YOSSI KITCHEN (100 Prince Ave., yossikitchen.com): One of the brightest spots of the past few months has been the replacement of Prince Market’s original sandwich counter with locally owned Yossi Kitchen, a cheery, speedy Indian restaurant. Is it the best Indian restaurant in town? It’s not, but it is an additional one, which is reason enough to be happy. I’d argue that three (Taste of India and Mitti being the other two) is by no means enough for an incredibly varied and delicious cuisine.
Park in the deck in the back, in any one of the Prince Market spaces, and you’ll find the restaurant inside on the Prince Avenue side of the building. You can pick a bowl, a platter or a kathi roll (a paratha wrap, which comes with Masala-spiced potato chips on the side), then dress any of them in various ways. Platters come with your choice of naan (regular/butter, garlic, spicy bullet or paratha) and a samosa, plus biryani or plainer basmati rice topped with any of the following: soya chaap (a tasty, chewy, soy-based vegetarian protein; I really liked it!), paneer tikka, grilled veggies, chana masala (spiced chickpeas), chicken tikka, chicken 65 (another highlight), mango chicken, steak or lamb curry. The veggie dishes are $12.99, chicken $14.99 and the red meats are $15.99. Once you have your rice and your protein, you can then add a gravy (butter, spinach and vindaloo, in order of my preference), as many raw vegetables as you want (chopped onions, carrots, cucumbers, sliced cabbage, supposedly pickled but quite plain-tasting radishes) AND a sauce or chutney (mint and coriander, tamarind, mango-cilantro). I’d advise going for it and asking the staff for all the veggie toppings, but if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t eat onions, you may prefer the ability to customize your plate. The bowls are a bit simpler than the platters (no naan, no samosa), but seem to come with just as much food. The kathi roll is less expensive and more portable, but available with fewer fillings, and the flavors don’t stand out as much. Samosas and naan are totally acceptable if not amazing, and really, that’s the case generally. It’s not going to blow your mind, and the spicing could be more aggressive, but the people are nice, the food is pretty good, the location is convenient to a lot of things, the prices aren’t bad, and it has a nice proportion of vegetarian options.
The place gets busy at times, but the line moves quickly, and you have your food immediately. A cooler nearby holds bottled mango and rose lassis, or you can get a fountain drink behind you. There are tables both inside and outside on the covered patio a level up from the street if you want to eat there, or you can take your food home with you and have it with a beer purchased in the market. Yossi Kitchen is open 11 a.m.–9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday (closed Monday).
FIRST WATCH (140 Alps Road, 706-608-2074, firstwatch.com): Is this behemoth of a modern-farmhouse-decorated national breakfast franchise worth waiting an hour for? You may wonder, if you’re dumb enough to go on a weekend at prime brunch time, like I was. There’s some kind of process of downloading its app or visiting the website to put your name on a waitlist that can speed the process along, but you’re far better off going at a non-peak time, during the early-morning breakfast hours, when you can walk right in.
First Watch built its brand on being a much healthier option than IHOP, and that generally feels true. It also means that the food tastes like food for the most part, and not like added salt, fat and sugar. Order a smoked salmon frittata that also includes roasted shallots and tomatoes, and it tastes like a thing you could have made, but a bit nicer. It comes with a nice little salad with a light, lemony dressing that features some pretty high-quality greens (actual texture, but not too much of it). The grits are Bob’s Red Mill (although the cheese grits just feature some cheese on top rather than incorporated throughout), the toast is whole grain, and the pork sausage links have some snap. The real thing that might make you go back, though, is the fancy juice from a seasonally rotating menu. A truly Instagrammable presentation often features an ombré color, with the Morning Meditation (orange, lemon, turmeric, organic ginger, agave nectar and beet) being a sort of virtuous tequila sunrise that cascades from dark red to an orange yellow. It’s pretty, and it tastes good. Although it’s not cheap, it’s a lot less than a cocktail (the restaurant also has those) and it won’t give you a hangover. Final verdict? It might be worth a trip, especially for a breakfast date or meeting. First Watch is open from 7 a.m.–2:30 p.m. daily.
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