The End of an Era...

Direct from B.Day we hear that two old time downtown Atlanta restaurants have shut their doors. The City Grill and Dailey's. Back in the day, at least 300 years ago, I worked for the company that used to own these two downtown mainstays. For a while The City Grill was the fanciest joint in town,The Peasant Group stepping into the waters that Buckhead Life owned, outright. It was very swanky.

Sometime in the early 90's ( 93? 94? ?? ) I was the Peasant Corporation Employee of the Year. Got a nice engraved silver tray to go along with the crown and sash ( for those not from Atlanta , BY LAW, every gay man with in a one day's drive of Atlanta, HAD to work , for at least a while at this company. Seriously, it was the epi center of the homo South) but I digress. One of the gifts I got for being crowned Miss Peasant was either dinner at City Grill or just a whole lot of gift certificates. I cant remember, I had an expense account sort of thing where I got to eat at any Peasant restaurant like once a month for free. But City Grill was VERY $$$ .. so this was something special.

So! me and the then boyfriend Steve ( ya'll all remember old Steve.. some of you remember him more than others do.....) we got all dressed up, had a cocktail, called Susan Lovell to come over and take our picture.. then we were going to head downtown to the restaurant. Peasant restaurants did not take reservations, at all. That was their thing, so I assumed ( yes , its true) that City Grill would not either... I was wrong. I called , after maybe two cocktails, to make sure, and SURE ENOUGH, they did.. so, we were going to be the last seating....let's say... five nice cocktails into the evening , we arrive , by cab,or maybe Susan dropped us off...( it was not that far at all from our apartment )

Here we are ALL dressed up, pretty much our prom.. very nice place.. and we are DRUNK. I know my dinner was called Four Birds a Calling or something like that ( it was Christmas Time) It was Duck and Quail, and Squab and for all I know freaking Ortolan. I do know red win was spilled.... and I remember the waiter using his little table squeegee many many times. A large time was had by all. I did lunch there several times, that I could afford.

So, adieu City Grill... RIP and Bottoms up.

Dailey's on the other hand, I went to .. seemingly a lot. Their food was exactly like the food that I served every night at The Country Place, so it was not that exciting, other than a free, very nice nice dinner with all I could drink ( hey, I was YOUNG and my liver and I were still on speaking terms...) The one thing that they did have that was only there at that cavernous space, was a huge sort of open dessert bar type thing. They were all the famous for their FRIED ICE CREAM  - yawn, you ball out some sort of soft ice cream, roll it in corn flakes and coconut, freeze hard and deep fry for like 10 seconds. Conventioneers lined up for hours to eat it. 

I ALWAYS went for the PARIS BREST... because I was ( and lets face it ) still am , pretty much that immature. 

recipe here ( I think I remember Dailey's adding bananas)