One of the better effects of the new timing of the radio show is that we will now be able to offer restaurants a remote broadcast that makes sense. While we were on from three to six, not many people came to the restaurants where the show originated until about five--if then. The noon start time means that anyone listening at any time during the show can join us in person, sit down, and have lunch.
If we were to do this right, we'd get a big community table with the microphone in the middle and an assortment of listeners/diners sitting with us during the broadcast.
Our first such show in the modern era was today at Emeril's Delmonico. That old/new restaurant (founded in 1895, bought by Emeril in 1997) has not served lunch on a regular basis since Katrina. The management put its toe in the water today, beginning lunch service on Fridays (only) from now on. (Or until minds change, whichever comes first.)
They had a big hit with the new feeding today. The entire restaurant was full, from the bar to the windowed tables facing St. Charles Avenue, and up the long, tall stairs to the several dining rooms up there.
In one of the upstairs room was a party for a group called Men Behaving Badly. (I heard no fewer than four women say, "When do they behave any other way?") All these guys were dressed in black. They came downstairs after their lunch, but they didn't leave, instead filling the bar for another round.
I was sitting right across from the bar, which was a loud place in the early going. I noticed that an above-average percentage of these early drinkers were women with head-turning countenances. If that's a trend and not a coincidence, this Friday lunch will be very prosperous.
This was my first long conversation with Chef Anthony Scanio. He's been with Emeril since 2005, and at Delmonico for most of that time. Before that, he did his share of traveling and working, but always had it in his mind that New Orleans would be a point of return for him.
Without knowing him well, I did know that the food at Delmonico has become much more eater-friendly than it had been during its ill-advised small-plates period. My first such observation, it turns out, was around the time Anthony became the chef de cuisine. (His job would be executive chef anywhere else, but Emeril claims that title for himself at all his restaurants.)
I suspect that Anthony will become something of a celebrity in the coming years. He's an enthusiastic, knowledgeable and convivial guy. Just the kind I like to have on the microphone. He stuck with us for about a half-hour, and I suspect we could do a whole show with him. I'm pulling for him to turn Delmonico--long my personal favorite among Emeril's restaurants--into the brilliant place it had been before the hurricane.
The menu deal is a three-course lunch with a couple of choices in each for $22.50. This is abetted by an abbreviated and casual (there are sandwiches among the entrees) a la carte menu. Among the choices is a half-size dry-aged, prime strip sirloin, which is one of Delmonico's calling cards.
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Delmonico's oysters bordelaise, with house-made spaghetti.[/caption]
My radio time spanned the entirety of lunch, so I couldn't really eat beyond glomming down a few bites of this and that during the commercials and the news. One of these was fried oysters bordelaise, served across homemade pasta. (Of all the restaurants in town that claim to make everything from scratch, it's hard to beat the extent to which this is true in Emeril's kitchens.)
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The lunch fish special at Delmonico: mahi-mahi with a bouillabaisse base.[/caption]
That was very good. So was a demi-fillet of mahi-mahi, betwixt a heap of big cubes of potato, tomato, and carrot, with red onions and corn in a broth reminiscent of bouillabaisse, but with a different, Creole kind of flavor. A fine Friday lunch entree.
Helping all this along, and also vouchsafing us a generous conversation, was Colleen Vinzents, the bartender-in-chief. We explored what was up behind the railing these days, and I should have known: Delmonico is making its own mixers, flavorings, and even spirits back there. I had a tall gin drink with some offbeat herbal flavors, and another involving satsumas.
After all this, I headed back to the radio station with a good deal of work to do. I would accomplish absolutely nothing (unless you call a half-hour nap on the floor something, which, come to think of it, I do) in the three ensuing hours. The computer in my wonderful office died. I mean, it died dead. As of this writing a week later, the verdict is that everything on that hard disk is gone. Fortunately, I have almost all of it backed up at home. But that would do me no good today.
None of the other computers in the building--and there are dozens, all committed to only a few people, or lacking any useful software--could help me. I gave up and left at six-thirty for the next item on the agenda.
Chef Duke Locicero of Café Giovanni has been asking me for years to show up for his annual fundraising buffet and party. The proceeds buy hundreds of very nice toys and other gifts for children who, at this season, are laid up in hospitals. Chef Duke and friends from the food and beverage world dress up as Santa and elves, and deliver the gifts just before Christmas. Anything to make the outlook for these kids brighter.
I wasn't sure what time the gig started. I wound up being an hour early. Anything would have been better than hanging around the radio station watching precious hours being burned.
A reasonably decent crowd gathered, but not large as I expected to see. Part of that had to do with the weather, which had shifted from merely cold to pouring rain too. Café Giovanni never has had a great parking situation for weather like that. Indeed, on the two blocks back to my car after the party, I got drenched, even with a large umbrella.
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Chef Duke, Chef Greg Reggio, and WWL-TV's Eric Paulsen.[/caption]
The buffet was modest. The wines, however, were very interesting, and I found myself giving the libations much more attention than the food. Then Chef Duke got the crowd worked up for the live auction of some really amazing lots of eating and drinking, among other nice deals. Chef Greg Reggio (Zea) shared the auctioneering with Channel Four's Eric Paulsen.
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The all-girl band that played at Chef Duke's Christmas fundraiser for kids.[/caption]
The entertainment began with the Café Giovanni Opera Singers, who were as listenable as usual. They were followed by an all-girl band singing a mix of Christmas songs, standard and pop.
For the first time in my life, I found that the pianist knew (or could read from sheet music) the wonderful Christmas Waltz. That's the one that begins "Frosted windowpanes, candles gleaming inside." Sinatra did the definitive version, but many singers have recorded it.
So I got my chance to sing it in public. And my Christmas gift from attending the party was that the other folks did not boo.
Delmonico. Lee Circle Area: 1300 St Charles Ave. 504-525-4937.
Cafe Giovanni. French Quarter: 117 Decatur. 504-529-2154.
Written by Tom Fitzmorris December 06, 2013 06:30 in
