[title type="h5"]Friday, August 7, 2015.
Trenasse With Best Man.[/title]
Life comes in clumps. Two days ago, I had dinner with and wrote about Kit and Billy Wohl, who--among many other acts of friendship--let us use their expansive home for Mary Ann and my wedding reception. Tonight, we find ourselves at table with Oliver and Carolyn Kluna. He was the best man at our nuptials, and they later became Jude's godparents. We've known one another so long that we must go through a long list of mutual acquaintances before we catch up to the present.
We dine at Trenasse, in the Inter-Continental Hotel. It's the fourth time for me, and a trend has emerged: this place cooks more interesting and better food every succeeding meal. Part of this comes from the menu's refusal to be pinned down to any one style of cooking. Seafood dominates the choices, with well more than the average number of fish species and an oyster bar that promises to serve our favorite bivalves a dozen different ways.
Despite all that, the most impressive dish this evening is gnocchi bolognese. Although I am very wary about gnocchi--only about one serving in seven of the potato-and-flour dumplings are prepared well enough to be enjoyed--when I do find a good batch it's a great pleasure. Perhaps that owes more than a little to the rarity of well-made gnocchi.
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Rabbit and shrimp fricassee.[/caption]
A lot of the same things could be said about bolognese sauces. Most of the time, it's elementary red sauce with ground beef. Real school-cafeteria food. But this one is very appealing. Even though I get an enormous bowlful of the stuff, I somehow manage to polish it off. This and a rabbit and shrimp fricassee ordered by Oliver come from Trenasse's Coolinary menu, and are quite appealing.
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Oysters with sharp cheese and bacon at Trenasse.[/caption]
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Oysters Bienville.[/caption]
But that was deep into a meal that had already shown distinction. We begin with a dozen shared oysters, grilled and baked respectively with a sharp cheese and bacon topping, and an attempt at Bienville sauce. The latter is the only low point of the night. It's made with out-of-season crawfish, in a roux-based sauce with an offputting color and texture.
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Crabmeat Caprese salad.[/caption]
We pass a lot of food around. Here's a Caprese salad loaded with very pretty crabmeat. Now barbecue shrimp, some of them held up in a cone-shaped tower of bread. The shrimp are headless, but their essence has managed to imbue the sauce with the shrimpy taste we are looking for.
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Barbecue shrimp.[/caption]
A "fowl gumbo" gets no prize for its name, but the promise of its edibility is fulfilled. Finally, Mary Ann's order of a stuffed squash is about as good as it sounds. She is distressed that she keeps ordering things like this for dietary reasons, and I would be too. Someone gets the fish of the day: sheepshead. Once again, this strange name is attached to a very good fish, nicely sauced and garnished.
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Sheepshead meuniere at Trenasse.[/caption]
And if this sounds like a lot of food even for four people, it is.
Two days ago, Kit Wohl told me that the owner of the advertising agency where the Klunas and I first ran into one another has died. I cannot confirm this, but it doesn't matter much. We always tell stories about the man and his occasional approaches to the outer limits. Despite that, we kind of like remembering the guy. His hiring of me resulted in my first really professional work in radio and television. And without him, I never would have met the Klunas, who are solid-gold friends.
[title type="h5"]Trenasse. CBD: 444 St Charles Ave. 504-680-7000.[/title]
