had some small lemon ones left as well so I got four of those as well.

I feel bad, because as I was ordering two other guys walked in. One of them even asked if was taking the last of the eclairs. Sorry, didn’t mean to ruin your night. The eclairs were good. 1950s era bakery doing old-fashioned style eclairs. Vastly different that the one I had Bouchon Bakery in Yountville several years ago, or from the Bakeri and Eis shop up at Zermatt Resort in Midway, but for what it was, very good. I had another one today, making it a day old. I think there were even better at the end of day two.

I’d like to go back sometime and get there earlier in the day to see what they have and try some of the other things they sell besides eclairs.

Carol’s Cake and Pastry Shop
1991 Lincoln Street
Salt Lake City, UT

From City Weekly…

Carol’s Cakes

Carol, Schmarol … this hidden-away place in Sugar House is operated by Al, Bob and Jeff Walkenhorst–three guys who know their eclairs. And anyone who’s tried baking them know there is an art to whipping up the perfect pte choux, the pastry shell that has to be baked hot and high so it doesn’t deflate and leave no room for that heavenly filling. So Bob and Jeff have learned a thing or two over the years (the bakery has been around for decades). It’s obvious from looking at all their offerings, they’re perfectionists. But those dang eclairs–they’re impossible to resist.

1991 S. Lincoln St., Salt Lake City, 801-484-3442

I’ve been to Este before and written about it in the past. But it has been a long time since my last visit and it was at their other location. Recently I took the other brother to this new downtown location. It was his first visit to any Este location and my first visit to this new location.

Purely by coincidence I ended up eating here twice in the last week or so. A dinner during the week and then lunch on Saturday. Este still rates as some of the best pizza that I’ve had here in Utah and even outside of Utah. Highly recommended as a New York-style thin pizza and well worth the visit whether in downtown Salt Lake City or down in Sugarhouse at their location just off 21st South.

156 East 200 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84101