Let the Revolution Begin: Anyone reasonably defensive about the food offerings in little ol' Athens, GA and suspicious of transplanted Brooklynites (traffic usually moves the other way, right?) would have written off the brand-new Farm Cart parked on the patio of Farm 255 (255 W. Washington St.) and operating during weekday lunch. Really? You think you can just come down here and tell us how to run a street-cart gourmet operation on a shoestring, yet with the resources of a larger business to back you and make sure all your veggies are free of chemicals and your meats have lived happy lives? Well, darn it, Jake O. Francis apparently can, and anyone who's avoided the Farm Cart in its few weeks in business thus far out of fear of pretension or an empty wallet should suck it up and get over it.

Francis is a personable fellow, with the right kind of chatty but not garrulous manner to run just such a business. When he asks you if you know what a banh mi is, there's no judgment in his voice. He just wants to educate you, and he'll do it briefly, too. The cart offers either five or six items daily, which vary slowly from week to week, all priced between $4 and $6 each and most in plenty large servings to have a satisfying mid-day meal off just one of them (although you may want to order more just so you can keep tasting).

Perhaps the best deal is the tortilla espagnole, a hearty wedge of what is basically a frittata crammed with beautiful vegetables, topped with a sweet-and-spicy pepper jelly and nestled alongside a pretty little green salad that tastes wonderful, with unexpected leaves of herbs to break up the lettuce, but could have used one more dunking in the sink to remove every last morsel of grit.

At $4, neatly packed in a theoretically compostable container, it's beautifully portable, survives hanging out in the refrigerator, is vegetarian (most offerings are) and is damned attractive to the eye as well as being sizable enough for a large dude's lunch.

A salad of cabbage, shaved brussels sprouts, thin-sliced red apples and a few radishes, topped with bacony spiced almonds and dressed with a buttermilk concoction was fresh, seasonal and complexly, subtly flavored. The veggie banh mi, now morphed into a veggie sandwich due to changes in bread, features hard-boiled egg, pickled vegetables and aioli, and comes alongside cute pickles and potato chips.

A bolognese for $6 turned out to feature no pasta at all, but rather the rich Italian meat sauce served chili-style in a cup, topped with a lightly-fried egg and accompanied by several slices of good bread for dunking; neither fatty nor dry, it was filling without being leaden and perfect for the newly cold turn the weather seems finally to be taking. And the broccoli soup, lightly flavored with kale, was equally happy, suffused with the love of vegetables and necessitating no cheese.

Not everything is perfect. A friend of mine experienced a rather disappointing pastrami sandwich. If I were to nitpick, I could complain that neither the radishes nor the apples in the abovementioned salad added much more than textural variety, being light on taste. But for $4 to $6 for an organic, chef-driven lunch, it hardly seems fair to dwell on a misstep or two. Beverages are limited (Limonata, lemon water, mulled wine on occasion), and seating may get chilly in months to come. You must remember to have cash on you. It would be nice if the cart were open weekends other than those featuring home football games. Every minor complaint aside, the effort is admirable, delicious and, I hope, inspiring to other budding restaurateurs.

Korea Expands: Well, the Korean options at Eat Hibachi (131 E. Broad St.) have expanded, at any rate, even if Athens continues to fail on pretty much all other fronts Korean, and the place appears to have a regular clientele. No longer do the menu boards stress boring combinations of stir-fried veggies, proteins and rice/noodles. Instead, an array of Korean and Japanese soups takes up a board of its own, and potentially unfamiliar terms (naruto, for example) go untranslated. For pure, satisfying comfort food, the Korean pancakes, made of finely chopped tofu, egg, vegetable and beef, are a great way to get most of your food pyramid in every bite. A bowl of udon as pretty as anywhere else in town is most likely vegetarian, although I can't speak for the broth. The kim chee soup, which comes with a bowl of rice and features spicy cabbage, meat and nice, fat slices of tofu, is astoundingly hot in temperature, causing the diner to shed layers of clothing as she works her way through the bowl, and pleasingly spicy in flavor. And the curry noodles feature Japanese curry, which is more salty than spicy and is exciting to find available in a restaurant. (I usually make it at home from bricks of the stuff, available at Super H Mart.) Does Eat Hibachi hold a candle to the options on Atlanta's Buford Highway and beyond? Heck no. It doesn't have Korean fried chicken or pork belly sizzled to order on a grill or anything of the sort, but it does continue to take steps in the right direction, and if you're looking for Korean food in the area, you may be pleasantly surprised at its continuing menu growth.

Alas: The Broad Street Bar and Grill has closed for real.

Hillary Brown