September 23rd, 2009 
What has happened to 5 Seasons Brewing? That’s what I thought to myself a couple minutes into my dinner on a recent evening. That’s not how I was expecting to feel. You see, I’ve long been a fan of 5 Season’s Brewing, but thus far I’d only visited the Prado location.
But I had a meeting and my dining partner suggested we dine at the newly opened 5 Seasons Westside location and enjoy their rooftop deck with the beautiful views of the Atlanta Skyline. Great choice, or so I thought.
I arrived early and not being exactly sure about which beer I wanted (the offerings differ from the Prado location) I started questioning our server. I can’t quote verbatim what she said to me but it was something to the effect of she wasn’t really a beer drinker, so she wasn’t really good at recommending beers. Ok, so I understand beer isn’t everybody’s thing, but if you are gonna work at a restaurant that brews beers, shouldn’t ya at least know a little about the beers?
She did offer to bring me some samples, the first a Belgian white beer named Venus that was a little too bitter for me, and the second, was a sweeter beer, GA Peach Wheat, with peach bits in it. Although it sounds strange, it was actually quite good and not overly sweet as one might suspect.
[caption id="attachment_2434" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="5 Seasons Aligator Eggrolls"]
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Next we were ready to order food. I knew I wanted the alligator egg rolls immediately. What is it with me and these strange egg rolls lately? The egg rolls were perfect with a good amount of alligator meat and cabbage, complete with a crispy shell. And the special soy dipping sauce was an excellent compliment. However, these were like 2 large egg rolls sliced in half. Not sure if I would want to pay the $8 price tag again.
[caption id="attachment_2436" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="5 Seasons Fish N Chips"]
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For mains, I struggled to pick something out. I truly love the Granny Serrano pizza (pizza with apples, ham and onions). But thought I should order something different. My dining companion went with the fish and chips- cod and fries. I asked a couple questions about the menu but again, our server seemed clueless. My eyes came across a rabbit entree that said “rabbit chilaquiles” which I hadn’t heard of. I asked our server who had no idea and didn’t look like she cared to find out either.
[caption id="attachment_2435" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="5 Seasons Rabbit "]
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So, I took my chances with this rabbit dish. I looked up the dish online later and found that chilaqulies are actually a quite common Mexican dish, though not often served with rabbit. The traditional dish would be tortillas cut into pieces a fried, which would then be served topped with a red or green salsa, with shredded chicken or pork on top and some sour cream.
However, this meal was a twist on that because it tasted like there wasn’t a sauce per se, but a spicy sweet potato mash atop the chips, which was then topped with the rabbit. I liked the first few bites, but the soggy chips on the bottom of the plate just weren’t appealing after more than a couple bites. I later found that this dish is especially great for the use of stale chips – good to know!
But the cod that my companion had was thoroughly enjoyable. And the fries were tasty too – albeit a tad less crispy than I would have preferred. At this point, we knew better than to ask for a recommendation on dessert. We ordered the fried ice cream. It turned out to be very good, even if it did take them about 15 minutes to get it to us.
[caption id="attachment_2437" align="aligncenter" width="499" caption="5 Seasons Fried Ice Cream Dessert"]
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I think the food could be better and they definitely need to work on educating their servers. But, I’m not ready to dismiss 5 Seasons yet, I think there’s still hope for them.
1000 Marietta St.
Atlanta, GA 30318
404 875 3232
Website
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