Summer Vacation 2011: Atlanta Outings

For the first post of the vacation series, I'll be talking about our outings while in Atlanta.

We had two meals out during our visit this time around. For our first dinner, we went to our favorite place the second night we were in town. Ted's Montana Grill is the best place to get bison. I always get some kind of bison burger when I eat there. They serve normal ground beef, but bison is healthier, and it's hard to find in restaurants here in the Coachella Valley. So Ted's Montana Grill is always a must when we go to Atlanta.

The second dinner out that we had in Atlanta was to a restaurant I have never been to before, Social Vinings. This restaurant has a variety of food, from seafood and sushi to chicken and pasta. I had the Pan Seared Trout Filet which came with a sweet pea risotto, crispy capers and a lemon butter sauce. It was fantastic. I'm not a real big fan of risotto, but this sweet pea risotto was pretty good. For dessert, my husband and I split an Irish Coffee and Deep Fried Oreos (I think that's what they were called, I can't find it on the menu online). Unfortunately, the Irish Coffee wasn't a real Irish Coffee as they were out of Baileys, so they substituted it with something else. It definitely did not taste like an Irish Coffee to me, but it was still good. The Deep Fried Oreos were excellent. I don't even want to think about the calorie count on those suckers. I definitely want to go back to Social Vinings sometime in the future.

Our daytime fun activities in Atlanta consisted of the movie Mr. Popper’s Penguins and the Georgia Sequarium. Mr. Popper’s Penguins was a fun movie to see. It is a bit slow in the beginning, but I would say it’s a good movie to see. I doubt it’s in theaters anymore, but there’s always Netflix or other DVD rental places you can rent it from eventually.

The Georgia Sequarium is always a fun place to go. We've been there about three or four times now, and it never gets old. My favorites are the otters. I thought I wasn't going to see them this time around, because the first walk-through we did they were all sleeping. We decided to make one more pass through before we left, and they were wide awake and active. I also love to see the beluga whales. Huge, massive white whales gliding through the water. The tank they swim in is huge. One wall of the exhibit is glass, from floor to ceiling, so it's massive. And my third favorite is probably the penguins. You can never go wrong seeing those black and white tuxedo birds playing around.

That pretty much wraps up our outings in Atlanta. We basically just hung around my sister’s house for the rest of the time, getting caught up with family. reading, playing Angry Birds and playing with the kids.

The second part in this vacation series will cover our journey to Reynolds Plantation.

Read the third post of the vacation series here.