Agnes & Muriel's

When your best friend is a Southern Belle, there's no better way to celebrate her birthday than with some fried green tomaters, shrimp & grits, squash casserole and black eyed peas.

No one does it better for dinner than the mother's of the kitchen at Agnes & Muriel's. Conspicuously arranged in a quaint lil' house on Monroe, amidst one of Atlanta's trendiest neighborhoods- between Morningside and Ansley Park- A&M is the dirrty south done right.

Should this post have been made shortly after dinner when our belly's were still full with goodness, I might could (note grammar for effect) remember exactly what each face of our crowd feasted on, but here's my closest have at what was good and what you may want to pass on.

FGT! FGT! FGT!!! That's short for fried green tomatoes, as excitedly as I could have made it. These things were good AND GOOD, and we were so pleased that some of our party couldn't stop at just the appetizer but enthusiastically ordered a helping to accent her meal, as well. That wasn't the only appetizer that was heavenly, though. We pretty much scraped the creamy cheese clean off the bowl of the Spinach & Artichoke dip, like women do best- they came with the best toasted pieces of bread with seasoning, that I had to keep around to munch on with my meal- YUM!! Pork chops were abundant and scrumptious, and served with the most delectable candied apples (they were like heavenly donuts!). Although our server- who p.s. was kinda' flakey and not the Southern mama one would prefer to have take care of the table- didn't confidently recommend the squash casserole, all of us loved it, and were pleased we didnt' take her advice to not order it! The green been casserole was sorta a let down- no crunchy goodness on top, and lack of flavor. Mac n' cheese was certainly cheezy, but again, not quite the baked array of cheeses one would expect in this establishment. BBQ Shrimp &

Grits arrived in their own puddle of grease, which only made me smile as I dove in. Go BIG or go home, right? They were awesome.

Evidently our eyes were bigger than our tummies, bc there was no room for A&M's famous red velvet cake, but it sure looked delish sittin' on it's cake stand.

The restaurant is adorned with random colors and girly decorations, like Barbie dolls and hair brushes and poodle statues. Not a lot of it makes sense, but it comes together nicely and makes for a fun place to hang out with the gals... and the gals sure can be silly.

Celebrating Joni's bday four days early was worth it to come together like this. The staff (minus the corky waitress, who meant well- "bless her heart") was very sweet, and it was easy to get a reservation on Wednesday night.

Naturally, when estrogen meets in two or more, conversations were centered on boys, potential betrothals, and what we like to do with boys when that happens. Naturally...

KOG Beta Chapter is just beginning the fun in the A, so we knew it'd only be right to get things started over some true Southern hospitality and with a NIIIICE greasy bowl of grits. So consider this group officially out in this town, and look out for special guests to be featured in future posts.

Tata for now- boos boos!

1514 Monroe Drive, Atlanta 30324