Where Have We Been?

Date night has been on a short hiatus due to a busy travel schedule.  We have been out of town, then Eve went away for a weekend, and to top it all off we had to get our son off to college.  So date night got postponed for a few weeks, but now we are back and as hungry as ever.

The ‘Hood

Here we are again in the West End.  It seems we have eaten at a lot of great places in this area:  Six Feet Under, Five Seasons, Millers Union, Urban Pl8, Yeah Burger, and the four restaurants in the Bacchanalia complex to name a few.  It’s also close to our favorite beer store, Hop City.  If you haven’t been there and you like beer, turn off your computer and go there right now.  It is one of the best beer stores we have ever visited, and we have been to a lot of beer stores, but I digress…

Why We Are Here

We have driven by La Fonda on our way to all of the other aforementioned eateries.  It’s close to where we work and it’s easy to find a place to park.  The Falcons were in town at the Georgia Dome on Friday night and we had to get out of the messy downtown traffic and into a place to eat as soon as we could.

Let’s Eat!

We started off with a couple of beers, our Friday beverage of choice.  If you are a margarita person (we happen to know a few), La Fonda has about six frozen margarita machines going behind the bar with many exotic flavors.  The beer list is what’s to be expected at a Mexican-Spanish-Cuban (M-S-C) restaurant, with Dos XX as the highlight.  Eve got a Blue Moon (she’s a wheat beer girl) and I went for the Dos XX Amber, which is a much lighter beer than one might expect when compared to similar offerings from our local Atlanta breweries.

If you are in a M-S-C restaurant, you expect the bowl/basket of chips, and we were not disappointed.  We must have been hungry, because the first bowl of chips disappeared quickly and was magically replaced by a second bowl.  We have a strict two-bowl chip limit, because the Mexican places must sprinkle the chips with crack cocaine as they are that addicting.

The menu is full of M-S-C dishes.  You can go Mexican (burritos, tacos, enchiladas), or a little Spanish (three different paellas), or Cuban with many varieties of Cuban sandwiches.  We went for the paella for two (how romantic!), which had calamari, chicken, sausage, and shrimp in a bed of yellow rice.  Everything that came out of the kitchen looked very good and the paella did not disappoint.  We were not able to finish it (too many chips?) and had to take some home with us.

What We Liked

The food came out quickly and was quite yummy.  The paella for two was way more than we could eat and we will get to enjoy it again this weekend.  It was also pretty cheap as the two of us ate for less than $30 with the beers.

What We Didn’t Like

Our waiter sort of ignored us after the food came.  I ran out of water and never could get a refill, but I lived through it.

Date Night Bonus: Dessert!

Across the street from La Fonda just happens to be a Yoforia.  After the heavy paella, a spot of frozen yogurt is just the thing to cool off with in the summertime.  You can really run up the tab at one of these “pour your own” yogurt places, and I think you are looking at about $9 worth of dessert and the giant bowl was hardly full.  The desserts at West Egg next door looked even better than the yogurt, so we’ll have to hit that place the next time we are in West End.  The yogurt was very tasty though, and a perfect end to date night.