Daily highlight #80: Chocolate chicken wings - Restaurant: Cafe Circa

No, there is no twist here. We are not talking about salty chocolate mole on chicken wings or some clever dessert shaped like poultry. It's exactly what the menu says, sticky chocolate sauce on salty chicken wings. And you know what, it really works. Had the chicken skin been fatty or flabby, it would have turned out gross. Had the chocolate been more runny, it would have turn out too messy. But none of this happened, the chicken was perfectly crispy under the just gooey enough coating. We all thoroughly enjoyed this finger licking appetizer.

These empanadas evoked images of the fine specimen at Pura Vida. Golden brown, the pastry flaked under just a little pressure and revealed something very unlike any turkey I've ever had. It was dark and almost jerked like. I didn't really taste any dried cranberries, which the menu claims to be in there. No matter, I didn't miss them much. These were rather enjoyable bundles of meatiness.

I love sweet potato fries, especially crispy sweet potato fries such as these. They were coated lightly in flour before frying, which sealed in the moisture and kept the finished product from becoming too soggy too quickly. My salmon looked pretty in its pan fried goldenness. Unfortunately, the frying went a bit too far and dried out the thin skinless piece a bit too much. This is probably the biggest issue with cooking smaller pieces of salmon. The timing is vital and in this case it missed the mark.

Red velvet is the ultimate southern cake. The red dye serves no other purpose than to make the whole thing appear a bit alarming. :) Most of the time, the red is muted somewhat with a good bit of cocoa powder. But here, it doesn't look or taste like there was much of that. It was, however, moist and balanced out the cream cheese frosting pretty well.

Nothing at cafe circa was more than twenty and most entrees are under fifteen. In this economy and for these big flavors, this place is really a treasure worth a trip to Edgewood Ave. for.

Cafe Circa
464 Edgewood Ave.
Atlanta, Ga 30312
404-477-0008