[title type="h5"]Friday, April 4, 2014.
Basin Seafood
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Jean-Luc Albin is a French chef who, after years running the food services at the Fairmont Hotel here bought Maurice's Bakery. It's my go-to bakery for cakes, king cakes, and other such stuff. (Or at least it was, until Mary Leigh started baking all those things at the ranch.) I've known Jean-Luc for decades, well enough that he did my groom's cake at our wedding reception.
He has bought a series of commercials inside my radio show that require my tasting a new batch of his goodies every few weeks. Today, he sent over five cakes in various flavors, but one size: six inches in diameter. The idea is that most birthday and anniversary cakes are so big that they leave a lot of stale cake to fill up your refrigerator. He calculates that a six-inch cake is enough for most celebrations. I think he's onto something.
The usual masterful baking was in evidence, with almost absurdly tender genoise layers with rich, intense icing and butter creams. The one I liked best was flavored with Grand Marnier, orange juice and zest, and sections of satsuma.
A six-inch cake might be just the right size, but five of them is clearly too much. Such deliveries make me popular with all the people who work with me at the radio station, with whole cakes going to a few key fellow employees.
Mary Ann was in town and ready for dinner at sixish. My idea--one she went for straightaway--was to dine at Basin Seafood. Despite the name, the place is nowhere near any of the streets or places with bearing the Basin moniker. It's on Magazine Street, and in the densest restaurant row there: the 3200 block, which has four restaurants cheek by jowl.
This particular slot has been Rocky's Pizza for the past decade or two. More memorable was the original layout of Flagons. In the 1980s Flagons was the city's first wine bar, before which restaurants only had one or two house wines if you wanted wine by the glass. I spent many hours at Flagons in the mid-1980s. In fact, I helped tend bar for free on Sunday nights, when business was too slow for me to do any damage.
The place is quite a bit worse for wear, and someday will need a thorough renovation. For now, the mild grubbiness of the place is just enough to be cool, in the same way that, say, Jacques-Imo's is.
[caption id="attachment_41928" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Grilled oysters at Bason Seafood.[/caption]
As the name implies, seafood is the linchpin of the menu. We started with a dozen grilled oysters in the style of Drago's (of course). We both found these excellent, the oysters still bulging and the cheese component kept under control. We split a beer called SOS with that, and had some of the crab-and-crawfish beignets brought forth. These were light, lumpy with the seafoods, and delicious.
Then a side of fries (MA and I often treat fries not as a side, but an appetizer), which revealed the first flaw in the offerings. Why do restaurants that take the trouble to cut fresh potatoes for frying not fry them to order? These had clearly been sitting for awhile, getting dry and cold. The three sauces served with them only partially ameliorated that.
[caption id="attachment_41930" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Whole red snapper at Basin.[/caption]
We soon forgot those (almost) when came the special of the evening, a whole baked red snapper. This would require a half-hour in the oven, the server alerted us. No problem. Good news, in fact. The fish emerged with a crunchy skin and a beautiful seasoning compound, cooked perfectly, and so deliciously that we were ferreting out little flakes of meat long after anyone but a cat would have given up. It didn't need anything else, but I was glad to find the spicy chimichurri sauce in a little cup on the side. Great eating.
[caption id="attachment_41931" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Fried catfish with crawfish sauce.[/caption]
We followed that up with a wholly unnecessary order of fried catfish topped with a rich sauce with crawfish. Not in the same league with the snapper, and not a good enough job to make the nearby catfish specialist Joey K's look to its laurels.
But, to get back to the earlier victory, how many restaurants even have whole fish? Let alone prepare it this well.
[title type="h5"]Basin Seafood & Spirits. Uptown 2: Washington To Napoleon: 3222 Magazine St. 504-302-7391.[/title]
[title type="h6"] Yesterday || Tomorrow[/title]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris April 10, 2014 12:01 in
