[title type="h5"]Friday, April 17, 2015.
SoFAB Throws A Gala. Purloo Develops. [/title]
The first I heard of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum came from the mouth of a guy who managed one of the first New Orleans websites. He had already made one smart move: he brought me in as his food guy, and paid me enough that I put a tremendous amount of content on the site. This was in the 1990s, when we kept hearing about billions of dollars being made by internet entrepreneurs. Our website--insideneworleans.com--didn't develop fast enough to satisfy the corporate owners, and we went our separate ways.
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The Museum of the American Cocktail At SoFAB.[/caption]The SoFAB, as it came to be known, sounded like a good idea, and it had enough support to move ahead. But it didn't so so with any speed. We got past 9/11 and then Katrina first. The museum, which had a fair collection of artifacts, kept moving around. Working with volunteers it stayed open, if irregularly, occasionally opening for new exhibits. It would be charitable to say that the museum had less than a critical mass of attractions.
But the management and supporters kept nudging it forward, and enough wherewithal appeared for SoFAB to acquire a building in what appears to be the next great neighborhood renaissance: along Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard.
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The lady from Lillet.[/caption]It seems to me that SoFAB already held a grand opening, but I got an invitation to attend a gala premier tonight. Since I had not seen it since it opened in its new space, I gathered Mary Ann with me and we checked it out.
The museum is still quirky and serendipitous. Here is a big display of relics from the late Al Copeland, the creator of Popeyes Fried Chicken. But a few steps away is a row of old-time refrigerators--the kind with the cylindrical compressors on top. Where did they get so many of these, and why?
Here is Poppy Tooker, just finishing a cooking demo. Right behind the stove is a small room with two microphones and a sound board--the new studio for her WWNO radio show, "Louisiana Eats." She is very proud of it. I did notice that the microphones are of excellent quality.
The next-closest attraction is a bar where cocktails are being made, and without much of a line. The featured juice is Lillet, and in attendance is a lady who works for the company that makes that old French brand of flavored wine. They have bestowed a very old bottle of Lillet to the museum's collection.
There was a little bit of food being served, the most substantial of which was fried chicken--but not Popeyes. We weren't sure if there would be food at all here, but if not, then we are looking for dinner.
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Purloo.[/caption]
Part of the SoFAB complex is a restaurant called Purloo, operated by Chef Ryan Hughes. It's a Southern restaurant, as opposed to Creole or Cajun--although a good bit of those southerly cuisines are on the menu too. Hughes has turned up in a number of restaurants here over the years, but during the past two years, while waiting for SoFAB to open on Haley, he held pop-up dinners around town. Now he's open on a normal schedule, and the coolness quotient of the idea of the place and its immediacy next door to SoFAB has attracted a good deal of attention. You need a reservation on weekends.
We took a table at the big U-shaped counter embracing the kitchen. We hit off a conversation with a young chef who came here from Jackson, Mississippi, where his parents are in the restaurant business.
The service staff seemed a little overwhelmed this night. The dining room was nearly full, and we weren't the only ones eating at the bar. Still, the two servers who took care of us gave us the straight dope.
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A Southern board.[/caption]
We began with a board of various nibbles: deviled eggs, pimiento cheese, green tomatoes made into a chutney, fried okra, panneed pickles, boiled peanuts, and smoked lamb. Mary Ann went for none of this. It was indeed more Southern than Creole.
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She-crab soup.[/caption]
Next came a real she-crab soup, not something we see much around here. In the Carolinas they have the same blue crabs we do, but the difference is in the addition of crab roe to the soup. This was quite good.
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Black drum, grits, artichokes.[/caption]
Both entrees were seafood. Mary Ann had pan-seared black drumfish, resting atop artichoke bottoms and grits, with the same fried pickles from the board on top of that. The fish in the photo looks generous enough, but in reality is was such a small flake of fish that we sent it back for adjustment.
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Overcooked tuna.[/caption]
I had tuna overcooked in the way I'm always telling people not to do. This after a conversation with the server to the effect that I really did want it rare, as in cool in the center and red to within a half-inch of the exterior. What came was neither, and tough as a result.
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Calas.[/caption]
They recovered in the dessert zone. Fried calas with a frothy sauce like half-melted ice cream. I congratulate every chef who helps to keep this old Creole treat alive.
The problem tonight is easy enough to figure: we have come to Purloo too soon. The idea is worthy of being worked out, and I'm glad to see that it's drawing enough business to make it viable.
[title type="h5"]Purloo. Warehouse District & Center City: 1504 Oretha C. Haley Blvd. 504-324-6020. [/title]
