Miller Union. Um....yes please.

Every time I spend evenings in Atlanta I try to find a new culinary delight and this trip I made a call to my godfather, Coke, and Decatur, GA native, for some advice. He suggested two eateries, the first; Floataway Cafe in the Highlands and the 2nd, Miller Union close to my midtown hotel. I went with the close choice and grabbed one of my besties, Kristen Lovett, to join me.

I called Miller Union around 6:00 to see if they had any reservations available for the 7:00 time frame and unfortunately they didn't but did say I could be seated on the patio....it's only August in Atlanta so I agreed. Upon our arrival (30 minutes prior to our reservation) we were seated immediately on the patio with a few other brave guests and it was actually very lovely. They have tomato plants and herbs growing and the ceiling fans and comfortable chairs made for a perfect seat.

Side Note: Miller Union is a the west part of Midtown which is rather industrial as we had semi trucks pulling into a parking lot next to us all night....fine by me-- just adds ambiance.

We were immediately greeted by our server who came with chilled filtered tap water and took our drink order of a Miller Thyme-- a gin beverage that incorporates gin, lemon juice and thyme. It was perfect for the warm evening.

We were presented with nice fresh baked sourdough and phenomenal butter to start and then ordered the Farm Egg baked in Celery Cream with Rustic Bread. I'm not sure if I've been clear about my obsession with eggs but I eat at least a dozen a week and love, love, love them. This dish was good. Clean flavors that let the egg be the star. The Celery Cream was much more of a texture additive than flavor and I was OK with that as it really allowed the egg to be featured.

Next on our list was the main course. I ordered the Pan Seared Duck Breast with a Sweet Corn and Butter Bean Succotash and Kristen had the Shrimp & Grits. The sear on the duck was perfect and the skin provided just enough savory flavors to combat the sweet corn to make it a meal in perfect balance. The flavors were clean and clear which is always hard to come by. Kristen's Shrimp & Grits was bursting with flavor and seemed to sit in a tomato, garlic and shrimp broth. The grits had a very nice texture and were not too mushy like they can get sometimes. The shrimp were cooked to perfection, and like the egg in the aforementioned meal, were really the star of the dish.

I couldn't leave without trying a dessert so we opted for Key Lime Semifreddo with a fresh blueberry mixture topping. The semifreddo (which we'll just call ice cream for our purposes) was smooth, tart and packed huge key lime flavor but mixed with the blueberries sang a sweet harmonious song in my mouth. Yup...just wrote that.

Upon leaving I was not stuffed but felt perfectly satisfied and that I had just really treated myself to a lovingly prepared dinner.

Chef Steven Satterfield has found a perfect balance of clean, crisp southern inspired food that doesn't leave you feeling like you need to spend the day on the farm bailing hay to work off the calories.

You can follow them on Twitter: @millerunion or on the web at: www.millerunion.com.

Signing off from the A.

E.