Highlight #131: Why not just eat better - Restaurant: Dynamic Dish

Since my first visit many months ago, Dynamic Dish has gotten much more popular thanks to well-deserved recognition in national magazines such as bon appetit. This past Saturday, I was very happy that Dirty and Tracy, frequent patrons of the place, made a reservation for the six of us (including new blogger friend Jimmy at Eat it, Atlanta and his lovely girlfriend Katie) at prime dinner hour as the place was packed.

Check out the awesome table setup above. Isn't the orange jug just awesome! I had such urge to take it home with me. If you've seen my very orange home, you'd understand. Before getting into the food, we took full advantage of DD's lack of corkage fees and opened up a few bottles of whites to start. Dirty's famous dump bucket and us drank a crisp green apple perfumed 2008 Hanna sauvignon blanc that I shipped back from Sonoma this January, a rather floral 2007 Le Paradou Viognier Vin de Pays Blanc, and a 2007 Joh. Jos. Prüm Bernkasteler Badstube Riesling Kabinett.

We kicked off the food part of the meal with sun choke soups and bowls of steamed local collard greens drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. As simple as that sounds, this was wonderfully flavorful. For many southerners, it may be a strange idea to eat still crisp collards, but try it, you may just have a revelation, especially when the produce is sourced this well.

The best part about going with a few more friends to DD is the opportunity to try all the pizzas (only available on Saturday night). The favorite of many that night was this Floridian containing roasted corn, chevre, and green garlic. DD is not touting classic Neapolitan or New york style pizzas, these are more accurately described by Jimmy as flat breads.

The other colorful presentations included a Turkish pizza having kale, garlic, and feta, an Italian containing lots of mushrooms, and a Hawaiian that combined fresh pineapples with green garlic. We drank a fruit intense 2006 central coast Marylin Remark grenache and Dirty's cab franc with the pizzas. The earthiness of the cab franc went quite well with the mushroom pizza, while the grenache complimented the sweeter pizza varieties.

Finally I got to taste the chocolate cake that everyone raves about (it ran out the few times I have been there). And it was as good as everyone says. Perfectly moist and tender, the cake body was further enhanced by the not too sweet but very smooth frosting.

The color of this fruit bowl was simply stunning in person. The mango chunks appeared to have been lightly treated with a sweetener that turned them very dessert worthy.

Because Dirty and Tracy are old customers, we got a bit of special treatment in the form of extra little bowls of ice cream topped with broken cookie bits and chocolate sauce. You know me, I can never say no to ice cream and this was very good.

So in the new year, instead of vowing to eat less, how about just make a promise to eat better. DD can keep you on that course if you need some help.

Dynamic Dish
427 Edgewood Ave.
404-688-4344