I wasn't going to review this restaurant. Don't get me wrong, it was a lovely experience and the food was great, but sometimes things don't go according to plan.
Soho is a neighborhood spot, if you live in Vinings, right there off the railroad tracks in what I like to think of as the heart of the area. Vinings is America like most of us dream of it, with clean bright townhouses across from bright airy mini malls across from trendy hot restaurants with office buildings just around the corner. Kinda of a Norman Rockwell twenty first century fantasy. And yeah, I want to live there too.
Soho is in one of those mini-malls, just off the main drag but somehow tucked back in a corner. Don't ask me how but it pulls it off. The main room has a clubby vibe, with wood and glass and a dark motif, but when I checked in they seated me on in the "outside room", something more restaurants may want to invest in. It's basically a room with really big windows. Really big. Like twenty feet across windows with no obstructions. Open them up and you get the feeling you actually are sitting outside, it's a great effect. Okay, you look out onto a swath of green, the parking lot and the street, but there is just something about it.
So Sporty shows up (we're still hanging out) and we settle in. It's flight night Wednesdays, in which the restaurant rolls out three glasses of the grape so that patrons can broaden their horizons on good vino. And not tastes either, but three half glasses. Oh, did I mention my three month drink sabbatical ended like the day before? So we got the wine.
The fare is strictly American, though broad, and we settled into our old routine. We started with a crab cakes, she got the pork chops and I had the filet with horseradish potatoes. It's good hearty basic fare. Only the wine came with a cheese/crackers/grape plate...and we got the double crab cakes (because somebody had just come from the gym), and the wine was strong as hell. So guess who didn't finish her pork chops.
I didn't really want to write about this because as we talked about it, I'm pretty much confirming that dreamtime is over. She's started a side hustle (who hasn't) and will have to move to Texas to make it work. I'm not stupid. I know where she got the idea and where she'll be living when she goes and I'm not really sure she needs to go. But this is life. Things happen. And as little a few months ago I considered asking her that question. Yeah, that question. She seems cavalier about the whole thing...but when your young and beautiful the world is your oyster.
So despite the good setup, the good food and fact that I had my first real drink in three months...I basically sat there and listened to someone I wanted to have kids with share her plan of her life without me. Over good cheese. But that's not the restaurant's fault. It is a great spot.
Funny story, on the way out the hostess, who wasn't on duty when I came in, thanks me for coming and tells me to hurry on back. By name. Like she said "Thanks Mr. B_ for coming. Come back soon." Which posed the question since she didn't serve me, or seat me or even meet me, how did she know who I was? Sporty and I figured it out about two steps out of the eatery. We had been the only black patrons there... so they kinda knew who we were. We laughed about that all the way to the car.
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