Cheap Eats - Night shift

Just last month, Gato de Noche came to roost inside Candler Park’s Gato Bizco. Owner Patterson Brown invited Mike Geier and Shannon Newton to give dinner a go four nights a week inside his popular breakfast place. Their vision of dining is healthy, unpretentious and ultra-friendly.

Atlantans might know the super-tall Geier better as a musician than a chef. He’s a member of Greasepaint, a band that occasionally takes over the Star Bar or Echo Lounge with a circus tent, popcorn and cotton candy. Wife Newton is one of Greasepaint’s masked monkey go-go girls. Now, from Wednesday through Friday evenings, they shed their disguises to manage this fresh dinner enterprise.

No alcohol is served at the eatery, but you can bring your own or walk a few steps down to Mr. Lee’s Grocery for a six pack of Mexican beer or a totally decent bottle of wine to accompany your meal. My rating on the food would be “good and plenty,” though not terribly piquant (a request for hot sauce brought only Tabasco).

What’s great about the place, besides the down-home ambience and thoughtful service, is the one-page paper menu. One side outlines appetizers and entrees, while the other recounts personal anecdotes about what motivates the chef in his selections. So you don’t just get to eat Platanos Fritos ($4.25), you also find out that Geier grew up on plantains sauteed by a Cuban friend’s dad. You can read about the relationship of seafood tacos to the Mexican Bigfoot from the Yucatan rain forest and find poetic raves on Geier’s sensational tamales.

The plantains were tasty, but if you order the appetizer and can’t resist the fish taco entrée, you end up getting black beans and brown rice twice. A seafood taco aficionado, I found the Tacos del Mar ($8.50) wrapped in dry corn tortillas too fishy, even with the help of marinated chopped cabbage, tomatoes and sliced limes. My friend liked her Huevos B’rbaros ($7.50) — toasted corn tortillas, black beans and eggs with Spanish tomato sauce and cheddar cheese. Grilled potatoes kept good company with the dish, though the fresh green beans were a confusing side.

Gato de Noche makes a concerted effort to please vegetarians. Empanadas Vegetal ($3.50) are turnovers filled with seasoned potatoes, peas and tomatoes. “Migas” at Gato means shredded tortillas scrambled with eggs. At the price of $6.75, redemption is cheap; According to the menu, “Migas = Salvation (Sister Louisa 4:10).”

The eclectic menu reaches from rosemary garlic chicken to Mojo pork chops and salmon fillet with papaya chutney. While many entrees are Latino-inspired, Geier isn’t intending to stick to a particular genre. He’s looking for savory adventures. Try to reserve a fragment of your appetite for his experiments with homemade ice cream. A couple of weeks ago, it was a subtle coconut flavor served on a crisp pastry laced with chocolate sauce. Muy delicioso.??