E@T 2

Shrinking a good thing down to lesser size doesn't mean it has to lose potency; the Whopper Jr. still packs a meaty punch, the very line you use getting out of a chilly pool. Condensing their menu and square footage for their new in-town spot, E@T 2.Begat by the 80-seat Gainesville orig, E@T 2's invading the former Thai Me Up plot to establish a foothold where real people will actually go; the 35-seat wood-floored space boasts red & blue/grey banquettes below tall cloths splashed with abstract art, large white cabinets ensconcing wine bottles, and framed pictures of Thai desserts, trumping your mother's claim that your seventh-grade school photo was just "the sweetest". The whole damn menu, which retains only the prime dishes from the original's, is locally sourced, drawing meat & produce from Decatur and fresh seafood from Lawrenceville; apps range from the lemongrass fish cake w/ cucumber dip, to sweet & sour crispy fried chicken bites, to marinated wonton-wrapped blanket shrimp, which really wishes people would just call it by its normal-person name, Prince Michael Shrimp II. For more resolute consumption, you can toss beef, chicken, shrimp, or all three into spicy basil fried rice, noodle dishes like Pad See Ew (brown-sauced, stir-fried wide rice noodles w/ broccoli, sprouts & egg), or white-rice Thai curries (red, yellow, Masaman, or Panang); they're also dishing specials like Siam Chicken (batter-fried over sweet & sour sauce, w/ cashews & pineapple) and the spicy sautéed filet fish, sea scallops, shrimp & squid Sea Madness -- named for the poorly produced government propaganda flick to discourage people from getting stoned at the beach, once people getting stoned proved inevitable. After all that's wrapped, 2'll happily fatten you up with fried ice cream, mango sticky rice (w/ fresh mango & w/ sweet coconut milk), or the wonton-wrapped, honey-/ground peanut-topped fried banana, which is exactly what you have to avoid while trying to perk your boy up with some warming rays post-pool.