Monday, October 13, 2008

The Mercantile, Candler Park

I hit up The Mercantile yesterday with my friend, Christy. The new gourmet food store, located on Dekalb Ave next to San Francisco Coffee, is dedicated to sustainable produce and local foods. They have a deli counter, a sandwich menu, hot soups, various cheeses, and gourmet foods throughout the store. A refrigerator section houses four of the mother sauces, several varieties of humus, and Amish yogurt.

I bought a baguette, a tube of tomato paste (seriously, SO good if you haven't tried it already), and some wild blueberry preserves. The bread was fantastic-it is still soft on the inside and crusty on the outside after a day, unlike other breads that just get hard.

One cool item we sampled was a soda called Ionade, brewed in Germany. It is non-alcoholic, but derives all of its sugars from fruit juice fermentation. It tasted mildly of kombucha, but without the acidity.

I suspect the store will fill up a bit over time. It still has a really beautiful retail space and I'll definitely be back again to check it out.