[title type="h5"]Tuesday, March 17, 2015.
Irishness. NOLA Beer. Rouse's Does St. Joseph Altars.[/title]
Matt Murphy is the perfect guest for our Round Table show on St. Patrick's Day. He was in the second string at Commander's Palace when Jamie Shannon died, but Tory McPhail got the tap on the shoulder. Matt knew he'd have to move up or move out at that point, so he moved to the top rung at the Ritz-Carlton on Canal Street. Not exactly a downward trajectory.
His next gig was to open the Irish House under his own aegis. Being a native of Dublin and a very engaging guy, he made a success out of a building that hadn't done well before--even though it's in a great location on St. Charles Avenue. With its own parking lot, yet. Matt also knows that the Irish crowd won't show up unless the bar and the music are good. Which they are. Food's edible, too.
Also in the room today are Tim Acosta and Marcie Nathan, both of whom have marketing positions at Rouse's. That supermarket chain is setting up St. Joseph's Day altars at some of its stores, and displaying the unique foodstuffs needed for the celebration of that holiday. Rouse's, by making its stores different from others in its chain, has managed to take over the lead among grocery stores in these parts. Its bigger, newer stores--especially the one on Baronne Street downtown, whose gourmet-to-go side is spectacular--have really changed the rules.
Filling out the guest list is Kirk Coco, from NOLA Brewing Company. Abita aside (that's really in a different catagory), NOLA has been near the top of local craft breweries, and its product line is expanding. But what does beer go with better? Irish or Italian food?
After the show ends (early--there's a basketball game), I head over to Café Adelaide, where I am to meet up with a producer for Robin Roberts's television news operation. They are assembling a major report on New Orleans ten years after Katrina. That's just a few months off. I expect we'll see a lot of such coverage. My book Hungry Town answers all the questions they ask me, but I'm happy to go through it all conversationally.
Lally Brennan is hosting our meeting. She is one of the co-owners of Café Adelaide (and SoBou and. . . what's that other one, again? Oh, yeah-- Commander's Palace). She answers another big question: about her uncle, Dick Brennan, Sr., who died last Saturday. Apparently Dick had a kidney issue, complicated by the developments you have when well into your eighties. He had been in an unambiguous decline in recent months, such that he didn't recognize anyone anymore. Given that he was a man who knew everybody and approached them all as good friends, that is a steep fall indeed. Lally says the funeral is not set, but will probably be this Friday. I will clear my calendar for that.
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Fried oysters at Cafe Adelaide.[/caption]
The kitchen sends us a bunch of bar snacks, including Cafe Adelaide's astonishingly complex corn dogs. And some oysters and fries and a couple of other things. Although these nibbles add up to supper for me, Lally invites the four of us to stay for dinner. But the producers need to move on and prepare for their departure tomorrow. We end up with anecdotes about this and that, and Lally mentions her ex-husband in passing. He was my civics teacher at Jesuit, thereby proving once again that only 500 people live in New Orleans. The TV producers make a note of that.
[title type="h5"]Cafe Adelaide. CBD: 300 Poydras St. 504-595-3305. [/title]
