I Came, I Saw, I ATE

Who's up for a posting that's not about TTC? Well here goes: For years Sam and I have been IN LOVE with this one restaurant in Atlanta, Chops. I even blogged about our last experience several years ago. We hadn't been back to Atlanta for a while, so we had accumulated several of these Buckhead Life Restaurant Group gift cards. That's when we decided to use them all on our second anniversary mini vacation in Atlanta. For that trip we decided to be brave and spread the money around trying out some of the other options Buckhead Life has to offer. And really, we weren't disappointed with any of them.

So fast forward to June 2012, and what arrives in our mailbox? A gift card for $25 to Nava. Who hoo! We had been there before and knew that this place was good, and most importantly that $25 could go along way. So we went with a couple of friends of mine from Augusta who met up with us there. Now I'd love to send you there, but I can't. Unbeknownst to us, when we went on August 5, Nava only had one more night to be open. WHAT??? Yea, so Nava closed, for unexplained reasons, and now a new restaurant is coming next year (not a Buckhead Life Group). So sorry, I tell you all about the yummy margaritas and tasty tacos, and then you can't try it yourself. Sorry! I guess they decided to send out the card to give Nava a great sendoff?!? I don't know. It seems weird to me to send out thousands of gift cards to a restaurant that is closing.

Anyway, the point of all the Nava talk is that the gift card has some strings attached. Strings that lead you somewhere pretty cool. Basically if you went to Nava in the month of July (or the first 6 days of August) for dinner and presented your gift card, not only would you receive $25 off your meal, but you would get another gift card for another $25 off to another Buckhead Life Restaurant. If you go to that restaurant in August, then you get another card for September. And finally, if you go in September you get a $25 gift card for ANY of the restaurants. Now, if you're a picky eater (me) and ethnic cuisine isn't really your thing, then this can be kind of daunting. You don't know what the next restaurant will be until you go to the current one. There are several that I don't think I could find a thing on the menu to eat. But we were extremely lucky and our Nava trip sent us to Veni Vidi Vici.

Let me tell you, this place is DELICIOUS! We started off the meal with Calamari because, if it's on the menu, Sam's going to order it. It was tasty, not the most spectacular ever, but yummy. I forgot to snap a photo however, so I'll give you this cute one of Sam sweetening his unsweet tea with syrup.

I was a bit overwhelmed by the menu. 90% of the meats are not in my everyday list: veal, duck, lamb. So I stuck to plain, simple, and faithful, spaghetti with meatballs, but it was super tasty. The meatballs were a mix of pork and veal and the pasta was perfectly coated in a lovely light tomato and basil sauce.

Sam was a bit more adventurous and ordered the Pappardelle, which is basically long, wide noodles, mushroom ragu, and duck from their rotisserie. I wasn't a huge fan of the duck, but Sam loved it and ate every bit.

And the end to a lovely meal is always in the form of desert in  my opinion, so we finished off the night with a ginormous slice of Tiramisu. Awwww, heaven.

So there you have it, if you haven't been, you should head on down to 14th Street and try it out. We're off to scan the menu of our next jaunt, the Buckhead Diner. Should be good!