Piggin Out

What else is there to do during Thanksgiving break besides eat? Not only did I gorge myself Thanksgiving day with my homemade butternut squash risotto, corn souffle, brussels sprouts, stuffing and a little bit of Turkey, but I ate non stop throughout the whole 6 day vacation. Friday night we left our comfortable suburban hideaway in Alpharetta and travelled down to my new favorite Atlanta neighborhood, Decatur. A little city inside a city, Decatur is slowly becoming the new hip area for up and coming restaurants. There's Leons, Cakes & Ale and many others all surrounding a cute little square and a courthouse.

We decided to try the fairly new restaurant owned by a fellow 25 year old, Iberian Pig. Spanish inspired tapas, entrees and desserts - you can't get much better than that after a day full of eating meat and potatoes.

We decided to do a lot of sharing so we started off with a meat and cheese platter of course and round 1 of their amazing bacon wrapped dates stuffed with manchego cheese. You've never had a salty and sweet combination like this. We were so in love with them, we ordered another batch. The meat and cheese was also delicious. We had to try the jamon iberico - from the Iberian black footed pigs from Spain and known to be one of the most prized cured meats in the world. We added some semi sweet sheep's milk cheese similar to a brie but a little harder. The jamon was thinly cut and fabulous, I was even eating it without a bite of bread and cheese.

The tapas kept on coming after that. We got:
Slow braised pork belly with granny smith apples, candied walnuts in a yogurt sauce
Pork cheek tacos
Eggplant fries
BBQ octopus
Wild boar sausage meatballs
Jonah crab croquettes
Handmade tortoloni with drunken goat cheese, manchego in a pistachio creme freshe

and a main entree of Spanish lamb ribs and sausage

The only thing I wouldn't suggest getting again were the crab croquettes. They just didn't have much flavor. The bbq octopus was a little too fishy for me so I stayed away from that but the rest of it was great. The sauce that came with the eggplant fries was spicy, just the way I like it and the meatballs and tacos were probably the favorites. All of the tapas allowed the five of us to get a substantial bite or two and by the end of the meal I couldn't have eaten another thing.

Of course we got dessert though and opted for the churros with chili infused chocolate sauce and the bomba which was a white chocolate ball with four different sorbet flavors inside. Neither desserts were super heavy minus the fried part, and the servings were pretty big and great for sharing.

Obviously, if you keep Kosher or don't eat meat (especially pork) Iberian Pig might not be the best option for you. However, they do have a great cocktail list and a very reasonable wine list with some easy options of wine starting at pretty darn good to quite good and then damn good.

Decatur is a must visit if you live in Atlanta or are just visiting and you can even make a night of it and visit Eddie's Attic for some live music and dance off all the food you just ate.