I needed a drain line fixed recently. I reached out to 10 companies. Brandon was 1 of 2 who actually answered. I say this to illustrate how rare this is; the other 8 companies are yet to call back 2 weeks later. He stopped by the house that day to give me a quote. His team showed up on the day we agreed to and completed the job. He did not go over the estimate. He guarantees his work for 2 years. I will certainly work with Non Stop Plumbing again.

Here's my recent experience with Moran and his team. I called, Moran actually picked up the phone. We set a date for him to stop by the house to see the patient. He showed up on time. Took time with me to thoroughly explain what needed to be done. He made suggestions that were practical and forward looking. He gave me a reasonable quote. He showed up with his team on the date and on time. They finished the job in the amount of time he had quoted. He was available while the job was active. He came by to inspect the job about 20 minutes after his crew had left. He charged me exactly what he had quoted.

If you have hired anyone in Atlanta, you know that this is a rare experience. Do yourself a favor and hire Vered Renovations. I can not recommend Moran and his team enough.

Brush is one of the better sushi places in Atlanta. We sat at the bar and were served by a very competent bartender who was there when you needed him and disappeared when we didn't. I had a bone dry Riesling which worked especially well with the spicy tuna. They have a concise list of sake and we had some delicious Hokkaido uni too. I'd rather have Santa Barbara for obvious reasons but I'm not going to hold it against them.

People, "this place was expensive" is not a review. Nobody knows what your budget is or cares. This and most other places have menus and information online. You can call a place in advance if you must. It's odd to go somewhere you can't afford only to complain about it later. It's not helpful.

Also, "fresh sushi" is not a thing. Unless you're talking about something that's clearly off, in which case you really should stop eating it and let someone know while you're in the restaurant. Good sushi is aged properly. Different types of fish are aged accordingly to maximize flavor and to alter texture. Just because the fish is fresh, it doesn't mean it's delicious. Generally speaking, fish doesn't have much flavor and is very chewy immediately after it's caught. Shellfish? You say. Sure. The fresher the better.

Don't forget. When you're reviewing a place, we're reviewing you. :)

Happy eating.

I recently hired Plants Creative Landscapes to design and to install a Mediterranean inspired front yard. The way that they work is that you pay them $600 initially for the design which they will deduct from the final cost if you decide to complete the work with them. This sounded great to me as I had every intention to work with the same company for the entirety of the project. I met the designer at the house, gave her very specific instructions with a clear explanation of what we hoped to achieve, along with a firm budget.

She proceeded to miss the first deadline, then the next only to deliver a plan that was over budget and what could best be described as something someone who does not take pride in their work would deliver. It had simple mistakes of organization and a general lack of attention to detail which directly erodes trust. I communicated my concerns and pointed out the disappointing errors to her. They were met with an unprofessional tone which took no responsibility. Think "I'm sorry you feel that way" kind of approach. That seemed odd. My issues were specific. There were missing plant names and the itemized list of plants not matching what was in the visual representation of the plan and the treatment of my budget as a mere suggestion. I asked her to revise the plan in order to adhere to the budget.

She returned the plan with the same errors but now the legend had changed as well. What used to denote one plant in the initial plan was now used to denote a different plant. Good luck figuring that out. And, since the missing plant names were never corrected from the first plan to the next, to this day, some of the symbols on the plan are well, just little squiggly things. I certainly don't know what they are.

Add to this, the revised plan that she delivers is very sparse. Gone is the bounty of the Mediterranean landscape with flowers and fruit trees and general abundance. Now we're in that part of the HGTV show where they've shown you what is grossly outside of your budget and they're teaching you a lesson. The only difference is that I was never that geezer who thought he would get into an expansive Spanish villa for $150k. I had a very firm grasp of what I could afford and what that would look like. My requests were simple: native, drought tolerant, Mediterranean looking plants. That's it. I had communicated this very clearly.

Finally, I felt I had no choice but to move on since I had little trust in their ability to communicate or to execute this plan. I had to assume that the lack of attention to detail and the lack of care displayed in the design phase would surely carry over into the execution. In response, here is what I received.

"I hope you have found another qualified contractor to accomplish your landscape goals and I wish you the very best."

I expected a partial or full refund along with an apology which directly addressed the errors; one which tells you that this company will hold themselves accountable when they make mistakes. As it stands, I have not heard from anyone else at this company and can't be sure if any of the principals are aware of this level of neglect. I can't in good conscience recommend this business.