Two days ago, the judge overseeing such matters declared that Brennan's, Inc.--the company that operated Brennan's restaurant on Royal Street for fifty-eight years, but none of the other Brennan family's restaurants--was bankrupt, and had to be liquidated. This came as no surprise to anyone watching the meltdown of what was for a long time the most profitable restaurant in New Orleans, and perhaps the country. For the past several years, I received court documents that showed the restaurant and two of the Brennan brothers with financial issues that certainly would have kept me awake nights.
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The Eat Club in the wine room at Brennan's, in happier days,[/caption]
As is well known, some months ago the mortgage holder on Brennan's classic French Quarter building foreclosed, and the Brennan brothers Pip and Ted were put in the position of trying to operate their restaurant without a physical building in which to cook for and serve people. Between arguments with one another, they said that they would shortly be back at their famous stand. But now that seems unlikely, regardless of all the retrials and appeals that might be attempted.
It's all very sad. I knew all three of the Brennan brothers personally, and enjoyed the friendship. They always insisted that our kids have birthday breakfasts at Brennan's, for example. And for almost twenty years the Eat Club held its gala holiday dinner at Brennan's, which gave the Eat Clubbers a price well below what the dinners were worth. For a number of years just before Christmas, the Brennans sent me a twelve-ounce can of Beluga caviar. Before you raise your eyebrows about the ethics of this, know that all the caviar--aside from a generous taste for the chef--was served at the fundraising charity dinners I cooked for about ten years every January 6.
I have no idea where the Brennans took a wrong turn, and I'm not sure I want to know. I do know that I will miss the old restaurant, and that the restaurant being built in the space by Ralph Brennan and his partners will be very good, but very different from Brennan's. Ralph, who comes from the other, more solvent side of the family, has shown himself to be a very good businessman, and not for the first time.
What's odd about the Brennan bust is the small amount of conversation it has engendered among the dining public. I could count the number of radio-show calls about it on the fingers of at most two hands. It didn't come up even once during the three hours I was on the air on WWL this afternoon. Although in the last decade or two the customer base at Brennan's has largely been non-local, its closing is still the biggest story of 2013 for anyone who dines out avidly.
I'm glad that Mary Ann's birthday falls on Pearl Harbor Day. Even so, I almost forgot it one year. Not today, though. She fed me the usual line about not wanting me to buy her anything. She really means it, and then admits that she can use that as a sort of down payment on something she might want to buy for herself. This year, as a result of classes in how to flip houses, she wants to buy a house in Los Angeles, fix it up, and make a million dollars profit. I think I am safe in not taking that seriously. But I might not be.
Mary Ann began the day saying that if we cooked something old-fashioned at home--like beef stew, Salisbury steak, chicken pot pie--she would like that. I have been down this road before and know that it leads inexorably to a restaurant. I went down a long list of such homestyle dishes I could cook for her, but she turned down all of them, including the ones already mentioned.
Around four, she gave her final opinion. We would go to Keith Young's Steak House. No arm-twisting needed there. Keith's beautiful place on the edge of Madisonville is the best steakhouse on the North Shore, and one of the best in the city. But take out the steaks and you're still left with a lot of very good food, along with excellent service.
Which is how it all went down tonight. Keith came out to say that he had prime rib right out of the oven. MA loves prime rib, and Keith sealed the deal by offering an end cut--the crusty, very well done last two inches (and the first two) of the roast. I have managed to influence MA's taste during our twenty-five years together so that she has moved from extra well done beef to just medium well. But the end-cut charcoal still has her name on it.
She and Mary Leigh (who was a medium-rare beef eater when she was little, but has come around to MA's perversity in matters of doneness) split a large slab of that end cut and loved it.
I find it hard to back away from Keith's strip sirloin, but this was one of those rare nights on which I didn't really have a yen for beef.
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The famous duck dish at Keith Young's, which pulls many an eater away from the steaks.[/caption]
It was time for me to take the advice of many of the waiters, who have been telling me for rather some time that I really ought to try the duck. So I tried the duck. It's not a whole duck but two breasts, sort of rolled up in the preparation, with the crispy skin wrapping around it. It's flavored with a chutney whose flavor spectrum covered just about every known part of the taste wheel: sweet, sour, spicy (in both pepper and aromatic ways), savory, and fruity-mellow. It was a unique, tasty dish, but I can't say that it's as impressive as the steaks. Especially not on a night when you want to eat a steak. But what could stand up to that appetite?
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Appetizer trio: crab cake in front, stuffed mushroom in the left rear, shrimp remoulade on the right.[/caption]
The dinner began with a combo appetizer platter of crab cakes, seafood-stuffed mushrooms and shrimp remoulade. For me, a creamy artichoke and oyster soup and a salad.
The meal ended right after the entrees. It's two months since Mary Ann's accidental vertebral fracture. She's getting around okay, except in the aftermath of overactive days. (Thanksgiving, for example.) The pattern is this: she can walk stand, sit, and lie down without pain, but she starts aching if she does any one thing for a long time. So dinners taking hours are literally off the table. Even in this favorite restaurant of hers (she sneaks over here for lunch with friends often, eating what she says is the best hamburger around), she was itching to leave after an hour and a half. If Keith hadn't sent out his bread pudding with a candle stuck in it, I wouldn't have had anything for dessert.
Message to Keith, who was too busy with a full house to listen to this kind of hot air: while your wine list by the bottle (from which I ordered an excellent Guigal Cote Rotie tonight) is fine, I wish there were a bit more variety in the wines by the glass. They're almost all the same old wines we see everywhere. On the other hand, that's what made me order a bottle, even though neither of the Marys consume much wine at all.
[title type="h5"]Keith Young's Steak House. Madisonville: 165 LA 21. 985-845-9940.[/title]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris December 07, 2013 17:00 in
