Weekend in the ATL (part #1)

This weekend the BF and I set sail to Atlanta!  Check out our digs at the Renaissance-Midtown hotel:

We got our room for $100 a night on Priceline.  Not too shabby for a 4* hotel!

Prior to arriving, Jarrod made me agree that I wouldn’t check my email unless I was peeing or pooping.  Yes.  Those were the actual terms of the agreement.

Soooo needless to say, not much work got done at this lovely desk:

43 seconds after arriving, we decided it was time to get some grub and took a stroll over to a local bar called Charlie G’s 11th St Pub:

This was a total locals bar—well local transplants I should say because this bar is home to the Bears Upstairs (a HUGE group of Chicago Bears fans).  Both of us really enjoyed our grub.  I ordered their special chicken fajita wrap and Jare Bear got the chicken philly…  And then we each swapped each other for half:

I LOVE sharing   … though, my wrap was the better of the two (of course).

Post-lunch it was time to get our walk on and burn off some of the grub.

We walked around the Midtown area for a couple hours before heading back to the hotel.  I was dumb and wore shoes that cut into my heels, so the backs of my heels were completely raw   youch!

We took a 2 hour nap before we headed out to dinner at Baraonda.  This was my pick for two key reasons.  1:  I was craving Italian.  2:  It was half price bottle-o-wine night

Baraonda was pretty cool inside—especially the large pizza oven:

We split the bruschetta appetizer and the lasagna for our entre:

Both were just OK… The bruschetta had cold tomatoes which I am NOT a big fan of.  Maybe that’s weird, but I am a hardcore hot tomato gal.  The lasagna was pretty tasty though a bit overdone on the cheese (is that possible??!!) and not really all that filling once we split it between us.

Hmmmm what to do what to do…  We consumed a bottle of wine and not nearly enough food…

So we headed on over to the Gordon Biersch Brewery for a post-dinner appetizer and dessert, of course

The Southwest Egg Rolls appetizer was INSANELY delicious. We devoured the rolls in about 2 minutes flat.  The egg rolls had chicken and black beans all wrapped up in a crunchy shell with roasted red peppers and pepper jack cheese.  So amazing.  I cannot wait to try and make something like this for a football Sunday!

Then came the dessert:

This Triple Chocolate Brownie was ta-die-for….  It was almost like they’d warmed up brownie batter and plopped it down on the plate – no chew or bite to the brownie at all.  Just melt in your mouth deliciousness topped with a dollop of melting ice cream and chocolate and caramel sauce:

After dinner, we sauntered back to the hotel.  Jarrod decided it was time for a post-dinner workout so we hit up the gym for a few chest exercises.

Work itttttt:

Hehehe love this one

After ALL THAT we hit the hay so we could wake up bright an early for breakfast at R. Thomas Deluxe Grill:

I picked this restaurant because it had a lot of healthy options on the menu.  I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from the place, but I CERTAINLY did not envision anything like this:

This was quite possibly the most random, cluttered, overall odd restaurant I’ve ever been to.  For a brief moment, I considered grabbing breakfast elsewhere but when the server brought me coffee as soon as we were seated we decided to stick it out.

Jarrod got the Sausage Queen omelet (Veggie sausage, cheddar, red peppers and onions, rosemary potatoes and shiitake gravy) and garlic green beans:

Green beans for breakfast?  Ok…… If you say so.

I got two eggs, toasts, and taters AKA the Break Eggs Special:

The potatoes were super tasty and I LOVED the 9 grain bread.

After breakfast we took a walk outside the restaurant to check out their crazy bird collection:

Ughhh…. I hate birds.  So freaking creepy!!!! Shortly after this photo, the bird started going crazy and hanging upside down swaying side to side in a violent way.  I hightailed it outta there.

Breakfast:  Check.

Time to get our walk on!

After breakfast we walked about 2 miles through midtown and checked out the sites – like this cool art museum.  Though the outside of the art museum is about as much art as either of us care to handle

When both of us realized we had to use the potty, we snuck into the W Hotel.  The parking lot was full of fancy pants cars.  Even a Rolls Royce!  The hotel was SWANKKYYYYY and full of young blinged-out people.  Jarrod is a huge hip hop fan, so he immediately assumed some big shot rapper must be in town.  We took a squat on the couch and tried to figure out what famous person might be staying at the hotel.. but no such luck.

After our potty break, we walked through Piedmont Park and played on the jungle gym for a bit until we both managed to hurt our shoulders… Man we are old.  So we popped a squat on the field and watched some people play football for a bit.

Check out this ref in the tight zebra print pants:

That is hot.

We stumbled on a little farmers market a little ways over from the field, so we checked out a few of the vendors.

Then we stopped over at Caribou for some coffee where Jarrod re-discovered his college obsession with turtle mochas and I discovered that Caribou’s pumpkin latte is nowhere near as delicious as Starbucks.

After another 2 mile jaunt, we arrived at our lunch destination:  Grindhouse Killer burgers:

This place was pretty funky inside.  The robots behind the bar were especially cool to look at.

Jarrod said this one reminded him of what I look like when I go more than two hours without eating:

That turd.

I went with a single burger and Jarrod nabbed a double-turkey-burger-lettuce wrap:

In all honesty, neither of these were very good.  The bun on my burger overwhelmed the meat–at times I forgot I was even eating a hamburger.  Jarrod’s turkey burger had a really odd consistency–like really moist meatloaf.  Not exactly what I look for in a burger.  BUT we did split a chocolate peanut butter shake and it was so AMAZING.  The shake was so thick that I actually split the straw in half trying to drink it!  I’d go back for the shake fo sho but pass on the burgers.

MORE walking brought us back to Midtown, where Jarrod spotted a guy who looked a whole lot like one of his favorite rappers:  Lil’ Wayne:

Jarrod figured Lil’ Wayne musta been the rapper staying at the W Hotel, so we stalked this guy for about a mile before he ducked into some building and we lost him.  Dang!

Since our lunch was meh, we stopped by Marlow’s Tavern for a few appetizers.  I really liked the vibe inside Marlows.  It was sporty but still swanky, posh but comfy at the same time.

We ordered the Chicken Queso Soup and the BBQ chicken flatbread:

The soup was good, but I wasn’t a fan of the flatbread pizza.  Hey Mary—you don’t like BBQ sauce. Remember?!  Why did you think it’d be a good idea to order a BBQ pizza?  Duh.

After Marlow’s we went back to the hotel for our 2-hr pre-dinner nap 🙂

To be continued!