Tuesday, November 17, 2015. Balise, Again.
The word from the Marys is that Mary Leigh's apartment is cute and looking good, what with all the new furniture she and Dave are buying. I didn't have new furniture until my fifth residence. Come to think of it, I still don't have all-new furniture. The desk at which I spend more time than anywhere else but our bed is one I bought in 1976. It's made out of fake walnut-grain Formica over solid wood and weighs two or three hundred pounds. I bought it for fifty dollars from Jim Derbes, who bought it from Benjie Morrison, both of whom were journalists.
To dinner at Balise with the Giancolas. I invited them to join me a couple of weeks ago, knowing that MA would be out of town and I'd be looking for dinner companions. But the original reason for the meeting was to give Barbara the books I promised for a charity auction. I already completed that pass this past Friday at Galatoire's, but if I cancelled our dinner date tonight, it would belittle our friendship.
[caption id="attachment_49640" align="alignnone" width="480"]
First floor dining room ay Balise.[/caption]
As it was when I dined at Balise a couple of weeks ago, the place is busier than I expect. I'm glad I made a reservation. We sit at a smallish four-top next to an escape door, complete with fire alarm on the wall adjacent. Chef-owner Justin Devillier (he of La Petite Grocery) has not performed a deep renovation of the building. The present space has the feeling of a French bistro, with the floors in this part of the restaurant totally different from the floors in that part. But it looks like a lot of people like the look.
Much more thoroughgoing is the inventiveness of the kitchen. In some ways, the food has an antique quality. The sort of thing you'd get in a much older restaurant. But that fits the neighborhood, especially for a guy my age, who remembers what the restaurants around here were like forty years ago (i.e. Maylie's and Turci's).
[caption id="attachment_49639" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Amuse-bouche.[/caption]
The Giancolas and I like cocktails, and we had a round of them. Mine was a drink called the Anti-Churchill, which I recall reading about somewhere. The waiter tells me that it's the most popular drink at Balise. It's Hendricks gin, Cocchi Rosa, and chamomile grappa, shaken and strained. It packs a punch, but had a flowery quality, too. I can't find an explanation for the name.
I get an order of fresh-cut fries for the table to help with the cocktails. Barbara has a salad special, and Vic gets smoked fried oysters. Both are happy, but there's no way that they could have been more pleased than I was with the soup of the night, a creamy seafood chowder, made with an assortment of local (no clams) fish and shellfish. A light drizzle of Tabasco brought it to perfection. Had it not been so rich, I would have gone for seconds.
The kitchen sends us the same amuse bouche that everybody else in the room enjoyed--a few generous flakes of crabmeat on some crunchy leaves. But we also get an unasked-for order of rigatone with a bolognese-style sauce. The meat part of this is beef cheeks, which melt in the mouth.
[caption id="attachment_49634" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Braised lamb.[/caption]
The Giancolas are both interested in the braised lamb and shrimp, a thick stew with a fascinating array of other ingredients--oyster mushrooms, some dramatic green leaves with red veins, and a few other things. It tastes as good as it looked, which is saying something.
[caption id="attachment_49635" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Cobia with pears, onions, and grated cheese.[/caption]
I have an appetizer of seared cobia for my entree. I already had a little too much to eat, and Balise's menu seems stronger in the small plates than in the large ones. It is basic in preparation, but that's a good thing for cobia (a.k.a. lemonfish).
The Giancolas skip dessert. I have the combination of satsuma and coconut sorbets. Speaking of satsumas, how is my cat of the same name doing? Fine, growing like a weed, and soon to become an outside cat with his brother, Valencia.
It was supposed to rain tonight, but that doesn't come until I get home. I do have to deal with very high winds on the Causeway. And a tornado watch for the overnight. The weather stays weird.
Balise. CBD: 640 Carondelet St. 504-459-4449.
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Wednesday, November 18, 2015.
Homeworking. Panneed Chicken. Homecoming.
The predicted rain of several inches did indeed come through overnight. The half-acre outside my office windows fills when we get two to three inches of rain, and has. This means the road is probably flooded. I decide to work at home, and have an extra slice of toast with breakfast to tide me over until I go out to dinner after the radio show. The Wednesday special at New Orleans Food and Spirits is that superb pairing of a big piece of panneed chicken over a large pile of angel hair pasta with both white and red sauces. It is as lusty as usual, but this is not something I should eat more often than once a month if I want people to keep telling me how much weight I appear to have lost.
[caption id="attachment_21871" align="alignnone" width="400"]
Chicken with two sauces and pasta. They now toss the pasta with the sauces.[/caption]
Mary Ann decides to drive the entire distance between the lovebirds' new home in Vienna in northern Virginia and the Cool Water Ranch. That's a bit over a thousand miles. She left at four in the morning our time, and turned up at the Ranch at around nine p.m. Why anyone would torture oneself in this way when there are so many hotels between there and here is a mystery. But what man understands why his wife does the things she does? If I brought the matter up, she would probably say--correctly--that I would have taken the train. And how goofy is
that?
New Orleans Food & Spirits.
First floor dining room ay Balise.[/caption]
As it was when I dined at Balise a couple of weeks ago, the place is busier than I expect. I'm glad I made a reservation. We sit at a smallish four-top next to an escape door, complete with fire alarm on the wall adjacent. Chef-owner Justin Devillier (he of La Petite Grocery) has not performed a deep renovation of the building. The present space has the feeling of a French bistro, with the floors in this part of the restaurant totally different from the floors in that part. But it looks like a lot of people like the look.
Much more thoroughgoing is the inventiveness of the kitchen. In some ways, the food has an antique quality. The sort of thing you'd get in a much older restaurant. But that fits the neighborhood, especially for a guy my age, who remembers what the restaurants around here were like forty years ago (i.e. Maylie's and Turci's).
[caption id="attachment_49639" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Amuse-bouche.[/caption]
The Giancolas and I like cocktails, and we had a round of them. Mine was a drink called the Anti-Churchill, which I recall reading about somewhere. The waiter tells me that it's the most popular drink at Balise. It's Hendricks gin, Cocchi Rosa, and chamomile grappa, shaken and strained. It packs a punch, but had a flowery quality, too. I can't find an explanation for the name.
I get an order of fresh-cut fries for the table to help with the cocktails. Barbara has a salad special, and Vic gets smoked fried oysters. Both are happy, but there's no way that they could have been more pleased than I was with the soup of the night, a creamy seafood chowder, made with an assortment of local (no clams) fish and shellfish. A light drizzle of Tabasco brought it to perfection. Had it not been so rich, I would have gone for seconds.
The kitchen sends us the same amuse bouche that everybody else in the room enjoyed--a few generous flakes of crabmeat on some crunchy leaves. But we also get an unasked-for order of rigatone with a bolognese-style sauce. The meat part of this is beef cheeks, which melt in the mouth.
[caption id="attachment_49634" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Braised lamb.[/caption]
The Giancolas are both interested in the braised lamb and shrimp, a thick stew with a fascinating array of other ingredients--oyster mushrooms, some dramatic green leaves with red veins, and a few other things. It tastes as good as it looked, which is saying something.
[caption id="attachment_49635" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Cobia with pears, onions, and grated cheese.[/caption]
I have an appetizer of seared cobia for my entree. I already had a little too much to eat, and Balise's menu seems stronger in the small plates than in the large ones. It is basic in preparation, but that's a good thing for cobia (a.k.a. lemonfish).
The Giancolas skip dessert. I have the combination of satsuma and coconut sorbets. Speaking of satsumas, how is my cat of the same name doing? Fine, growing like a weed, and soon to become an outside cat with his brother, Valencia.
It was supposed to rain tonight, but that doesn't come until I get home. I do have to deal with very high winds on the Causeway. And a tornado watch for the overnight. The weather stays weird.
Chicken with two sauces and pasta. They now toss the pasta with the sauces.[/caption]
Mary Ann decides to drive the entire distance between the lovebirds' new home in Vienna in northern Virginia and the Cool Water Ranch. That's a bit over a thousand miles. She left at four in the morning our time, and turned up at the Ranch at around nine p.m. Why anyone would torture oneself in this way when there are so many hotels between there and here is a mystery. But what man understands why his wife does the things she does? If I brought the matter up, she would probably say--correctly--that I would have taken the train. And how goofy is that?
