[title type="h5"]Wednesday, March 18, 2015.
Eat Club At Impastato Cellars.[/title]
Sometimes coincidences make a person look brilliant. Most of our readers, if they think about it at all, will assume that I coordinated the appearance of Impastato's on the 33 Best Seafood Restaurants Countdown on the day the Diary reports on the Eat Club at its North Shore location. In fact, it's an accident born of the radio station's scheduling the dinner today. And that I'm running a day behind on the Dining Diary, a trivial effect of Dick Brennan's departure from this earth last week.
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Mr. Joe.[/caption]
At Impastato Cellars on the North Shore, Joe Impastato has lately taken a hand in managing the place (although he's still looking for a good manager so he can stay on the South Shore most of the time). He's also spending a lot of time in the kitchen. His daughter Mica really runs the Cellars. I know all about how much fathers want to help out their daughters. Especially when the daughter is in the family business.
Otherwise, we may as well be dining at Impastato's in Metarie. I just cut and pasted the menu from the last Eat Club there into the invitation to this one. Even the price was the same.
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Redfish with artichokes and mushrooms. It's named for Joe Impastato's mother, so you know it's good.[/caption]
So we start with shrimp remoulade and sauteed crab claws and mushrooms stuffed with crabmeat and shrimp au gratin. Then irresistible fettuccine Alfredo and, nearly as good--the angel hair asciutta, with its peppery tomato sauce.
After a salad comes that unique and delicious mix-and match entree. You pick from among panneed veal, fried or broiled fish, or a fried soft-shell crab. You pick mushrooms, artichokes, shrimp, crabmeat, or any combination thereof in a lemon, butter and sherry sauce. Best entree in the house, no matter how you configure it.
The North Shore clientele is different from what we find in Metairie. Because of past experience, I suggest to the forty-five diners (we have ten no-shows, typical for North Shore Eat Club events) that if they get the veal porterhouse, they should order it medium or medium well. That's something I learned thirty years ago from Chef Gunter Preuss. The problem is that veal has very little fat or gelatin, the two ingredients that ameliorate toughness. But veal has such a reputation for tenderness that few know this.
Even so, three guys (of course they were men) blow off my suggestion and get it rare or so. Fortunately, they are willing to live with the consequences of their actions. One of them eats half of the enormous chop and takes the rest home. He calls me on the radio a few days later to say that when he cooked it some more at home, it came out a lot better. I'm not right all the time, but I am pretty well convinced of this.
Those dissenters were only some of the independent-minded people here tonight. Indeed, we have a very interesting group of diners, many of whom are new to the Eat Club. I hope they come again. I am there until well after ten, finishing off the wine and nibbling on some cheeses from the deli cases adjacent to the bar.
And Mr. Joe seems happy with the way it all turns out.
[title type="h5"]
Impastato Cellars. Madisonville: 240 Highway 22 E. 985-845-4445. [/title]
