[title type="h5"]Saturday, July 19, 2014.
Where's The Molé At La Carretta?
[/title]
Jude and The Redhead are in residence at the Southern Hotel in the center of Covington. For the past few decades this fine old hotel had only two occupants: various overflow offices of St. Tammany Parish's seat of government, and the bartenders and customers of Tugie's Bar. A couple of years ago, it was announced that it would become a classy hotel again, and a few months ago the promise came true. The place looks terrific, with the only piece missing being the restaurant, Ox Lot 9, which appears about half done.
The soon-to-be marrieds love the place, and wind up staying there two more nights. What's the matter with the Cool Water Ranch? If there's an answer to that, it's irrelevant. The couple is thrilled by the idea of becoming husband and wife.
Jude calls in mid-morning with an invitation to breakfast. Until Ox Lot 9 is in action, the Southern Hotel's breakfast service originates in the kitchen of Mattina Bella, two blocks away. That is about as good as it gets, even though the place has a neighborhood-café environment. It's certainly my favorite breakfast place on the North Shore. We've begun days there perhaps a hundred times.
That's the last we will see of the lovebirds today. They are busy checking hotels for their wedding guests, and having dinner at a certain five-star restaurant that I have been asked to keep secret. The place came forth with a very appealing menu for the wedding reception. My good offices are uninvolved, a fact proven by my not being invited to this dinner.
[caption id="attachment_24657" align="alignnone" width="400"]
Carne asada at La Carreta.[/caption]
Our dining adventure is pitched much below what Jude and his lady will enjoy. MA and I join ML and The Boy for a late lunch at La Carretta. The Marys go there so often that I appear only every third or fourth time. But I am looking forward to this visit, because of what Saul Rubio--the founder and owner of the small regional chain --told me on the radio show five days ago. After a few years of my browbeating him on the subject, he has finally agreed to add molé to his menu. The new menu he showed off that day had the magnificent sauce of bitter chocolate, chiles, and sesame bestowing its magic on roast chicken and cheese enchiladas.
But what's this? The waiter heard that a new menu was on the way, but it has not arrived in Mandeville yet. No molé! That's disappointing, but not a disaster. We eat the usual things: chorizo with queso, a million tortilla chips with the house's excellent salsa. I have a very good steak made of chick mock tenderloin, a little-utilized and underrated cut of beef.
Instead of all that, I should have stayed home and cut the grass, which is now three weeks long. But it starts raining, and I turn my attention to other matters. Always at the computer. I need to break away from that imprisonment. If only I didn't like it so much.
[title type="h5"]Middendorf's. River Parishes: Exit 15 off I-55, Manchac. 985-386-6666. [/title][divider type=""]
[title type="h5"]
Sunday, July 20, 2014.
Tripping To Middendorf's In A Typhoon.[/title]
We meet Jude and The Redhead at the Southern Hotel, which they continue to love. The room rate is a very appealing $140, and Jude's old bedroom on the second floor of the Cool Water Ranch House can't compete.
It takes two cars to deliver the seven of us to lunch at Middendorf's. It's Jude's idea. The movie he's working on has some scenes set in a swamp. Swampiness is a resource that is available wholesale in Manchac.
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Barbe3cue oysters at Middendorf's[/caption]
Before we check that out, we eat. Middendorf's is mobbed. However, we find that they maintain quite a number of six- and eight-top tables. Tables larger than fours are difficult to deal with ordinarily, but Middendorfd's is so big that they swing it. This results in our sitting down to dinner almost immediately after we check in at the hostess stand.
Joining us is Alex Lanaux, who accepts the assignment as best man at the wedding. Alex and his brother Elliott were both in the same Boy Scout unit with Jude, starting in first grade and ending after ten years when Katrina moved Jude out of town permanently. That very active Scout group is something they don't talk about much now--they're grown men, and since both of them work in the film industry they have other topics. But that long Scouting experience created several strong friendships that few menu, young or old--are lucky enough to have experienced.
[caption id="attachment_43187" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Seafood platter with stuffed crab.[/caption]
It's an exceptionally good eat. We have plenty of thin- and thick-cut fried catfish, of course, along with their companions fried oysters and shrimp. I begin with barbecue oysters, a unique dish much older than Drago's grilled oysters and totally different. They're baked on the shells, with a ruddy brown, thick sauce none of whose ingredients play a solo. I don't know what this stuff is, but I like it, and get it every time I eat at Middendorf's.
The most surprising dish is the two or three stuffed crabs that come with the seafood platters. They are stuffed inside actual crab shells, and I can't remember the last time I ran into that. More interesting is that they have a high proportion of crabmeat. Not like a crab cake--the two dishes are similar, but not the same. Stuffed crabs at their best make a big statement with the bread crumbs and seasoning, not just the crabmeat.
All this good food notwithstanding, Topic A is the dinner Jude and his bride had last night in the restaurant where, it has been decided, the wedding reception will take place. They report an evening of deliciousness, dominated by local seafood of the highest order. I'm not surprised. We had a couple of Eat Club dinners in this same space, and they played brilliantly.
After lunch, Jude and The Redhead went into the land-accessible part Manchac to take a look around and to make connections. Most of the camps out there are connected only by boat. It didn't surprise me to hear later that Jude had managed to penetrate the community anyway.
We run into a fantastically heavy rainstorm on the way home. It madeus glad we were on the elevated roadway of I-55, which drains instantly. Some of the side streets from Causeway Boulevard collect steeper water than I've ever seen there, making us wonder whether we'll get home on our flood-prone road. No problem, but enough rain fell to make cutting the grass out of the question. Shucks.
[title type="h5"]Middendorf's. River Parishes: Exit 15 off I-55, Manchac. 985-386-6666. [/title]
