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BULLETIN
Robert Mondavi Dies At 94

Robert Mondavi, who pioneered the emergence of California wine as the equal of the best int he world (to use his often-repeated credo) died today in Yountville, near his family's winery in Napa. He was 94.

He was the second generation of his family in the wine business, but broke away from his family's winery in the 1960s to start the Robert Mondavi Winery. There, he reinvented the way California wine was made and marketed.

He is survived by his three children, Michael, Timothy, and Marcia, as well as his brother Peter, who still runs the familiy's origina winery, Charles Krug.

Ticker Tape Of Taste
Hamburger at the Camellia Grill 87. . . Cheese pizza at Mark Twain's Pizza Landing on Metairie Road, 90, up 6. . . Trout amandine at Mandina's on Canal Street 89. . . Turtle soup, Cannon's, 92. . . Cleanliness and design of ladies' room, Gimchi, Metairie, 94. ¶Ratings good one week only, and are on a scale of 100. 100=best, 50=ordinary, 0=worst.

Today's Rumors
True: Ruth's Chris Steak House in the Harrah's Hotel on Poydras Street began three days of preview service (not open to the public) Thursday, May 8, and then open for dinner for real on Monday, May 12. They will not be open for Mother's Day.

True: Hansen's Sno-Bliz--the city's most venerable and celebrated sno-ball stand--has opened for the season. As usual, the hours are counter-intuitive. They're open from something like three till seven Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays--but not Saturdays. Mary and Ernest Hansen, who founded the place in 1938, both passed away shortly after the hurricane. But their granddaughter runs it now, and is keeping the standards up.

False: That a new restaurant is preparing to open in the former location of Anatole/Mike Ditka's/Mike's on the Avenue. However, the Lafayette Hotel--on whose first floor the restaurant is located--is looking for an operator for the space.

Crowder Peas

   Food Calendar
Today is National Crowder Peas Day. This extraordinarily delicious bean is far less commonly seen on menus and supermarket shelves than it once was. Crowder peas are closely related to the more common but smaller field peas, as well as to blackeye peas. Crowders are about the same size as blackeyes, but are overall a light brown and taste different. They're considered a Southern bean, because they need a warmer climate to grow. I'm not sure if this is true, but I've heard that the name comes from the fact that they were planted in cotton fields, where they would crowd in between the cotton rows. As much loyalty as I have to red beans, I would say that I like crowder peas better. You cook them the same way as red beans, but they cook faster and need less fat in the preparation. Don't cook them so long that they start falling apart.

   Delicious-Sounding Places
Crowder, Mississippi 38622 is a town of about 750 people, eighty miles southeast of Memphis. It's near the eastern edge of the Delta country, with cotton fields extending to the horizon in most directions, and to the nearby hills due east. You will certainly eat down-home Southern cooking here. The town's restaurant is the Kountry Kitchen, where they better darn well serve crowder peas.

Edible Dictionary
turmeric, n.--A spice made from the rootlike rhizomes of a plant native to India and Southeast Asia. India is the biggest producer of it, with good reason: it's one of the primary spices used to make many kinds of curries, and is responsible for the distinctive color of curry sauces. In fact, turmeric is used at least as much for its yellow-orange color as its flavor. Two common examples of that are fake saffron (it has the color of the real thing, but not the flavor) and yellow mustard. The coloring properties of turmeric were important enough that it has been cultivated in India since prehistoric times. ¶ Click here for the entire dictionary so far. Click here to ask about a food word you've wondered about.

   People We'd Like To Have Dinner With
This is the birthday, in 1925, of Yogi Berra. He was a big star when I was a kind, and I always liked his unconventional ways of doing everything. His quote about a popular restaurant ("Nobody goes ther anymore--it's too crowded") is one of the finest of a long collection of Yogi-isms. So I'd take him to a less crowded place, like Mr. John's Steakhouse, and hope that he'd let another quotable loose.

   Words To Eat By
"You better cut the pizza into four slices, because I'm not hungry enough to eat six."--Yogi Berra, born today in 1925.

Eastern
2$
Harvey: 1801 Manhattan Blvd.
368-0788
Lunch and dinner seven days.
Chinese. Japanese.
AE DS MC V

Asian restaurants have a way of looking much better inside than out. The Eastern carries this to an extreme. Outside, it looks like any of dozens of other Asian restaurants in other strip malls. Inside, however, it borders on magnificent.

The second surprise waiting for you here is that the place is bicultural. Not Pan-Asian, but Dual-Asian: Chinese and Japanese. The menu lists over a hundred Chinese dishes, not counting lunch specials. Then it lists many Japanese standards. And there's a full-service sushi bar.

The Japanese is better than the Chinese. But even the latter is well above average. This is good news for West Bankers, who only recently began to get any sushi at all. It's also a glad tiding if you order a Chinese entree. Let's face it: the standard Chinese appetizers long ago wore out their welcome from the adventuresome palate. Yes, pot stickers are good, and so is shrimp toast. But who, really, needs to eat another egg roll, Chinese rib, or crab Rangoon?

The sushi bar opens up a wealth of other first-course options. Also here is good tuna tataki. Seared along the edges and doused with ponzu, it's fresh, sharp, and appetizing. Baked mussels with a glazed mayonnaise sauce and beef negimaki (grilled sliced beef wrapped around a bundle of green onions) are other good starters.

A few tempuras and teriyakis constitute most of the remainder of the Japanese selection. The miso soup is decent. But not as good as the Chinese hot and sour soup or the house special seafood soup (best ordered for the whole table; ask to have it on the spicy side). But it's really time to move to the Chinese side.

Chinese main courses here range from chow mein all the way up to Beijing (Peking) duck. The usual range of styles is here: the mild Cantonese dishes, the spicier Szechuan and Hunan concoctions, and a few Mandarin selections. Twice-cooked pork, a beautiful presentation covered by one-inch squares of cabbage leaves that look as though they'd fallen from a tree, has all the sweet-and-spicy complexity I look for in that. The steak kew is chunks of good beef with a variety of mushrooms and a savory, black-peppery sauce: excellent. None of it is the best of my life, but the kitchen is competent on most dishes. They even do reasonably well with the curry-flavored Singapore noodles, a great spicy dish.

Chinese restaurateurs have known for a long time that their customers lose control of their rational minds when many proteins are thrown together in a single dish. I am here to remind you that when chicken, pork, beef, and shrimp come together with even more kinds of vegetables, the flavors don't add--they subtract. Restrain yourself from ordering such total combos, which are numerous here.

The service staff is eager to please but heavily ethnic; be patient. There's more than the typical amount of wine, and beer from both China and Japan. Most entrees just under $10.

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Ten Most Delicious Restaurants With Minimal Atmosphere

The following list ranks restaurants according to their Funkiness Quotient, defined as the ratio of food goodness to surroundings. Many of us (locals and visitors) seem to prefer that our restaurant not be too well decorated, and have the idea that good food tastes better in a worn-out place than in a spiffy new one, even if the prices are the same. These restaurants all have excellent food from extensive menus. Yet all of them occupy premises that are outclassed by those of some sandwich shops.

A curiosity emerged after I finished this list: an unusually large number of these places are in the Riverbend section.

1. Dick & Jenny’s. Uptown. 4501 Tchoupitoulas. 894-9880. Contemporary Creole.

2. Mat & Naddie’s. Riverbend: 937 Leonidas. 861-9600. Contemporary Creole.

3. Mosca’s. Waggaman: 4137 U.S. 90. 436-9942. Creole Italian.

4. La Crepe Nanou. Uptown: 1410 Robert. 899-2670. French Bistro.

5. Dante's Kitchen. Riverbend: 736 Dante. 861-3121. Contemporary Creole.

6. Mandina’s. Mid-City: 3800 Canal. 482-9179. Neighborhood Cafe.

7. Jacques-Imo’s. Riverbend: 8324 Oak. 861-0886. Cajun.

8. Fury’s. Metairie: 724 Martin Behrman Ave.834-5646. Seafood.

9. Cafe Degas. Esplanade Ridge: 3127 Esplanade Ave. 945-5635. French Bistro.

10. Joey K’s. Uptown: 3001 Magazine. 891-0997. Neighborhood Cafe.

To answer the question I know I'll be asked, "Where's Rocky and Carlo's?": The omission was intentional.

The 100 Best Restaurant Dishes
The Grand New Orleans
Culinary Repertoire

During the next few months, each edition of the New Orleans Menu Daily will count down another notch up a list of what I think are the 100 best dishes in the permanent repertoire of New Orleans restaurants. These are all available at least most of the time when the ingredients are in season, and so delicious that you'd make a special trip to the restaurant to enjoy them.

I started with a list of 180 dishes and whittled it down, so that even the lower entries on the final list make for dynamite eating. We're more than halfway through, but if you don't see your favorite dish on the lsit yet, let me know about it. E-mail tom@nomenu.com.

#39
Crawfish And Goat Cheese Crepes
Muriel's
French Quarter: 801 Chartres, 568-1885.

This appetizer (made with shrimp when crawfish are out of season, with no loss of goodness) first appeared on Muriel's menu during the chefhood of Erik Veney. Two subsequent chefs made many changes to the food during their times, but the crawfish and goat cheese crepes remain inviolate, a classic dish for which it's hard to imagine an improvement. The goat cheese is inside the crepes, softened by an admixture of cream cheese and sharpened with chives and shallots. The crawfish are in the sauce, with butter, a little tomato, and bell peppers. It's a wonderful taste with which to begin a meal--rich, but not too. Muriel's recipe for this is here.

The list so far, along with a longer exposition of the whole idea behind this list, can be found here.

Non-Stick Shrimp Shells

Fred on the West Bank asks a very common question:

My barbecue shrimp are sometimes are very difficult to peel. I cook them on the stove with a black iron skillet. The shell sticks to meat, and I don't know why. They look and taste perfectly cooked. Any clues or recommendations?

Tom sez:

Shrimp meat sticks to the shells when the shells soften and begin to dissolve. The part on the inside solidifies again, and grabs hold. This also happens with boiled or grilled shrimp, The best way to prevent this is to be very conservative with temperatures and cooking times, so the shell doesn't soften. Shrimp cook faster than most of us imagine. If you have even an inkling that the shrimp might be cooked, they are--turn the heat off. In my barbecue shrimp recipe, I cook them just until I see no more gray or brown, just pink. Then I turn the heat off and start whisking in the butter. (My recipe is here.)

Boiled shrimp only take a few minutes, after which some cooks even add ice to the pot after they're done to keep them from cooking any more while they absorb more of the seasonings.

I think part of your problem may be the black iron skillet. Cast iron holds heat a long time, and keeps cooking even after you turn the heat off. Try using an aluminum skillet instead.

Check Our New Questions and Comments Page! It's a compilation of over 120 questions we hear frequently, plus a bunch of others that have come up lately. It's here.

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Crowder Peas With Popcorn Rice

Crowder peas are my favorite common beans. They're a light brown, bigger than field peas, shaped like red beans. They have a unique savory flavor that I find makes a great side dish. This version steers away from the bacon-fat, salt-pork kind of thing we do for red beans. I like to serve this with more rice than usual for beans, all mixed up. I use an aromatic rice for the purpose.

1 lb. crowder peas, sorted, rinsed, and soaked for a few hours or overnight
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 ribs celery
1 medium onion, chopped
Pinch nutmeg
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. savory (or oregano)
1 1/2 Tbs. salt
1 Tbs. hot sauce
1 Tbs. brown sugar
1 cup (uncooked) popcorn rice, Konriko Wild Pecan rice, or basmati rice, cooked according to directions
6 sprigs parsley, leaves only, chopped

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the onions and fennel and cook until soft.

2. Drain the crowder peas and add them to the pot. Add six cups of fresh cold water, plus all the ingredients through the brown sugar. Bring the pot to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Cover and cook for one hour.

3. Check after an hour to see that the peas have not absorbed all the water. If so, add more. The pot should still have a soup texture at this point.

4. Cook another 30-45 minutes, until beans are soft but still in one piece. Remove the bay leaf. Taste for seasoning and adjust. There should still be enough liquid so that the beans have a stew-like texture.

5. Add the cooked, drained rice to the pot and gently stir into the beans. Serve garnished with fresh chopped parsley.

Serves about six.

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Tuesday, April 15. Cold Morning. Vincent's Crawfish Bisque. The unusually cool weather continued this morning. I can't remember temperatures in the fifties (and even thirties, a couple of days ago) this late in the year, let alone five days of it. But I'm not complaining. If we had weather like this in New Orleans all the time, nobody would question why the city must be rebuilt.

I worked through lunch (seem to be doing that all the time again, even with the later start time for the radio show), and was very hungry by dinner time. People who call me on the radio tell me that listening to it makes them hungry. Which is, of course, the whole idea. But they have no idea how hungry it makes me.

My first plan was to go to Meauxbar, a good bistro up the street from Peristyle. But they didn't appear to be open, and no parking spaces were available. I turned around and headed into the Warehouse District, with Citron Bistro in mind. Closed on Tuesdays. I stayed on Tchoupitoulas, waiting for inspiration to dawn. It didn't happen, and now I was on Causeway Boulevard. My last chance was to turn on West Esplanade. And then I was at Vincent's. Not really a restaurant I needed to check out, I thought, but it's too late now to keep searching.

The soup of the day was crawfish bisque--not something I'd seen at this Italian restaurant before, but well within Vincent Catalanotto's range of cooking skills. The first spoonful was delicious, showing a dark roux, lots of both pureed crawfish and whole tails, and a few stuffed crawfish heads. I put this away quickly, each bite better than the one before. I was about to tell the waiter to bring another cup of the stuff, but he said that Vincent--alert to my presence--was on his way over. And that on his orders I must try a new eggplant and crabmeat dish, and here it is. A wide but thin slice of the vegetable was folded over a layer of crabmeat and mozzarella cheese, breaded, and panned. Vincent, who landed presently, said it was something he'd seen in Florence. It was very good.

"How you like that crawfish bisque?" he asked. I told him it was as fine a version as I've had in a long time. Spicy, meaty, deep flavor, nothing out of balance. "I make it myself," he said. "I come in at eleven and it takes me till one or two to finish it. It's a lot of work. I make as much as I can, and we sell it all."

Isn't he in the way of the lunch crew at that time? "Lunch? No--I mean, eleven at night till two in the morning. I like to cook when I'm the only one here." His description of the complications of making a Cajun crawfish bisque--especially with the stuffed heads--rang true. That recipe is the longest one in my cookbook.

In lieu of an entree, I had two more appetizers: a small order of pasta bordelaise and baked oysters Vincent. The latter were like oysters Mosca, except that the bread crumbs were evolved further into a light seafood stuffing. All very good, and enough that even though I still really would like to have had another cup of bisque, there was no room. I'm coming back for a bowl of this stuff. Maybe more than once, while crawfish are still with us.

Vincent’s. Metairie: 4411 Chastant St.. 885-2984.

Wednesday, April 16. Cold Again. Chateau Du Lac. Another chilly morning, beginning another beautiful day, serenaded by the queedle-deep bird outside my window. It's a great life. I squeeze my orange juice and drink it (too bad the Louisiana and Florida oranges seem no long to be in this market), brew my blue-black Union coffee and chicory and drink that with hot milk, accompanied by a slice of dry raisin toast--which has become an actual treat for me. Then I sit down and write this stuff. I wind up working twelve to fourteen hours a day, but most of it is a pleasure. I have to keep reminding myself of that, because even those with the easiest jobs still can figure ways to complain about them.

The routine played on until after the radio show ended at six p.m. Unlike yesterday, I had a clear idea of where I was going for dinner: Chateau du Lac. The new Metairie Road location has been open enough months that things should be coming together. At least, I haven't heard of the service problems that I did in its earliest days, when the restaurant was getting slammed by the usual crowd of novelty-seekers.

I think I made it through the drink order (a glass of Alsatian Riesling) before somebody spotted me. Then came a slab of the country pate, delicious and cold, with tangy cornichon pickles. Like many things here, it reminded me of the similar item at the now-gone Crozier's. Then, what I actually ordered: a bigger bowl than I thought of Belgian endive, most of it shredded, tossed with walnuts, grapes, and Gorgonzola. Why not Roquefort, this being so French a restaurant that the entire wine list is Gallic? Well, it was good, if twice the size I could finish.

I blew my budget with the most expensive item on the menu, the sirloin strip steak with bearnaise and fresh-cut fries on the side. The menu claims that the supplier of this beef dry-ages it for two to three weeks. I don't think I would have guessed that from the flavor--the dry-aged taste is something I love and find too infrequently, so it wasn't from not paying attention. Otherwise, it was right on, with the pleasant chewiness and flavor of a good strip. The fries were, of course, irresistible.

I noticed that everything was far saltier than I'm accustomed to. This, too, was a hallmark of Gerard Crozier's cooking. As they did for him, a significant number of customers complain about this--women, mostly, who are more sensitive to all flavors than we beasts are. I think I'd recommend to people dining at Chateau du Lac that they ask the chef to take it easy on the salt.

Near the end of this, Chef Jacques Seleun himself emerged from the kitchen and sat down. Almost as soon as he did, he caught sight of another French chef, sitting at the bar. It was Jean-Luc Albin, the owner of Maurice's French Bakery, and former chef of the New Orleans Fairmont Hotel. I run into Jean-Luc more often than all other local chefs combined. Three months rarely pass without his turning up in a restaurant where I'm dining. He's a good guy to meet. He's always full of news and stories, and he likes to eat. It's especially entertaining when he'a in the company of fellow frogs.

So we discussed the state of the local food business. It's good, both of them thought, but not what it was. About kidneys and sweetbreads and pork bellies, all of which we agreed were delicious, but only if the chef knew what he was doing. And the people we mutually know: Chef Andrea, Mike "Mr. Mudbug" Maenza, Ed McIntyre (who just opened another Mr. Ed's in Metairie, and is already complaining about how much work it is, while he packs the place, Jean-Luc said), and Chef Daniel Bonnot. Daniel was the man who first opened a restaurant in this location, not to mention the original Louis XVI. He's in France most of the time now, conducting cooking tours.

The mention of Bonnot led to Susan Spicer, who Daniel hired to make hot soufflees during Louis XVI's few lunch years. "Have you tried the Grand Marnier soufflee we make?" asked Chef Jacques. "It's a frozen soufflee, so it's not really a soufflee." Jean-Luc nodded and smiled in agreement with that. Haven't had a frozen soufflee in a long time, unless you count the biscuit tortini they do at Angelo Brocato's. This was delightful. And small, thank goodness.

At this point in the same conversation ten years ago, either Jean-Luc or I would have suggested an Armagnac or its like. We must be getting old, because the party broke up and we went our separate ways, sans digestif.

Chateau Du Lac. Old Metairie: 2037 Metairie Rd. 831-3773.

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While We're Eating Sushi, Japanese Eat Mac-n-Cheese. It's called yoshoku, and it's nothing especially new. Western dishes began making inroads into Japan's restaurants a hundred and fifty years ago, when the country began to open to the West. It has evolved into a unique style of cooking that has elements of East and West. Click here for details.

Food Funnies
Show Me Your Eggs, And I'll Tell You Who You Are. Look carefully at this one, don't just read it. The strange this is that all are the same price. Click here for today's cartoon.

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