[title type="h5"]Thursday, January 16, 2014.[/title] The cold weather lately has made me shrink back, wimpily, from my half-hour walk around the ranch. It was down in the mid-twenties last night, but by late afternoon I could stand the chill. I picked up my pace to warm myself up. My staccato strutting brought to mind a man I haven't thought about in a long time. Back in the late 1960s, when I was working at the Time Saver #1 on the corner of Carrollton and Oak, there was a short, wiry priest who walked at a brisk pace in front of the store every afternoon. Very rarely, he came into the store to buy something or other. He could not be engaged in conversation beyond the minimum. Herb Judge--one of the guys I worked with, a World War II veteran from the Irish Channel who had approximately the same build as the priest--never said a word to this hurried customer. I made a remark about the priest once. Herbie said, "He is not in our world." I didn't press the issue. Many years later--twenty to thirty, I can't recall exactly--I happened to be stopped at the traffic light on Carrollton and Oak, and I saw the priest move past me. I drove a few blocks ahead when the light changed, parked my car, and waited for the priest. Here he came, walking not on the sidewalk now (probably too many people got in his way), but on the street itself, between the traffic and the parked cars. His eyes were cast down and his countenance was deadly serious. I thought about walking along with him and asking what his story was. But I didn't see an opening. The mystery remains. I stayed home to do the radio show today, because once again I have no place to work at the station's headquarters. The computer in my nice new office, now fully loaded with all my data after many hours of doing that tedious job--will have to be replaced, and the loading process performed yet again. All I can do there at the moment is look out the window. Mary Ann came home from her errands with a roast beef poor boy from a new North Shore sandwich maker. I had been planning to go out with her, but the sandwich sounded good, too. "It's from a new place called The Po-Boy Company," she said. "They have some kind of family connection with another poor boy shop. See if you can figure out which one." I opened the sandwich and looked inside. Thinly-sliced beef, about fifteen layers thick, with a little too much light gravy. "Bears?" I asked. "Bingo!" I put it into the oven at 400 degrees for six minutes and sixty-six seconds. I opened it up and ate. Very good, Pretty much like the Mandeville (or Fat City or Old Metairie) Bear's. I ate the whole thing, and even a few of the fries. Why does anyone ever attempt to bring French fries home? Why does anyone (especially me) eat them?
The Po-Boy Company. Mandeville: 1817 North Causeway Blvd. 985-778-2460.
[title type="h5"]Friday, January 17, 2014.[/title] Still no way for me to get any work done at the radio station. I had to write out two scripts by hand. Even when I started doing radio scripts in 1974, I used a typewriter. [caption id="attachment_40860" align="alignright" width="320"]
Brisbi's.[/caption]I called Mary Ann and requested her presence at an early supper at Brisbi's. That's one of the two new seafood houses in West End, overlooking the New Basin Canal and Lake Pontchartrain itself from its second-floor aerie. Brisbi's is a locally-owned competitor to the also locally-owned Blue Crab, just up Lakeshore Drive. The two places are both very busy--at least on days when the weather is tolerable. Historically, the cold weather always brought mini-recessions to West End eateries.
Brisbi's was all but empty when I got there at a quarter after four. Mary Ann was still about a half-hour away. Sounds like happy hour to me. I ordered a Manhattan, and was told soon after that a new menu was soon to appear, and an official happy hour with drink and food specials would come, too.
Could I have those specials today? I asked.
Nope. Not until next week.
The number of times I've been in restaurants on the last day of the old menu is so large that a more superstitious person would believe it was in the stars.
[caption id="attachment_40861" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Fried pickles.[/caption]
I asked for a snack of their fried pickles with the cocktail. Six slices of pickles came out, which in terms of fat and salt is all I should eat. And the pickles were made in house. However, the standard count for fried pickles in New Orleans restaurants is somewhere between twenty-five and forty, so the first impression was negative. Particularly for Mary Ann, who had just arrived when the plate came out.
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Fried oysters, andouille, and hollandaise.[/caption]
She did better with an order of fried oysters and andouille, the latter in two long slices end-to-end, with hollandaise. I agreed with her thought that this would have been a better dish with the sausage sliced more conventionally, and a little crunchy at the skin. But there was nothing major wrong with this.
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Brisbi's barbecue shrimp.[/caption]
I had a taste of their barbecue shrimp. A member of the family that runs Pascal's Manale is part of Brisbi's management team. So that explains the source of the recipe for this. I liked it well enough, but I like my recipe better. Also, the shrimp were twice as big as they optimally should be for ease of eating and flavor. On the other hand, these enormous decapods will really make some eyes pop.
[caption id="attachment_40865" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Brisbi's seafood platter.[/caption]
The entrees were a seafood platter (Mary Ann once again giving her ritual about how she shouldn't eat seafood platters anymore followed by her eating one) and a grilled fillet of black drum (or was it redfish?) topped with crabmeat and hollandaise, with asparagus on the side. So, fish Oscar. But I like that, and this was a good rendering.
[caption id="attachment_40866" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Drumfish Oscar.[/caption]
As for the seafood platter, that too was nice and crisp and hot and generous, enough that Mary Ann ate too much of it, and beat her breast about it for the next two days.
Bread pudding for dessert.
We like the look of Brisbi's better than we did the Blue Crab. Each restaurant had specialties in which it was better than the other. I maintain my position that they're tied for first place as best new casual restaurant of 2013.
Brisbi's. West End & Bucktown: 7400 Lakeshore Dr. 504-555-5555.
