Octane at Last. Great Coffee in the ATL.

Waiting three years for a chance to visit, my expectations for Octane were unreasonably high. Last week, after a heated argument with a very confused GPS, I managed to get myself to the newest outpost - in The Jane in the Grant Park neighborhood on the East side of Atlanta. It did not disappoint.

Like so many fantastic coffee places, Octane occupies a reclaimed industrial space with weathered beams, giant factory windows and enormously tall ceilings. All of this history leaves a patina that contrasts beautifully with the shining chrome and porcelain of the coffee gear. The space is shared - about a third belongs to the brilliant A Little Tart bakery, about a third to Octane's coffee operation, and about a third to a well-stocked full bar. Beer. Coffee. Cake. I could be happy here for days.

Coffee is roasted in house, thanks to a recent merger between Octane and Primavera coffee roasters. The outcome is amazing - on par with the coffee coming out of the very best places I've been - with a punchy, citrus-forward espresso, and a good selection of farm-specific pour-over coffees. Frankly, it's getting harder for coffee places to stand out on this basis alone. Everyone has their Strada dialed in. Everywhere has competition-level Baristas pouring gorgeous latte art with local milk. Everyone either scours the world for the perfect coffee bean or has a partnership with someone who does. What I was sipping wasn't the heart stopping moment of that first sip of Handsome Burundi or Cuvee Chachunda, but it was every bit as good as the best of everything else.

So where do you go when you're clearly the best coffee in your town, maybe the best in your State? You go to food. This, for me, was where Octane really shined. The combination with The Little Tart - a bakery focused on finely crafted, traditionally prepared, locally sourced sweets and savories - is nothing short of brilliant. This is where every other coffee place I've been falls short. There's just never a kitchen. Here, in this cavernous warehouse, there is space a plenty, and a subway-tiled commercial kitchen is hanging out behind the coffee churning out buckets of amazing.

I wasn't kidding when I said I could live here happily for a while. The almond cake was simple, fresh and moist, with a delicate crumb; the almond nuanced - an echo more than a flavor. The cakes you find nearly everywhere else - cakes stowed in a cooler, shlepped across town, pre-sliced - simply can not match this. This is what expert cake tastes like when it's born and it is as good a compliment to a rich cup of coffee as you're likely to find.

Octane is beyond a good coffee shop, it's a worth-scheduling-an-extra-long-ATL-layover-coffee-shop. It was worth every minute of the years I spent waiting to find it.

 

Mysteriously Tasty Treats in ATL

There are few culinary wastelands that can match the domain beyond the security checkpoint in sheer food hopelessness. Maybe it's the captive audience, but airports seem completely set on finding the lowest common denominator in the American diet and seeing if they can inch that bar just a little bit lower.

There are a few bright spots: Austin's commitment to local food in the airport yields decent and improving results; Pappadeux in the E terminal at IAH is consistently good; Columbus, OH and Portland, OR both have fully functioning espresso places (Joe's and EspressoPeople, respectively). And, this week, I've got a new one: Cafe Intermezzo at ATL.

Granted, these places don't tend to age all that well, and Intermezzo is a new-comer, but from what I've seen so far, this place has real promise.

Intermezzo is located in the bookstore at the center of Terminal B, the flagship terminal in Atlanta's behemoth Hartsfield International airport. It's on the less traveled side, across the hallway from the major food court.

You walk in greeted by a massive pastry case. And these are legit pastries, super lush, super rich. The espresso machine is a force to be reckoned with, though as with most of the spit-shined bronze monster machines, this one's mostly show. The tables are scattered throughout - several in front in sort of a sidewalk cafe format, and several back in the bookstore, with a view of the planes outside.

I've eaten there a couple of times. This last time, I ordered a pot of coffee and a spinach artichoke crepe. I've been on kind of a crepe kick lately, and while this wasn't the best I've had it was really simple, and really tasty. Essentially, this was a two-ingredient deal: baby spinach leaves and artichoke hearts. No bechamel. No cream. No goop at all. The spinach was just wilted - perfectly done, I expect simply from the heat of the crepe. The artichokes (full disclosure - I am an artichoke fiend) could have been a bit higher quality and a bit better trimmed, but they were tender and a nice compliment to the spinach. The coffee was lovely as well, nice full body, light roast, delivered in a little pot with a ceramic mug. It's a small thing, but ceramic mugs in an airport deserve some kudos.

This place is not the speediest of options, but thankfully in this case at least, ATL is not the speediest of airports. I highly recommend it next time you've got a flight delayed out until the far edges of the evening as an escape from the ATL terminal B zoo.

Closed: Kameels: Wierdly good mall food in downtown Atlanta

You know why Atlanta is cool? It's cool because you can get curried goat in the mall food court. I didn't actually get it, but opted instead for the Schwarma from the surprisingly good Kameel's Cafe at Peachtree Center. When I grew up the most exotic food at the mall was the supreme pizza from Sbarro's. I like this lots better.

The original plan was to meet up with an old client and friend at Dailey's. There were 3 of us, then one pulled out (sick), and another (sick kid), and then it was me. I actually went by Dailey's but the thought of sitting down alone to a expertly prepared power lunch at an iconic local business haunt seemed sort of depressing. I'm not sure why, but table service is a bunch more lonely than going through a cafeteria line. Still Dailey's looked good. I may grab a novel and head there for dinner.

So I walked a few blocks further, unable to settle on anything in particular (Ray's Seafood? No. Faux Irish Pub? No. Hooters? Good lord no.), and ended up in the mall. I'd actually seen Kameel's on City Search, so I know it was either decent or had enough money to pay for the user-reviews. Turns out to have been the former. Kameel's is in many ways, just what you'd expect from a middle-eastern themed, homey, local food court vendor, except significantly tastier. The Schawarma is turkey (in itself a little wierd), but it's cooked on big gyro-style rotesseries, and the sandwhich is loaded with lots of fresh cucumber, lettuce, tomato, and a tasty, subtle tahini-based sauce. The pitas are giant and vaguely sweet, and the portion is gigantic. They've got all the standards, baba ganouj, hummus, falafel; and they seem to do them all pretty well. I had a cucumber and tomato salad as a side item. Altogether it was double what I could eat.

The ambience is, well, its a food court. I sat down with my styrofoam food container in a molded plastic chair at one of a long row of tiny tables pushed together and was struck full force with how much this was just like 8th grade. I was braver then. In 8th grade, I'd probably have gone for the goat.