Restaurant Review: Dave & Busters

When Dave &Buster's first opened in Marietta approximately a million years ago, it launched with great fanfare, at least among my then fellow Cobb Co. high school crowd. Since then, it hasn't even occurred to me to head OTP for a night of sports viewing and arcade games.

But lucky me, I got a chance to relive my high school days to check out the new sports viewing set up and menu items at Dave & Buster's. So we headed out to my old Marietta hood and were pleasantly surprised with what we found.

I am the last person who would ever care about a nice sports watching set up, but even I could tell that their new design is pretty sweet. Plenty of comfy seating and so many huge TVs that you are certain to have a good view from anywhere in the area - this is a football fans dream. There's also a nice big private space with yet more TVs for parties or corporate events. They even have a big wheel they spin in the main seating area, and individuals or entire tables can win prizes like free drinks.

We settled in to our seats right in front of two giant flatscreens just as the SEC championship game was ending. As a total non-sports fan who went to school in the ACC, can I just say that the shall we say screeching enthusiasm of SEC fans was somewhat shocking to me?! Then it was time for the Big 10 championship, and we found that all the TVs were tuned to the ACC game, but they very quickly remedied that on the TV of our choice once we asked a waitress. My kind of service.

Pretzel Dogs

The menu is the type of something-for-everyone carb and fat multi-page extravaganza you'd expect from a giant sports bar type environment. Lots of burgers, wings and fries to go around, but also some more upscale offerings such as NY Strip and Cajun Shrimp Alfredo. I prefer less high brow sports eats, so we started with Pretzel Dogs and a new menu item, a sort of potato puff. The puffs were a nice change from just fries, but the real star were the pretzel dogs, served with a spicy habanero dipping sauce. During my sorority girl days, a favorite ZTA house dish were bagel dogs. We in fact would hoard them in to-go boxes and scarf them down late night after a return home from the bars. Hot dogs full encased in delicious bread is simply a genius idea (see: corndogs), and pretzels might be the tastiest bread wrapping of all. Yum!

Potato Puffs

For our main course, we split a Black & Bleu burger, a half-pound of Angus beef seared with Cajun seasoning, topped with melted bleu cheese, plus frazzled and caramelized onions, and Buffalo Bar Chicks, crispy chicken tenders, tossed in wing sauce, drizzled with Bleu Cheese dressing, and topped with lettuce and tomatoes on warm rolls. D&B's may be a chain just off the freeway in the suburbs, but you're still getting a pretty darn good burger. Color me impressed!

Black & Blue Cheeseburger

I hardly had room for the buffalo bar chicks, but I think everything tastes better with buffalo sauce on it, so these were a great accompaniment for football viewing. To wash it all down, I went all out and got a chocolate milkshake.  D&B's makes their shakes with real ice cream, and it was delightfully rich and creamy.

Buffalo Bar Chicks

I was too full to really dig into the bananas foster pie dessert. It didn't really evoke authentic bananas foster for me, but what little I tried still had nice, crowd-pleasing flavors.

D&B's Bananas Foster

All in all, I walked away from dinner pleasantly surprised. Even my honey who goes to sports bars far more than I thought it was better food than a lot of local sports bars (I'm looking at you Taco Mac!)

But we weren't done yet, at this point, we were off to enjoy the arcade. I feel like you have to make a decision before tackling their enormous game room. Are you about fun games (e.g., skiball, air hockey, racing cars) or getting as many tickets as possible to claim surprises? I find they're generally fairly mutually exclusive. Sure you can collect some tickets from skiball, but what's a haul of 5-10 tickets when some random games will spit out 100s?

We started with the fun games, and after I lost several kinds of car and truck racing and stank it up at skiball, I finally won at the last second in air hockey. Victory is sweet! Then we turned our attention to the ticket games and made our best effort to rack up the tickets. These games tend to be kind of random and frequently seem to be very luck of the draw, but we got strategic and at least managed to get enough to score ourselves a water bottle and earbuds. Alas, the Domo stuffed doll I wanted was not to be!

So stuffed and carrying home our spoils, we left quite happy. It may have been 20 years since I'd been there (good lord, can that be right?!), but it was still a surprisingly enjoyable way to spend an evening. I doubt we'll schlep all the way to Marietta from Virginia Highlands to watch a game very often, but if you live on that side of town, D&B's strikes me like a fun option for game viewing or even just several hours of entertainment.

Dave & Buster's - Marietta

2215 D&B Drive
Marietta, GA 30067





*Full disclosure: Although my meal was comped, I always endeavor to offer my unbiased opinion of the experience!

Ali's Cookies

When you get an invitation to visit a cookie shop to pick out any six to try, you say yes, even if said cookie shop is not especially near your office or home. Cookies are totally worth driving for, right? So with that in mind, I headed over to Ali's new(ish) location by Perimeter Mall. Ali's has had a location near my childhood home in Marietta for thirty years, although it wasn't always called Ali's. I can't say that I ever go to cookie shops, but I think I may be missing out!

With more than 20 flavors to choose from, I had my work cut out for me! My dessert default is always chocolate, so I skipped past the tasty looking snickerdoodles and the "healthy" Skinnie Minnie in favor of such delights as Chocolate Salted Caramel (chocolate filling with creamy salted caramel topping), the Turtle with pecans and caramel, and George Washington’s Revenge (dried cherries, toffee bits, semi-sweet chocolate chunks and oatmeal). 

Ali's makes everything from scratch with high end ingredients like Madagascar vanilla and Callebaut and Guittard chocolates. The cookies are even kosher, so you've got that going for you, which is nice.

Let me tell you how hard it is to have 6 delectable looking fresh cookies sitting next to you all afternoon - torture! I allowed myself just a nibble of each of them that afternoon, but surprise surprise, 2 days later, the Mr. and I had made short work of all 6 cookies.

Let me say for the record, that I would like to marry the salted caramel cookie. It's so rich and gooey and every good thing a cookie should be. I tried a fruity peach cookie for good measure, and although good, I was all about chocolatey ones. George Washington's Revenge was the best of both worlds with it's combination of cherry and chocolate. Yum, I'm getting hungry just thinking of them!

I didn't try them but the cookie cakes look rather epic. Cookie cake is always good, but these have rather elaborate decorations (imagine your face on a cookie cake), so they'd make for a great special occasion treat.

Want to try them for yourself? Head to either location on Opening Ceremonies Day - Friday, July 27, and celebrate the start of the Olympics by selecting a free cookie among five Olympic ring inspired flavors.  Choose from apple pie, George Washington’s revenge, M&M, toffee crunch and sugar. M&M, toffee crunch and sugar flavors will be specially decorated in red, white and blue. Customers are encouraged to stop by early as cookies may go quickly and are limited to one per person while supplies last.

The Ali’s Cookies Dunwoody shop is located at 4511 Olde Perimeter Way, Suite 300, Dunwoody, Ga., 30346 (770.350.2547). Regular store hours are Monday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed on Saturdays. 

Ali’s Cookies Marietta is located at 1255-34 Johnson Ferry Rd., Marietta, GA 30068 (770.971.8566) and is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., on Friday from 10 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and closed on Saturdays.

Restaurant Preview: Chicken and the Egg

Dining out in Marietta all too often means settling for a sea of chain restaurants. So it gives me great pleasure to say there's a new kid in town, and there's nary a bloomin' onion in sight. Chicken and the Egg is an actual honest to goodness independently owned restaurant serving up great food deep in suburban country.

Tucked away in an unimpressive strip mall, Chicken and the Egg wasn't at all what I expected. Instead of the cozy countrified environs I envisioned, it was an airy and, dare I say, hip looking dining room. And considering we went on a Sunday afternoon, it had a surprisingly bustling bar scene, too.

Farm to table is de rigueur ITP, but in strip mall country, it's still a fairly new concept. So I found it almost cute that the waitress explained to us their farm to table ethos. It may be old news as a trend, but I'm glad to know that the entire metro area can benefit from the wonders of seasonal, locally farming.

Fried Green Tomatoes with Cheese Fondue and Country Ham

With a choices like fried chicken with mac 'n cheese and crab cake benedict, we had to go big or go home. So we ordered both, naturally, and kicked things off with fried green tomatoes with pimento cheese fondue, country ham and tomato jam for good measure.

Fried Chicken, Collard Greens and Mac & Cheese

Crab Cake Benedict

Peach Cobbler

Great googly moogly, crispy and juicy tomatoes, salty ham, sweet tomato jam and pimento cheese are a match made in Southern-fried heaven! Diet food, no, but man, was it good. In fact, we enjoyed everything we ate, including a sampling of their fantastic desserts.  Add to that a long list of compelling cocktails and gracious service, and you've got a restaurant that might just be worth driving OTP for!

Chicken and the Egg
800 Whitlock Ave., Suite 124
Marietta, GA