Thursday, July 13, 2017. Public Service, Three Days Old. Mary Ann and I were to have dinner tonight, with my choice of venues. But as the radio show went off, she called back to rescind that offer, because she and Mary Leigh were already seated in the bar of a three-day-old restaurant.
It's called Public Service. Clever name, that--taken from the common moniker of New Orleans Public Service Inc., the company that owned the electric, gas, and transit services in New Orleans for a century.
NOPSI was its nickname. Its headquarters were a big building on Baronne Street where everyone who lived in New Orleans proper would turn up sooner or later. You would pay your electricity and gas bills there, usually after a long wait in line. You'd buy bus tokens. And you'd find a rack of pamphlets on every imaginable subject having to do with home life in New Orleans. Among these pamphlets were hundreds of recipes that were held in such high esteem that Energy--which took over NOPSI some decades ago--compiled a few hundred of the recipes into a book compiled and sold by the United Way as a fund raiser.
The old Baronne Street building followed the trend of recent years in which former office buildings in the CBD have become hotels, condominiums, and apartments. The old NOPSI building is now the NOPSI Hotel. A former manhole cover in front of the entrance shows the old NOPSI logo. And the restaurant is called Public Service.
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The bread pudding is good, but could pass as lost bread.[/caption]
When I arrived, the Marys were digging into an appetizer of black bean hummus. It was well disguised on the plate as a sort of plate coating, not the customary pile. Then came fried, cheese-sprinkled potatoes cut too big to fry properly. A souffle cup of seafood gumbo was disliked by everyone at the table. A filet mignon was reasonably good, but it was sprinkled with a seasoning so loaded with salt that I had to stop after only a bite. I had the vegetarian dish--pasta, mushrooms, a buttery sauce. I got it mainly because its name was Jaxson Tagliatelle--nearly that of my grandson Jackson. I thought this was the best dish of the night. The Marys gave that award to a chocolate pots de creme, one of their favorite things.
The bar was busy when we arrived. I had an Old Fashioned, which was well made but ungenerous, compared with the cocktails of a dozen other places in the neighborhood. If they want to get the local crowd, they need to top those glasses off.
The general manager of the hotel visited our table, and offered to give us a tour of the hotel. MA was interested in this because the hotel met most of her standards for hotel excellence. She may have made a plan for the place before we even began the tour.
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Filet @ Public Service.[/caption]
As part of our tour, we were brought down to the basement of the old building. There was a lot of new and old operational gere, of which was the most interesting was a series of thick-walled, tall safes. During most of its history, NOPSI's customers paid with cash. The cashiers carried a lot of currency, and had to be bled now and then--into the big vaults. Interesting.
At the end of the tours, the Marys were in agreement with my preference for waiting a few months before dining seriously in a restaurant. Public Service has much reworking in its food service ahead. But the Marys love the place.
Public Service. CBD: 311 Baronne St. 504-962-6527.
