Diary 6|18, 19|2015: Kin. Desi Vega's.

Written by Tom Fitzmorris June 26, 2015 12:01 in

DiningDiarySquare-150x150 Thursday, June 18, 2015. Kin, A Tiny But Fine Broadmoor Restaurant.
My friend, dermatologist and groomsman Dr. Bob called Monday to see if I'd like to join him for dinner tonight. We are both baching it. His fiancee is out of town, and MA is, of course, two thousand miles away in her Eden-like hotel. The restaurant Dr. Bob suggests is Kin, a new, much-discussed bistro in the unlikely location of Washington Avenue near Earhart Blvd. The place is too new for my guidelines, but Dr. Bob has a knack of finding new restaurants that have managed to pull themselves together sooner than most. Kin is not easy to find. I drove past it three times before I finally picked it out, even though I checked the location first on Bingmaps before heading over there. The problem is that the sign--already small because of the shortness of the restaurant's name--is hard to see. The building itself is tiny as restaurants go. Only twenty-something seats, half of them at counters. We were seated at the main counter, from which we could see the great outdoors every time one of the kitchen staff opened the back door. It was about ten percent of being outside. Looking over the menus for lunch and dinner, we find two very different restaurants. The midday selection is quite Asian, with lots of broth and noodles. That seems logical, given the chef-owner's name: Nhat (call him Nate) Nguyen. But also in the kitchen are Matt Engle, Matt Fraser. And sous chefs Nate Kruse and Jason Vu. The menu shows fine economy of names, needing only three first names for five people. When space is this tight, you loosen up wherever you can. The dinner menu is completely different from lunch in both general and particular. The six small plates and seven large ones could be served in any New Orleans gourmet bistro. You're more likely to figure out the Vietnamese heritage here by looking at the chefs and servers than by reading the menu. Bob and I work out a plan of three small plates and two large, leaning to the more robust side. He carried a bottle of a big Rhone wine, which pulls us away from the seafood selections. (Kin doesn't have a liquor license yet, so guests are invited to bring in a bottle, with no corkage charged.) The lightness of the first course comes from a substantial vegetable component in two of the three dishes. So we have "greens and artichokes," with still-warm, battered and fried artichoke hearts placed atop the assortment of greens, Asian pear slices, honey-poached pine nuts, and a few other ingredients. Comes across as both a salad and an appetizer. Also here is a crispy duck leg, with gnudi ("nude gnocchi" is a good explanation of it) made from queso fresco and adobo. This is seriously good to eat. The dish called "peppers and tomatoes" also includes grapes and cilantro vinaigrette, for a sweet-hot-tart coming together. In the interim I tell Bob about the Eat Club's recent cruise. I suspect that he will be most interested in the Rock of Gibraltar and our encounter with the Berber monkeys who live there. I get a pleasant surprise. By going to Gibraltar, I have set foot on an exotic land that Bob has not visited. I think it may be the first time. In his pursuit of wine and birds (he's an expert on both), he has been around the world, including to many extremely remote places. The large plates start coming. Bob has been to almost all of those already, so we cover a lot of ground. We have the pork chop with rice-pasta dumplings and roasted peaches. Also here is sorrel, a leafy vegetable that could be considered either a green or an herb. It functions both ways. In this dish, it's more an herb. The pork chop is thick and ideally cooked, crusty at the edges, a little pink in the center. Our other entree is the game hen with glutinous (sticky) rice and barley. Two grains in one dish? Why not? It certainly works well. Great with the wine. The whole dinner is delightful. Chef Nate (Nhat) is full of enthusiasm, and talks about how he might expand in the future. His staff seems to be having a great time working there. Why would they not? The customers and employees are mostly on the young side. (Both Bob and I are at least twenty years older than the average age of everyone else here.) One of the waitresses is particularly engaging, with her short stature and a voice like that of a singing bird. You can practically see a trail of happiness follow her as she carries this delicious food to the diners. I know I took pictures of all this, but I'll be damned if I can find them. Kin. Broadmoor: 4600 Washington Ave. 504-304-8557.
Friday, June 19, 2015. Pre-Father's Day Dinner With Daughter @ Desi Vegas.
Our most complicated project of the day is to collect Mary Ann at the airport when she returns from a relaxing week in Los Angeles. The arrival will use up some of the ease in which she has lived for the past five days. Her flight--already a nuisance because of its midnight arrival--runs over an hour late. Meanwhile, my car is still in the shop. (The usual story: it will a two or three hours to do all the work, but two weeks to get the parts in.) Mary Leigh and I decide that while waiting, we will have a major dinner. Father's Day is this weekend, so we have an excuse for splurging on a thick steak. We meet at Desi Vega's, the second restaurant of Mr. John's Steakhouse, which I believe is the city's best. Even though it's only two blocks from the radio station, I have not been to Desi Vega's in maybe a year. And ML is a steak eater. We are accorded a great table in the corner of the main dining room. Not many people are there at six-fifteen, but the place will be bustling by the time we leave. I think a case could be made that the goodness of a steak house can be predicted accurately by dividing the beauty and youth of the women in the place by the alpha-male quality of the men. Desi Vega's would have scored high with that formula this evening. For example, at one table were two very beautiful, well-dressed women, one of whom wore a sash that declared her to be Miss New Orleans (I think that's what it said). The man sitting there was a congenial, robust fellow who, judging by our handshake when he came over to our table to say hello, would be the sort of person I'd want on my side if a brawl broke out. (Not that such a thing would ever happen in Desi Vega's civilized dining room, nor that the man looked like the type who would ever be in such a situation.) The ratio at our own table would have confounded my theory. Mary Leigh passes with flying colors as the gorgeous young woman. But I'm a gamma male at best. We start with onion rings. They are excellent, different from the ones I remember having had here before, These are marinated in hot sauce before frying. I've run into this only one other time: at Andy's Bistro in Metairie. Can't say which had it first, only that these thinly-sliced jobs are right up my alley. We kill that, then move to my daughter's inevitable wedge salad and I to my equally likely turtle soup. Now the steaks. She gets the small filet, medium, as always. The waiter tells me that the special of the evening is Prime sirloin strip, bone in. This is my favorite cut of beef, and Father's Day permits me to order it, despite the $58 list price. I don't know why, but the steaks at Desi Vega's are never quite as good as the ones at Mr. John's. This one was cooked as ordered, but the sizzling, crusty aspect that Mr. John's always achieves is missing here. I ask for more hot butter, but that doesn't do it. I ask for bearnaise, and discover that they don't really know how to make that sauce. On the other hand, the intrinsic merit of the steak cannot be denied. We get a side of potatoes au gratin, something Mr. John's always nails. Desi Vega's also did that magic in previous visits. But today the potatoes are undercooked, almost to a degree of crunchiness. Desi Vega his own self shows up. If he were sitting at a table, he would raise the ratio I posited above. I say something about Father's Day. He tells me that Father's Day--for a long time no busier than a standard Sunday, if that good--has become a booming weekend, and that he is more or less sold out of all seats at both restaurants. The next thing we know, sons and daughters will stop sending cards making fun of their dads, instead focusing on what wonderful dads they have. We will become like mothers, maybe. When we learn that Mary Ann's plane has been delayed, we come up with a plan. We'll leave her car at the airport, and she will come home when she gets home. Mary Ann thinks this is a great idea, and adopts it as her own. ML drives the two of us home, where we each can retire at a decent hour. Everything is fine until I hear the next morning that MA's car was low on gas. What a moron I am not to have noticed. My status drops to that of delta male. (Come to think of it, MA was flying on Delta.)
Desi Vega's. CBD: 628 St Charles Ave. 504-523-7600.