Alma Cafe has had quite the media buzz for a few years now. A restaurant enjoying that kind of attention I call a media darling. These restaurants are obvious because in the old days cabs, or now, Ubers, constantly pull up to drop their passengers, who are out-of-towners who have found these restaurants online.
I didn’t see any of that when I went the first time, because I was too busy looking for it. I had trouble finding it myself. I was told it was in the former location of Mr. Ed’s on Carrollton at Bienville. But the building looked empty. The windows were dark and there was no sign. Inside it was charming. I just picked up food. If there is an empanada in the offing, I will automatically get that. And I got the enchiladas, which in no way resemble what you think of when you hear the word enchiladas.
The empanadas came as a threesome, with two accompaniments: a spicy Honduran red sauce, and minced pickled beets. These were the least interesting empanadas I have had, and I have had plenty. They are called pastelitos on the menu, which are flaky puff pastries, though this dough did not flake much. It was heavy. That’s not to say I didn’t like them, because I never met an empanada I didn’t like. Inside was filled with locally-raised ground beef and a Latin American spice blend that perked it up, but not too much. These were fine large meat pies, just not memorable ones. I liked the pickled beets and the red sauce too.
The enchiladas were a real cultural education. This is not a dish I get much in Mexican restaurants, but all the ones I watched Tom eat over the years are predictable rolls of tortillas filled with beef, chicken or cheese and covered in a queso sauce and maybe some red or green chile sauce. Or all of the above. Here was a pile of sliced green cabbage so thick it was hard to see anything underneath it, as well as generous sprigs of cilantro. There was some cotija cheese crumbled on top, and hard boiled egg covered in a red sauce. Underneath this mound of mostly green was crumbled ground beef atop two crispy tortillas that were not rolled but lay flat as a bed for all this.
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I loved this dish. One would have to be a fan of cabbage (as I am) to enjoy it, but I thought the combination of all these flavors and textures was kind of exciting. There was a lot of crunch between the crispy tortillas and the pile of raw cabbage. The meat was seasoned nicely but it was not spicy. It glistened from meat fat. I like the presence of meat fat, so this sheen was pleasing to me. It was not greasy or excessive.
The next time I dropped in on Alma, there was a big banner hanging from the railing that said ALMA. I was again struck by the same things: pleasant place, friendly staff, good food. The staff was undeterred by the fact that the order I placed was at the wrong place, which was my fault. They happily called the original Alma to cancel the order and quickly began work on the same one where I stood.
I looked around while I waited and saw that Alma has their own line of coffee, and that the cooler for drinks and pitchers of their own concoctions included Fanta orange. I used to love Fanta orange. My first taste of it was back in the days when McDonald’s had first arrived in New Orleans. I got it with this wonderful new wonder, a fast food burger and fries. It is still very popular in Latin America and Europe, but I rarely see it in the States. Just seeing it made me smile.
In no time my food was ready. I had ordered by phone and asked the guy on the line what was popular. He told me it was the Baleada, and I also got Arroz con Pollo. (That one I arrived at by process of elimination.) The guy who recommended the Baleada had been there only two weeks, something I hear nearly everywhere I go.
The Baleada is a breakfast dish, which is the largest part of the menu. (Alma is open for dinner only Friday.) It is a gigantic housemade flour tortilla which has brown bubbles from toasting. This was really uninteresting. Inside were a spicy bean puree, beautiful fluffy scrambled eggs, a bit of queso, slices of avocado, a pile of microgreens, and pieces of a chorizo patty that I added as an extra protein.
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Chorizo is so interesting to me. Some places serving food from South of the border are adamant about not using chorizo, and some wouldn’t be without it. This seems to be a matter of “authenticity,” but I still don’t have it straight as to where and who should offer chorizo, and in what form. I don’t at all care for the hard chorizo in Spain and its tapas reps here. The crumbled chorizo in “Mexican” restaurants is my preference, and I have not seen it in a patty until this time. The eggs in this dish were a perfect example of what scrambled eggs should be, light and fluffy. And the bean puree was quite spicy. Together, these elements made for a very nice dish.
I was transported back to my youth by the Arroz con pollo. My dad was not the best on the grill, but he barbecued a lot. His grill skills reminded me of the Caveman era. It was simply…roasted meat. No marinades, no fancy sauces. Primal stuff: grill marks on bare meat. I must be a Cavewoman at heart because I like this very basic mixture of meat and flame. That’s not to say I don’t also enjoy fancy sauces and glazes and marinades, but humanity wouldn’t have survived if the Caveman style wasn’t good.
This was two pieces of dark meat chicken (of course, this is a hip restaurant) bare-roasted, served with jasmine rice dotted with bits of onion, carrot and mostly corn kernels. There is no saffron here because that is the Spanish version of the dish, just like the differences in chorizo between Spain and Latin America. This is a pretty basic dish of chicken and rice, and here was a nice rendition of it.
I have loved everything I have had from Alma. It’s not my thing, but these are exciting combinations of first-class ingredients presented beautifully. There are no weird flavors, no shock factors, just interesting food. I get it.
