Restaurant Review

right dab of pimento cheese. We could have eaten another serving.

We sampled a variety of salads. They were freshly assembled with good ingredients. The Wedge was very good with crunchy romaine, grape tomatoes, bleu cheese, house honeyglazed bacon, roasted walnuts and a housemade Green Goddess dressing. The Lucy was crunchy, tart and refreshing with kale, red apple, Spanish onion, avocado, toasted pumpkin seeds in a lemon vinaigrette. Even the Caesar, oft an afterthought at many places, was very good with garlic croutons, shaved Parmesan and an authentic dressing.

For entrees, we ordered the fried chicken, the meatloaf and the Fez burger. The chicken was hot and crispy; the meat moist and tender. The accompanying mac ‘n cheese had a smoky Gouda taste and the mojo collard greens were spicy but a bit too vinegary. The meatloaf with tomato jam had good flavor but was dry as if it had lingered under a heat lamp. The accompanying Parmesan mashed potatoes affirmed my hunch as they had the consistency of spackling compound.

The Fez burger was undercooked. To its credit, the kitchen re-fired a new one rather than attempting to remedy the mistake in a microwave. The second iteration was properly done… hot and juicy on an onion Challah roll. It needed just a little more mint aioli to balance the lamb.

There were lots of sweet offerings. The pumpkin crème brûlée was the perfect holiday sweet and the S’mores parfait was a good riff on the traditional nighttime campfire treat.

As to the service, our experience, and those of many diners around us, suffered from long pauses in-between courses, miscommunications between the kitchen and the front of the house and a general flurry of activity that came across as flailing. There’s a team effort at play here but the players don’t know their individual roles. It’s a bit like watching a bunch of little kids first learning to play baseball. When the ball is hit, they all chase it into the outfield.

On a positive note, the hostess did inquire about our experience at the end of the meal and seemed genuinely interested in our feedback.

Sun In My Belly may be a whimsical name and some of the food is pretty sunny, but the service is mostly cloudy with a chance of rain.

Sun In My Belly is located at 2161 College Ave. NE, Atlanta, GA, 30317. For more information, call (404) 370-1088 or visit suninmybelly.com.