Great Atlanta ____ Series: Best Atlanta Breakfast

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Today we’ve got a guest blogger here at Around the Table. Bradley is the brother-in-law of G&G’s CEO, as well as plain-old-brother to the VP of Tasting. As part of his job, Bradley has logged thousands of miles driving around the state of Georgia (point to some town you’ve never heard of on a map and odds are that Bradley has not only been there but had a meal there). This puts him in a unique position to evaluate our regional delicacies. One of his many culinary passions is breakfast, and he’s here to divulge who’s got the best in Atlanta.

Stepping through the doors of Home Grown is an experience unto itself. Each of your senses is immediately greeted: the twinkling of the door bells, the smell of hot breakfast on the skillet, the smile of a waiter behind the counter telling you to sit anywhere. It's like stepping into a new world where fifties diners are run by today's hipsters (not the bad kind of hipster, but rather the nice ones who would love to tell you about their organic garden and latest nontraditional-medium art project). Every detail about the table, silverware, and food screams downhome cooking (drinking coffee in those heavy white mugs always makes it taste better, right?), while the walls are littered with small art exhibits and a permanent collection consisting of what can only be referred to as happily cannibalistic cartoons. And the cannibals beckon you to a glorious breakfast.

I realize that to say Home Grown makes the best breakfast in town is completely subjective. Personally, I like my breakfasts simple and straightforward: good eggs, great pancakes, and sizzling bacon or sausage. The ‘most important meal of the day’ is all about comfort, and comfort is simplicity for me. I will concede that some may like other breakfast spots with more sophisticated or complicated menus as opposed to Home Grown’s short but sweet selection. One assertion, though, is completely objective: Home Grown has the best chicken biscuit around.

My god the chicken biscuit. Anyone who's been to Home Grown knows exactly what I mean. For me there is something unendingly perfect about the chicken biscuit as a breakfast item. It reminds me of crack-of-dawn mornings before school or work where you know you need an extra kick in the pants to get started. Somehow that biscuit makes the rest of the day seem imminently conquerable. It is also distinctly Southern. I have traveled far and wide across the southeast eating chicken biscuits everywhere from large restaurants to backwoods gas stations. The most delightful morsels I have ever tasted exist solely on Memorial Avenue at Home Grown. On the menu they list “Comfy Chicken Biscuit” as an entree where the item is served open faced with a generous portion of gravy. As a purist I would personally recommend asking for a plain chicken biscuit, but dive into the “Comfy” if you feel so inclined. Fair warning: once you have one, you will want to come back tomorrow and eat two.

The rest of the menu is punctuated by a few prearranged meals and a long list of a la carte items. The French toast sandwich is fun; the fresh omelet is delicious; and I'd strongly recommend the pancakes. I may even go as far to say that they are some of the best I've ever eaten. They perfectly straddle that line between fluffy inside and crispy outside, with just the right amount of innate sweetness balanced with their warm maple syrup. With all the choices, don't think that you'll order the pancake dinner and get a side item too. These pancakes are huge, and you get three with the pancake meal. If you're able to polish off the entire meal you'll be ready to run outside and chop trees with the other lumberjacks or go on a Jack London-sized arctic adventure. I recommend ordering just one and getting another side item or substituting a pancake into the basic breakfast meal.

For those dragging themselves out of bed a little later, Home Grown also serves lunch and a daily assortment of pies and snack cakes. Lunch is a standard (but great) meat-and-three set up.

After you've fully stuffed yourself, finished you coffee, and paid at the counter you can wander through the back room, which has tables for overflow seating as well as a strange assortment of thrift store items - a good way to prolong the unwelcome exodus from the warm confines of Home Grown.

Stay tuned for Bradley’s next entry. I’ll try to talk him into divulging his secret best barbeque spot in the state (its in a town you’d never guess with a thousand tries).