[title type="h5"]Thursday, February 20, 2013.[/title]
Although the day broke with enough fog to shut down the left lane of the Causeway, by the time I reached it the 24-mile bridge was open. Just in case, I started a half-hour early. Which kept me from getting the Menu Daily out to the email subscribers until late afternoon. This radio schedule continues to disrupt my work scheme.
I had to go in today. We owed 7 On Fulton a live broadcast from its dining room, after having missed the first one a month ago because of confusion among the players (mainly me). We held the Eat Club that night, but now that the broadcast time is four hours before the dinner, they don't mesh.
Today's show was an attempt to hold an Eat Club lunch. Chef Ryan Stone Ware came up with an interesting four-course menu with four good beers for $45. That might be a bit much for lunch for most people. Which would explain why we didn't get even one nibble from the Eat Club. When that became clear a few days ago, I began promoting the a la carte possibilities, to get some people in for maybe a salad or a light entree. Nothing doing. For only the third time in the twenty years of the Eat Club, we shot a total blank.
It's just as well. If an Eat Club lunch did draw some people, I wouldn't be able to join them anyway, because I'd be busy doing the show. Someday, when the show is back in its natural slot in late afternoon, I will look back at this and laugh.
The chef, who could not have been happy about this, fed me and our radio engineer Dominic Mitcham with a bowl of excellent turtle soup and a Caprese salad with benefits. It was enough to fill me up for the rest of the day.
[title type="h5"]7 On Fulton. Warehouse District & Center City: 700 Fulton (Wyndham Riverfront Hotel). 504-681-1034.
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[title type="h5"]Friday, February 21, 2014.[/title]
We were supposed to have dinner with Jay Nix, the owner of Parkway Poor Boys, but he had to cancel. It has become so difficult to get a table at Chef Greg Sonnier's French Quarter bistro that we went ahead with our plans anyway, inviting our friend Bridget Wilson to fill an empty chair. She's been a friend for almost twenty-five years. Her sister lived across the street from us in Mid-City before we (and they) moved across the lake. Then their kids were in the same school with ours, etc., etc. Bridget is critically important to Mary Ann's last-minute style of making travel arrangements. Bridget works for one of the airlines, and can always be counted upon to make Mary Ann's impromptu, complex itineraries work. Which is one reason we took her out to dinner. We owe her a few.
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Guave butter and garlic fries.[/caption]
Another cold, windy day, and here I was hoofing the six blocks from the radio studio to the restaurant. Nevertheless, I arrived before Mary Ann did, giving me time to try one of the house cocktails. Milano Torino, it's called. Campari with sweet vermouth, on the rocks. Carpano Antica vermouth, at that. I knew I would see a movement up the quality scale for vermouth if I lived long enough. To balance things off, I had an order of the guava and garlic french fries. I waited for the girls, wondering at what point the open doors to the chilly sidewalk would be closed.
So now Mary Ann and Bridget were here, and as they began their chatter about everybody and everything (they have many mutual intersections of interests) I started in on the menu discovery.
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Oysters Balthazar.[/caption]
First course leader: three fried oysters, topped with a Rockefeller "crust" (accurate name, good concept), all on top of warm crabmeat ravigote, thick and creamy. Also good: a golden beet salad with feta cheese, and white beans two ways, one served hot with house-made sausage riddled with sorrel. That's a leafy green that has enough assertiveness that it could also be considered a seasoning herb. The other bean dish was a salad of crisp greens atop fried green tomatoes. Cool beans on top.
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Golden beet salad with feta cheese.[/caption]
I put away a bowl (that's the only size they have) of a creamy lobster bisque while the girls kept talking. And then the entrees arrived, among them a singular dish that is already established as Kingfish's signature dish. Even in its name: "Every Man A King" Fish.
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Pompano atop a salt brick at Kingfish.[/caption]
Its oddities begin with the complete absence of a plate. The waiter puts down a folded napkin first. (Of course, there are no tablecloths here. Too hip a place for that.) Then he hoists a rectangular plank of cedar wood, on which rests a brick--full size, standard brick shape) of Himalayan (!) rock salt. On top of that was a layer of limp greens separating the brick from a pair of pompano fillets. Red onion jelly was the crowning touch. If I were looking for something to criticize (and maybe I am), I'd say that this was too much extraneous flavor for a delicacy like pompano. And that the visual is a mess. But we can fairly ignore all those piddling matters in exchange for the flavor profile of this very, very good preparation of my favorite fish. Best new dish of the year? I think so.
Compared to that, what the women ate was almost of no consequence. Mary Ann went (inevitably, I knew she would) for a cochon de lait pot pie. She likes the idea of pot pies, but never the reality, and not this one either. I warn her, but does she listen, even to the dean of American restaurant critics? Never.
Bridget's dish was better. Shrimp gaufre is a sweet potato waffle (there just to fire off a flash of interest in your brain) topped with barbecue shrimp (the essence of the dish). It's an appetizer, really, but the appetizers here are big enough to serve in heavier duty.
No dessert. No room. I was hoping to do a song with the highly listenable pianist on the way out, but he was on a break, and I knew better than to make Mary Ann wait for that cycle to come around.
[title type="h5"]Kingfish. French Quarter: 337 Chartres St. 504-598-5005.[/title]
[title type="h6"] Yesterday || Tomorrow[/title]
