The fan boys and girls of this resto group have already made up their minds before even eating here. They have already claimed this to be one of the best seafood joints in town and drank the Koolaid long ago before this concept was even an twinkle in FF's eyeball. These are the people that have made this resto group popular because they have created an illusion that this was the place to be for these people and these are the same people that you should never take culinary advice from. I had a decent dinner experience here but it was so obvious that the people who come here aren't in it for the food, they're here for the scene which is totally fine because the downstairs lounge area is pretty cool but the annoying Buckhead Army crowd wasn't.
The place is overpriced like with all his restos but there are so many suckers in this town that will pay the price of admission to see and been seen all in the name to impress... Which no one gives a fuck. This part of Inman Park has seen massive development recently that basically erased the true culture and history of this area with slabs of concrete and resto openings on both sides of this one block stretch... It's a good thing but you know what they say about too much, too soon... The influx of the OTP tourists have been invading the area like the invasion of the body snatchers. Speaking of snatch... I had a chance to finally stop by for their Friday only lunch menu because of that wacky religious holiday that no one gives a fuck about. But thanks anyway for the day off at work from your suffering, baby Jesus. I hope it will be worth my limited time and unlimited pouch space... The menu is short and to the point, your greatest seafood shack hits... Well, a very shortened and revised Southern version of it. A real seafood shack on the water has a lot more options... But let's work with what we have here first.
Fisherman's Platter, clam bellies, clam strips, haddock, chowder, fries, coleslaw, pickle, sauces. I was really here for just the bellies but after inquiring how big they were, I decided to go with the platter instead so I can sample everything. If I had just the bellies alone and they turned out to be total shit, then I would have just fucked myself in the ass and pouchbelly. For a lunch box, the portion was acceptable. The color of this fry basket was golden brown which was impressive at first sight. Upon further inspection, the amount of clams were minimal because everything sat on top of these giant logs of taters which took up like 50% of the space on the bottom. Classic resto trick, stack it high to give it that impressive visual. The haddock crust was soft but the white flesh was flaky and pretty tasty... The one thing that almost immediately stood out was the salt content. This entire box was showered with salt. The clam strips were mixed with some tender ones and others so over cooked that it tasted like fried rubber bands. Some were hard as match sticks devoid of all moisture. While the crust was crispy and golden brown, it's stickiness to the bivalves were a struggle to hold on. More of it came off than stayed on from the transition from box to mouth... Sounds sicker when clams are involved. No hair was detected so that was good. The more you eat, the more your mouth is saying no no not another bite because of the heavy handedness on the salt before and after the frying process. The chowder was a half portion of a half portion that barely hit the middle mark of this infant sized gelato bowl... Maybe that was a good thing because the seafood chowder had more bacon cubes in it than seafood. All you tasted was bacon on top of bacon. It was grainy as well which was weird, little specks of white throughout the entire bacon chowder... Maybe they were Kosher salt since it was salty as hell. So, what about the bellies that I have been clamoring about over and over again?
Found a belly! There were actually 3 or 4 bellies in this platter which was surprising. A couple were tiny pearl sized bellies and the others were dime sized. In the north, clam bellies are prized items and some are the size of golf balls and full of incredible digested smut from their sea floor feedings... It's basically a pile of shit inside the belly and they are an amazing culinary delicacy. Once coated and fried, they become edible golden fried black gold. This specimen above was decent size and filled with the dericious muddy innards. Clam bellies are almost non-existent in the south because their palates are not as refined to be eating fried clam shit... Perhaps I am the one with a disgusting palate, yeah, it's prolly just me. As one of only a scarce few places that have fried clam bellies, I ain't complaining but the price for them here are just too ridiculous to have on a consistent basis... $21 for a small portion of bellies alone or $22 for this platter. There are some Asian joints on Buford Hwy that does fried clam bellies but they are sporadic and scattered as specials only.
Fries. Fries? These aren't fries, these are fucking Lincoln Logs. I can start that log cabin that I always wanted to build with a few orders of these... I picked out a nice spot on the left side of downstairs lounge, right next to the sewer. These things were either thought out thoroughly or they were just being lazy. They were good but no one wants to cut fries into bite size pieces... And yes they were salty as hell. The coleslaw helped with the salt factor but it was a wet slaw with a bit too much celery salt. It also came with pickles but I literally got the two ends of the pickle, no slices which was totally ridiculous.
Clam Strip Roll, chips and coleslaw. It looked pretty good at first glance. But something was missing here... Oh, yeah, the chips. But there was one chip mixed in with the clam strips, so that counts right? How does one fuck that up and forget the chips that comes with every roll that you make all during the special Friday lunch shift? Not a big deal but it's so amateurish coming from this place. The bun was buttered and toasted spot on with that nice crunchy crust and golden color. The fried clam strips looked like they just dumped the fry basket on top of the bun with all the bits in the bottom, too. And once again, they are addicted to salt like Tony Montana's coke habit. Both the bun and the clams were salty as fuck. If that wasn't enough, the clam strips were all over fried and had the texture like the thick rubber bands used on lobster claws... Maybe these were the rubber bands from the lobster rolls that got mixed into the batter by accident and dropped in the fryer. When I have a hard time finishing a clam strip roll, there's gotta be something up with it. It looked great on paper and on the plate but once you put it in you mouth it doesn't live up to the hype or the high price tag for it.
It's weird that they still only do lunch on Fridays for that fish fry shack concept that they trying to portray here and their late night fry shack menu doesn't include most of the lunch menu items, the one thing that does stay on is the clam roll which I won't be revisiting. After all this time, you would think that they got this seafood fry shack down pat with consistently fried seafood but this visit proved otherwise... It coulda been a fluke on this visit but I doubt it... The only thing that I'm a sucker for is fwied cheekan but none of this will matter to the people who come here because the menu is the last thing they're looking at. I would rather come here for a few drinks than to dine here but there are some nice specimens of fish walking around in slinky outfits and you can eat them for cheaper than the clam roll on the late night menu.
299 North Highland Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30307
http://www.beetlecatatl.com/
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