Saturday, September 26, 2015.
No Show. No Grass. Pardo's.
I don't have a radio show today, so I turn my attention to rejiggering a few areas of the NOMenu web site. I see down the road the need to make some major changes, but to do that I'd have to shut down for a few days.
I spend a good bit of time working new restaurants into the all-restaurant list, and getting rid of some closed places. The net is not much in terms of major restaurants. In August and early September, we went from 1409 restaurants to 1418. That happened after a dip in the summer that took the census below 1400. I think the market may have peaked, at least for now.
I get a letter from the management of Marti's. The restaurant closed to a la carte business in late spring. They blamed this on the construction of the new Rampart Streetcar being built in front of and limiting access to the restaurant. At the time they gave no specific reopening date, and they still don't. On the other hand, Marti's is open for catering jobs and private-party dining through the down period. They are also doing some renovations. I don't think it really needs them, other than reinstalling tablecloths. I hope they come back soon. Meauxbar can't do it all.
[caption id="attachment_49047" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Vodka-cured salmon @ Pardo's.[/caption]
Mary Ann and I have dinner at Pardo's. My idea. It's sort of a reward for my having walked five laps around the Cool Water Ranch perimeter. I've only done that a couple of times before. Takes a shade over an hour, as I briskly strut along. Except along the trail that winds through the woods, where there are so many protruding tree roots it's a wonder I've only tripped and fallen twice. Next chance I get, I think I'll set up a water station and see how many laps I can accomplish. Ten, maybe?
[caption id="attachment_28305" align="alignnone" width="500"]
A wild mushroom that grows in my yard.[/caption]A wild mushroom that grows in my yard. It's a bolete, and edible--but I checked it out with experts before I tried to eat it. Do not eat a wild mushroom without knowing for 100 percent certainty that it is edible.[/caption]I'll get back to Pardo's momentarily. I must note that we are getting an amazing crop of bolete mushrooms in the woods and around the twin live oaks. Maybe a hundred or more. Really big guys, looking like the tops of hamburger buns on thick stalks. Boletes are a family of mushrooms that include cepes and porcinis. The ones that grow here are edible but not fabulous. The bugs usually get to them before I can. But we're also getting a few brilliant yellow-orange chanterelles, about whose goodness there is no doubt.
Okay, back to Pardo's. Mary Ann starts with the chicken-andouille gumbo, expecting much less than the big bowlful that came.Then she gets the seafood parfait. The word "parfait," which is seen these days almost entirely in very old menus from extinct restaurants, is usually a dessert made by layering the thick ingredients. The layered aspect is the only one in use in this longtime appetizer at Pardo's. It's crabmeat, shrimp, fish, and sauces--all of them chilled--that form the layers. MA and I split this. That threw my order a little off balance. My one starter is a stone cold (a little too) duet of two long strips of salmon that have been cured with vodka and a citrusy admixture. It's almost sashimi. Comes out with a pile of spinach leaves. In the restaurant, I said that it was some other green, but looking at the photos here I see it's obviously spinach. If I had only listened to MA, I could have saved myself and any readers who stopped here by mistake the reading of the last three sentences.
[caption id="attachment_49046" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pork chop with corn salad @ Pardo's. [/caption]
Mary Ann takes my lateral from the salmon department and had the fish grilled on cedar planks. She sent it back, of course: the current chef's way with salmon is to leave it cool and translucent in the center. MA will have none of that. Burn that bubba around the edges and make it stiff and hot in the middle! "What's it to you?" is the only response I would get if I gave forth with the commentary I was thinking, so I keep my mouth shut.
The two entrees under consideration by both of us are an interesting chicken dish and a thick pork chop. I ask the waiter what he thinks. He immediately recommends the chop. It is enormous. Seared on the grill, a little more than I like it--I think this is the influence of MA's salmon--but otherwise it can stand in the company of a first-class steak. It is too big for me to even think of eating more than half.
A man older than I am sitting at the next table over begins choking. It's only a few seconds before several people have descended on the man. One of them is the waiter. Another is owner Osman Rodas, who had just arrived. Another man who identifies himself as an M.D. moves in to the Heimlich position. I can't tell whether he performed that move, but of this there is no question: the man is now both inhaling and exhaling, if in very loud gulps. He's okay, and after he catches his breath he goes back to whatever he was eating. I hope it's not the pork chop.
After calm is restored Osman comes over to our table. He says he is working tonight at the newly-opened Forks And Corks. It's the rebirth, with a little remodeling, of the former Tony Bosco's At TerraBella. The way I heard it, Tony Bosco decided to put all his time and marbles into his flagship restaurant Bosco's in Mandeville. Osman was approached by the developers of the antique-looking TerraBella neighborhood to rework the restaurant. Osman is torn as to whether this will be an American bistro or something that will remind some people of Galatoire's. I like the latter idea, but that's like a disk jockey who plays only the songs he likes, without regard for what his listeners go for. Galatoire's cannot be imitated. Not even by Galatoire's itself. Don't believe it? Try the Galatoire's in Baton Rouge. It's good, but it's not Galatoire's. Come to think of it, the new Bosco's in TerraBella wasn't the same as the original Bosco's, even though it was a nicer-looking restaurant.
Meanwhile, back at Pardo's, all the tables are full. Some of them have nine-o'clock reservations. Most of them look to be in their thirties or thearabouts. A few people other than myself are in jacket and tie. One table of these people are high-school students who are out on the town after the homecoming dance. I always like finding a younger crowd in the restaurants that I like.
Pardo's. Covington: 69305 Hwy 21. 985-893-3603.
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Sunday, September 27, 2015.
The Same Old Song. Oysters Three Ways.
At St. Jane's, we sing a hymn I haven't heard in decades, but which I remember almost well enough for me to sing it by heart. It gives me a flash of nostalgia to a time and place full of people and habits and habitats from very long ago. St. Agnes in Old Jefferson. Jim Steckel, my history teacher at Jesuit
and the leader of the St. Agnes choir. (My theory about there being only 500 people living in New Orleans was apparently already true.) My last two years working at the Time Saver. My 1959 VW Beetle. I once was able to summon up the feelings I had about everything in those days. Now it's more like I'm reading it from a book.
[caption id="attachment_14628" align="alignnone" width="400"]
Grilled oysters @ Acme.[/caption]
It rains tremendously. The dry ground sucks most of the standing water down, and I take a walk, if not for the record. Mary Leigh and I have an early supper at the Acme. Oysters raw, grilled, and fried for me. Wedge salad for her. I could probably get nostalgic about all the other meals with that same menu she and I have had. But you can't get nostalgic over something you haven't stopped doing.
That cessation, however, is not long off. ML and I talk about her wedding and the reception. I think she has backed away from the food truck idea. (I hope she has, anyway.)
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Monday, September 28, 2015.
Oktoberfest Arrives. Compromises In Eating.
It's always a bad day that begins with a computer problem. Two hours down the drain. I manage to get caught up when I post the Oktoberfest menu at Ralph's On The Park. It looks as if we will have a lot of Oktoberfest this tear. The usuals are all back: the Peppermill, Middendorf's, Jagerhaus, Crescent City Brew House, Salu, N'Tini's. If somebody mentions Oktoberfest to Chef Andrea, he will probably put a menu together. (He speaks fluent German, so why not?)
The Marys know they will not have me to lunch if they insist on going to The Chimes, so we go to La Carreta--the one in Mandeville, not the one twenty miles closer to home round trip. They like the atmosphere more than the one at the new Carreta's in Covington. It's the best compromise I can get, but I take it gladly for the company of my girls. And because if I don't eat then I will have neither lunch or dinner. If one doesn't eat, one dies.
I have always known that one should not talk for two or more hours--let alone sing--after eating. Especially if it's a big meal. I know this, but I don't really follow it. I seem always to be hungry during my radio show--probably because of the topic. But even at its worst. . . what a life!
Vodka-cured salmon @ Pardo's.[/caption]
Mary Ann and I have dinner at Pardo's. My idea. It's sort of a reward for my having walked five laps around the Cool Water Ranch perimeter. I've only done that a couple of times before. Takes a shade over an hour, as I briskly strut along. Except along the trail that winds through the woods, where there are so many protruding tree roots it's a wonder I've only tripped and fallen twice. Next chance I get, I think I'll set up a water station and see how many laps I can accomplish. Ten, maybe?
[caption id="attachment_28305" align="alignnone" width="500"]
A wild mushroom that grows in my yard.[/caption]A wild mushroom that grows in my yard. It's a bolete, and edible--but I checked it out with experts before I tried to eat it. Do not eat a wild mushroom without knowing for 100 percent certainty that it is edible.[/caption]I'll get back to Pardo's momentarily. I must note that we are getting an amazing crop of bolete mushrooms in the woods and around the twin live oaks. Maybe a hundred or more. Really big guys, looking like the tops of hamburger buns on thick stalks. Boletes are a family of mushrooms that include cepes and porcinis. The ones that grow here are edible but not fabulous. The bugs usually get to them before I can. But we're also getting a few brilliant yellow-orange chanterelles, about whose goodness there is no doubt.
Okay, back to Pardo's. Mary Ann starts with the chicken-andouille gumbo, expecting much less than the big bowlful that came.Then she gets the seafood parfait. The word "parfait," which is seen these days almost entirely in very old menus from extinct restaurants, is usually a dessert made by layering the thick ingredients. The layered aspect is the only one in use in this longtime appetizer at Pardo's. It's crabmeat, shrimp, fish, and sauces--all of them chilled--that form the layers. MA and I split this. That threw my order a little off balance. My one starter is a stone cold (a little too) duet of two long strips of salmon that have been cured with vodka and a citrusy admixture. It's almost sashimi. Comes out with a pile of spinach leaves. In the restaurant, I said that it was some other green, but looking at the photos here I see it's obviously spinach. If I had only listened to MA, I could have saved myself and any readers who stopped here by mistake the reading of the last three sentences.
[caption id="attachment_49046" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pork chop with corn salad @ Pardo's. [/caption]
Mary Ann takes my lateral from the salmon department and had the fish grilled on cedar planks. She sent it back, of course: the current chef's way with salmon is to leave it cool and translucent in the center. MA will have none of that. Burn that bubba around the edges and make it stiff and hot in the middle! "What's it to you?" is the only response I would get if I gave forth with the commentary I was thinking, so I keep my mouth shut.
The two entrees under consideration by both of us are an interesting chicken dish and a thick pork chop. I ask the waiter what he thinks. He immediately recommends the chop. It is enormous. Seared on the grill, a little more than I like it--I think this is the influence of MA's salmon--but otherwise it can stand in the company of a first-class steak. It is too big for me to even think of eating more than half.
A man older than I am sitting at the next table over begins choking. It's only a few seconds before several people have descended on the man. One of them is the waiter. Another is owner Osman Rodas, who had just arrived. Another man who identifies himself as an M.D. moves in to the Heimlich position. I can't tell whether he performed that move, but of this there is no question: the man is now both inhaling and exhaling, if in very loud gulps. He's okay, and after he catches his breath he goes back to whatever he was eating. I hope it's not the pork chop.
After calm is restored Osman comes over to our table. He says he is working tonight at the newly-opened Forks And Corks. It's the rebirth, with a little remodeling, of the former Tony Bosco's At TerraBella. The way I heard it, Tony Bosco decided to put all his time and marbles into his flagship restaurant Bosco's in Mandeville. Osman was approached by the developers of the antique-looking TerraBella neighborhood to rework the restaurant. Osman is torn as to whether this will be an American bistro or something that will remind some people of Galatoire's. I like the latter idea, but that's like a disk jockey who plays only the songs he likes, without regard for what his listeners go for. Galatoire's cannot be imitated. Not even by Galatoire's itself. Don't believe it? Try the Galatoire's in Baton Rouge. It's good, but it's not Galatoire's. Come to think of it, the new Bosco's in TerraBella wasn't the same as the original Bosco's, even though it was a nicer-looking restaurant.
Meanwhile, back at Pardo's, all the tables are full. Some of them have nine-o'clock reservations. Most of them look to be in their thirties or thearabouts. A few people other than myself are in jacket and tie. One table of these people are high-school students who are out on the town after the homecoming dance. I always like finding a younger crowd in the restaurants that I like.
Grilled oysters @ Acme.[/caption]
It rains tremendously. The dry ground sucks most of the standing water down, and I take a walk, if not for the record. Mary Leigh and I have an early supper at the Acme. Oysters raw, grilled, and fried for me. Wedge salad for her. I could probably get nostalgic about all the other meals with that same menu she and I have had. But you can't get nostalgic over something you haven't stopped doing.
That cessation, however, is not long off. ML and I talk about her wedding and the reception. I think she has backed away from the food truck idea. (I hope she has, anyway.)
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