Thursday, April 13, 2017.
Queedle-Deep! Two Tony's.
The unmistakable songs of wood thrushes made themselves clear and loud this morning as the sun rose. The call is in a question-and-answer format. Queedle-deep? asks the bird, from somewhere up in the trees at the Cool Water Ranch. I've never actually seen the bird, even when it calls so loudly that it can't be more than thirty or forty feet away. The answer to the question is "Queedle-dee doop," the tone getting lower as it plays out. Both calls are made by the male birds. The girl birds just listen.
The queedle-deep song is my personal harbinger of spring. This year, it came close to setting a record in my observations. The earliest call was April 2 in both 2008 and 2009. This year it was April 7. But I heard what I thought was the queedle-deep back on April 1. I went outside to make sure, and noticed that the song was a bit different. Not quite as lovely, I though. A joke from the birds, perhaps?
Dustin Palmisano, the owner of the Coffee Pot restaurant on St. Peter Street and next to Pat O'Brien's, dropped in at the radio station for an interview. I am writing an article about the Coffee Pot for the Rouses' Market's slick magazine. I've wanted to write such a thing for years.
The Coffee Pot was the first restaurant I reviewed when I started a daily radio review in 1975. There are many good storied attached to the Coffee Pot. How it was the first restaurant hereabouts to serve ranch salad dressing. First restaurant where Leah Chase ever worked. The restaurant that has single-handedly kept calas from going extinct. Many other good stories made the place a good subject for an article.
Our other guest chef today is Ryan David, the executive chef of the Audubon Clubhouse. He has bad news: the Clubhouse has gone over completely to private parties. The a la carte dinners that lasted barely long enough for us to have an Eat Club dinner there are now history. The reason for the loss is that the Clubhouse does so many private-party events that it can't do both kinds of operation. Nice while it lasted.
Dinner tonight for me is at Two Tony's in West End. The combination seafood and Italian café wasn't very busy when I arrived, but it came close to filling all tables by the time I left. The waitress touted the soft shell crabs--the first of the season--as the most welcome of the specials. I had one of those, served with an intense brown meuniere sauce. I thought it a bit overcooked, but not enough to keep me from enjoying it.
I had that brought with spaghettini aglio olio. Or, as we call it here in New Orleans, spaghetti Bordelaise. In the Bordeaux region of France, the people would laugh at a dish named for them but made without red wine.
Two Tonys. West End & Bucktown: 8536 Pontchartrain Blvd. 504-282-0801.
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