[divider type=""]
Saturday, January 20, 2018, Lago, Not Quite Leonardos.I have a three-hour radio program from noon until three. This gives me time to run a few of my Saturday errands, including a haircut. I wish there were a way to encode a good haircut when I get one, so that it can be duplicated when this one wears out.
It would then go back to overdue after a few weeks, with that awful shape that calls in the clowns. I try to explain how today's cut was perfect. But even if I show photos of this one, the trimmer probably won't quite get next time. But she does, today.Maybe this can be part of the program (literally) when we all start getting our identities implanted under our skins. I wouldn't mind that, really.
After the show--it is as usual filled with callers who never call me during the week, when I really need them--I head home for a nap, a shower, and and odds an ends. I am trying to teach myself to use an aspect of the web software that publishes the NOMenu newsletter. I can't seem to get my head around it. No wonder my son Jude makes the big bucks working in the software world. He's also working on my site, too, but despite his masterful skills, such projects are hard to execute quickly. Just trying to make the NOMenu Five-Star Edition more useful to my--I can hardly believe it?--14,000 readers.
Mary Ann is the one who suggests that we go out to dinner. A little something light, she tells me. Italian. Or maybe Mexican. Light? Right. For the former, we check out a new place call Leonardo. Several dozen of their would-be customers are standing on the sidewalk, waiting a long time for tables. I'm a little relieved by that. The restaurant is in a strip mall where a twenty-four-hour veterinary clinic was the last resting place for the cat Twinnery a few years ago. Someday, I will return to Leonardo's--it had nothing to do with Twinnery's demise--and will discover what's so good about the place. Many people who have told me they love it.
We move on to Lago, across the highway from Leonardo's. It's the Mexican entry on MA's list. The pleasant, comfortable restaurant it is nearly full, but we get a table well away from the front door, where cold winds have begun again. We look over the menu and find the current formula for modern Tex-Mex restaurants.
The first course is choriqueso--the familiar molten cheese, with ground chorizo sausage. It is sizzling when it arrives, and it's the best item of the night, sez MA. (I concur.) The least good course is guacamole, which came across as nothing much more than mashed avocados.
The waiter asks for our entree order, and my test of Mexican restaurants begins. "Do you have molé poblano?" I ask. The waiter shows a brief recognition for my request, and then he laughs. "We can make it, but no one orders it," he says. Indeed, that's what I almost always hear when I ask for molé, the best sauce in the world after bearnaise and Perigourdine. (It's made of bitter, non-sweet chocolate, chile peppers, sesame seeds, and a dozen or three other ingredients that take a day to turn into the magical concoction. And it tastes much better than its recipe sounds.
We have an enormous platter full of grilled shrimp, pork, steak, grilled onions and a few other fresh items. It's big enough for at least three people, steaming away on a hot platter. It's dramatic, but not my kind of thing. A waitress cames by and asks me to identify myself. She is sort of thrilled, which is always what happens.
After we do as much damage to the grill-o-rama's many possibilities, we wrap things up with what MA knows is coming next. I ask the waiter for flan--without whipped cream, cherries, or other ingredients other than the classic caramel sauce. The waiter once again gives me a look of recognition. I know that he knows that I know that he knows that only a major fan of Mexican food would ask for flan! And it is perfect, silky, not too sweet. Fine job, amigo.
Lago. Mandeville: 2660 Florida St. 985-674-7602.
