[title type="h5"]Tuesday, July 15, 2014.
Munch, Maurepas, Mole. Almost The Caribbean Room. Marcello's.
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For a change, I know where I will be dining tonight, and it's not even a special event. A few days ago a reader asked how the Caribbean Room is, now that the Pontchartrain Hotel is back open as an actual hotel.
I hadn't heard that, but I found its website easily enough. I learned that indeed everything at 2031 St. Charles Avenue is fully functioning, including the C-Room. In its heyday--the 1950s through the 1990s--that was one of the most celebrated restaurants in town, and certainly among the very best hotel dining rooms.
Before dinner, though, is the Round Table radio show. Today Mary Ann has booked an eclectic group of restaurateurs. One of them--Michael Boyle, chef and proprietor of Maurepas Foods in the Bywater--is himself eclectic, as is his restaurant. No other place nor menu is much like Maurepas, which is much liked, particularly those who prefer their dining out on the avant-garde side. Michael is a lively conversationalist. I think I'll ask him to do a guest-host gig on the show next time I take a vacation.
Also here is Jordan Ruiz, who with his wife operates the best restaurant in the history of the UNO neighborhood. That's where I started writing restaurant reviews. There were no good restaurants back then around there, and there still aren't--with the exception of The Munch Factory. Jordan admits the name of the place could have been given a bit more thought, but never mind--the food is the thing, and these people really can cook.
Saul Rubio is the owner of La Carreta, a popular Mexican restaurant in the swatch of the Florida Parishes that includes Baton Rouge, Hammond, Mandeville and Slidell. At last, I learn what "La Carreta" means: "the cart," a reference to the kiosks on wheels one sees in public markets in Mexico. I guess I could have looked it up, but Saul (pronounced "sah-OOL") told a more interesting story.
He showed up with an entourage of six people and a new menu. And there it was: molé poblano. I have urged him and all other Mexican restaurants to add that magnificent, authentically Mexican sauce to their menus, with little effect. About two years ago, Saul said that the sauce--made with bitter chocolate, sesame, and peppers, classically served on roast chicken or cheese enchiladas--was soon to appear at La Carreta. Mole takes a long time to make, but not this long. At last, it's here.
Also with Saul is Julio Gonzales. For many years, Julio was the local mouthpiece for Sauza Tequila, and the go-to guy for anything one wanted to know about that distinctive Mexican spirit. We held quite a few Eat Club tequila dinners during the 1990s, most of them at Vaqueros, with Julio hosting. He is now the man who coordinates Saul's current project: his own namesake bottling of tequila, available at the restaurants and elsewhere.
I will toast Saul with his own tequila when I finally sit down and have a molé poblano dish at La Carreta.
I thought I could woo Mary Ann to dinner with an invitation to the Caribbean Room. That was our first, stumbling date. It was 1988, about two weeks into the new manifestation of WSMB Radio, for which she had just hired me. She would be fired in two more weeks and knew it. (I am still there.) The asking for the date was memorable:
Tom: I have two tickets to a wine tasting at the Pontchartrain Hotel. Would you like to go?
MA: Oh, yes, I would--but I don't think I can find someone to go with that quickly.
Tom: Uh. . . I was thinking that I would use one of the tickets for myself.
MA: Oh.
She agreed, reluctantly. She said I was very charming that night, and that she didn't expect that I was fooling her into thinking I was that way all the time.
No such evening would play tonight. I arrive at the hotel first and take a table in the original front room of the Caribbean Room. (The room with the fountain--always one of the prettiest dining rooms in town--is still being used as a private party space.) The menu is a highly abbreviated card with broiled clams for the appetizer, asparagus soup, a salad, a salmon dish, a hamburger, barbecue ribs, and a couple of other things. Absolutely nothing from the classic C-Room menu.
Only one other diner is there. Indeed, the entire hotel seems to be on low power, although it looks nice enough. And the Bayou Bar is in operation. The bartender--coincidentally, she used to work at WSMB in the days when MA and I had the date above--told me that there was even live music on the weekends.
I call MA and told her that we probably should give the hotel a bit longer to get up to full speed. She is ready with an alternative.
[caption id="attachment_43118" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Dining room at Marcello's.[/caption]
Marcello's (pronounced the Italian way, "mar-CHELL-ohz") is a new Italian restaurant in the space that had been Le Chat Noir, the marvelous cabaret that, unfortunately, closed down a year or two ago. It's two doors up from Herbsaint, with another Italian restaurant (Cibugnu) in between.
Mary Ann has been to Marcello's a couple of times in the few months it's been open, and is wild about the place. She likes the Sicilian style of the menu. Give my wife spaghetti and meatballs, none of that osso buco kind of stuff. But she likes the place even more. The owners are Gene Todaro Sr. and Jr., both of whom also work in the antique business. The latter fact is obvious: the place is decorated with a lot of unique, fanciful pieces of art.
The place has already attracted the fans of Italian wine. The wine list works like this: you are invited to walk around the dining rooms and inspect the bottles on the racks. When you find one that sounds interesting, you bring it to the table, where it is served at retail price, no corkage fee. These retail prices are not the lowest in town, but they are much, much lower than standard wine list numbers. A major bargain by any reckoning.
[caption id="attachment_43119" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Meatballs.[/caption]
We sit in the front room, where I am spotted by nearly everyone,, including the staff. So much for sneaking in. We begin with a pair of meatballs, coated in red sauce and resting on grated Parmigiano. Mary Ann would later order some spaghetti, then some red sauce, to balance the meatballs out. Why didn't she just get spaghetti and meatballs?
[caption id="attachment_43120" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Guappo salad.[/caption]
Then we split a "guappo" salad. That word keeps popping up in local restaurants, and destined to translate "wop salad" into an acceptable expression. I say, as long as the owners are Italians (and they are), they can call it that without offense. (But offense is in the mind of the taker.)
[caption id="attachment_43121" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Mussels. [/caption]
The server--who is full of insights as to the best items on the menu, some of them of her own devising--agrees with my taste for the mussels, which come out with a translucent sauce with a light tomato flavor. Then MA surprises me by getting pork cheeks marsala for a main. That is very brave for her, but she discovers--as all who sample cheeks do--that this meat melts in your mouth, and deliciously.
[caption id="attachment_43122" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pork cheeks Marsala at Marcello's.[/caption]
My secondi is a plate of pappardelle pasta tossed with a variety of vegetables, including artichokes and brussels sprouts. This would have made a better preliminary course, but I was getting nigh onto full anyway.
I have a peculiar bread pudding for dessert, take a tour of the restaurant with Gene Jr., and agree with MA that this is one of the best new eateries of the year so far. But who knows? The C-Room might not be far behind.
[title type="h5"]Marcello's. CBD: 715 St. Charles Ave. 504-581-6333. [/title]
