Like Captain Nemo crossing the seven seas in the Nautilus, I’m always on the prowl for prized squid. When I first tasted squid at a restaurant in San Francisco in the late 1980s, it seemed unthinkably exotic. Now you can barely swing a tentacle in an Atlanta restaurant without hitting a plate. Fried calamari with a little marinara on the side has become a bar-food staple, and few Chinese restaurants go without salt-and-pepper squid.
This story originally appeared in the January 2016 issue of Living Intown magazine.
Brookhaven's Kaleidoscope Bistro and Pub offers an intriguing variation of the fried cephalopod. At the corner of Dresden Drive and Caldwell Road, the warm, high-ceilinged restaurant and bar serves what chef Joey Riley calls "global comfort food" along the lines of pizza, Indian curry chicken spring rolls and Korean BBQ pork sliders.
Kaleidoscope's wok-fried Maine calamari serves as the kind of appetizer that awakens your taste buds for the flavors to come. The kitchen fries plump, moderate-sized rings of squid along with chopped red and green peppers and Chinese green beans, sprinkled with black and white sesame seeds. The "hot-n-sour" sauce, while tangy, has a sweetness and consistency that suggests a light syrup, giving an impression of calamari that's been subtly candied.
Overall, the dish has a combination of textures to be studied and savored as you pluck the morsels off the plate with your chopsticks. The sesame seeds' crispness and the soft crunch of the vegetables offers a counterpoint to the calamari, which has the familiar pulpy chewiness of squid without being rubbery. While most fried squid dishes have the battered saltiness of seafood-shack fare, Kaleidoscope's wok-fried calamari appeals more to the sweet tooth. Despite the richness of the flavor, the appetizer doesn't weigh you down before the main course.
Even though it's now easy to find, squid strikes me as the most underrated seafood. Kaleidoscope's calamari hints at how versatile it can be.
Kaleidoscope Bistro and Pub. 1410 Dresden Drive, Suite 100. 404-474-9600. www.k-pub.com
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