Bikes and Banh Mi

The Beau and I have continued exploring the Buford Highway area on two wheels, and continue to be amazed at how easy it is to reach certain sections of the corridor that way. Some of the most delicious sections, I might add!

We begin by riding MARTA to the Doraville station. That puts us out onto New Peachtree Road, a fairly quiet road of either four lanes or two sharing-width lanes. It's far better to be here by bicycle than on foot, because sidewalks are pretty intermittent.

Our first stop this time was legendary banh mi house, Quoc Huong. (Technically, some of those vowels are supposed to have accents over them, but I'm not sure how well they would render over the internet in ASCII code...use your imagination.) The sandwiches were absolutely scrumptious and ridiculously cheap. Like $2.00 for a 10-inch baguette filled with paté and vegetables. They had all the other Vietnamese specialties, too - pho and bun and com and delicate spring rolls. Yum! Their address is on Buford Highway, but you can enter the parking lot right off of New Peachtree.

Fortified, we continued on to the Buford Highway Farmers Market, whose parking lot is also accessible just a few feet from New Peachtree Road. I didn't go totally crazy there, but I sure did stock up. Everything from Russian rye crackers to fresh mackerel to five pounds of whole wheat bread flour. Asian noodles. Organic tofu. Fresh-baked bread. And popsicle molds for making summer treats. They have a great little kitchen supply section. I almost bought a tortilla press. I was pretty good about sticking to my shopping list, but Blue Belle was loaded to the brim nonetheless.

I would have stepped back further to take the picture, but I could barely hold the bike up; there was no way to prop her against anything. I was lucky I had gotten a parking spot at the end of the bike rack, where I had some room to maneuver. The short ride back to the MARTA station took lots of concentration. Blue Belle felt like she was gyrating or something! This is definitely the maximum amount of weight I can carry over the rear wheel - maybe forty pounds. The Beau exercised more restraint and had a very manageable load.