Tuesday, January 26, 2016
The Best Eggplant Parmigiana.
Cold and rainy all day, as we wallow in the most miserable weather of the year here in New Orleans. I hope it's not like this on Mardi Gras.
We have a very lively radio show through the agency of a seemingly trivial question: Name a major New Orleans area street that has no restaurants. We come up with a few, but not many. Most people who put forth a resto-free street forget one or more eateries. Three valid streets are all adjacent to City Park: Wisner, De Saix and Marconi Boulevards. But after that, we come up with nothing.
Most of the callers who address this puzzle then go on to report on something they recently enjoyed while dining out. Which is the idea of this whole endeavor. I have long known that people get more talkative when the question at hand lacks any kind of importance. Back in the dawn of my career as a talk show host, we once spent three weeks trying to decide whether toilet paper should roll off the top or the bottom. Three weeks! Then I banned the topic. We did decide the answer, however. If you have a roll of tissue embossed with a floral pattern, the flowers are upside down if you pull the paper from the bottom. So off the top must be the right way.
It starts to rain again during the last hour of the show. But my umbrella is in my car! My producer Christopher offers to share his bumbershoot for the unsheltered crossing of Lafayette Street. While working my way through the heavy traffic on the I-10, I decide that the restaurant that will please me most for dinner is Impastato's--perhaps because I wrote about two of its best dishes in today's NOMenu Daily.
Joe Impastato sits at his usual end of the bar, and I join him. I start with the signature fettuccine alfredo and pasta asciutta. Then a salad of romaine with tomatoes and the really great house dressing. I ask Joe if he will sell me a gallon the stuff. He says that his brother Sal at Sal & Judy's makes it for sale in supermarkets, but I knew that. He goes on to say, however, that the version they use in the restaurant is different. I thought so!
My supper continues with the best eggplant parmigiana I ever ate--the one I wrote about yesterday. The perfect thickness of everything, with a side of penne with a very rich cheese sauce and a spicy red sauce, makes this hard to stop eating. Even so, its size is such that I could only get through half of it.
I sing a few numbers with Roy Picou in the bar. If I say so myself, I did a fine reading of "There's A Small Hotel." A dozen or so people celebrating a birthday right in front of the stage seemed to like it okay.
The miracles keep coming in the dome of my new Beetle. I have been trying to connect my audiobooks through the dashboard, but I get nothing. This morning, without my pushing a single button or connecting a single cable, it started playing--from the exact spot where I left off two weeks ago. The smartphone and the car have hooked up with one another. How they did is something I don't quite understand. But I'm pleased to return to "Appointment In Samarra."
Impastato's. Metairie: 3400 16th St. 504-455-1545.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2016.
Homecoming At Ruth's Chris Steak House.
Mary Ann is coming home from Los Angeles today. I sweep and mop the whole house (except for the bedroom, where she lost a ring that she suspects is on the floor somewhere). I pick her up at the airport after the radio show. She hasn't really eaten all day, so I suggest Ruth's Chris Steak House. Even when she says she isn't hungry, I can always get through to her appetite that way.
The bar is filled when we arrive. They more than doubled the size of the hangout a couple of years ago--an expansion long overdue. Even when it was cramped it was popular, and it still is. As has long been the case in the house that Ruth built, the place is a power base, with numerous well-known politicos and businessmen scattered throughout a standing-room-only gathering place.[caption id="attachment_50438" align="alignnone" width="480"]
New crabmeat stack @ Ruth's Chris in Metairie. [/caption]
We split a new appetizer called a crabmeat stack. It reminds me a lot of what Zea does with tuna. The bottom layer involves avocados, mangoes, and some crunchy-spicy pickled vegetables. The lumps of crabmeat are much too large for me not to wonder about its origins. But we leave nary a crumb of the stuff.
[caption id="attachment_50437" align="alignnone" width="480"]
White bean and chorizo soup.[/caption]
The soup of the day--really a seasonal soup, the server says--is a tomato-based soup of white beans and chorizo. It's spicy, but not too, and is served nice and hot. Better suited for the weather than the crabmeat stack had been.
[caption id="attachment_50436" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Boneless sirloin strip.[/caption]
In recent times Ruth's Chris added a few oversize, bone-in steaks. We tried the bone-in filet at the downtown Ruth's about a year ago and weren't impressed. Today I have the bone-in sirloin strip, USDA Prime and aged. I don't pick up a dry-aged taste, but it's good enough that I eat a bit over half of the very large cut. I will get another full meal out of this thing. At $60, that's reassuring.
Mary Ann is tempted by the tomahawk ribeye, which tops the price list at $115. Like the strip, it's big enough for two. But she refrains from ordering that, and instead has a wedge salad, a baked potato, and cream spinach. I wonder whether the caloric intake there tops the bone-in strip, but I don't advance the topic. Mary Ann--to semi-quote her father--is ever trying to lose weight by using the Mary Ann Diet.
The side I get is a nice pile of fresh asparagus with a well-made, thick hollandaise. I burn my fingers picking up the first two or three spears, but I ignore the pain and enjoy.
[caption id="attachment_50435" align="alignnone" width="480"]
New bread pudding at Ruth's Chris with creme anglaise made with Chambord in the little pitcher.[/caption]
The bread pudding has been rebuilt since the last time I was here. It's now a soft, overly moist square, served with creme anglais in your choice of liqueur flavors. But the pudding itself is terrible, certainly in comparison with the excellent version that obtained during the hegemony of Ruth. I'm not the kind who says that everything ought to be the way it was forty years ago, but this is one thing that would benefit from going retro.
Ruth's Chris Steak House.
Metairie: 3633 Veterans Blvd. 504-888-3600.
New crabmeat stack @ Ruth's Chris in Metairie. [/caption]
We split a new appetizer called a crabmeat stack. It reminds me a lot of what Zea does with tuna. The bottom layer involves avocados, mangoes, and some crunchy-spicy pickled vegetables. The lumps of crabmeat are much too large for me not to wonder about its origins. But we leave nary a crumb of the stuff.
[caption id="attachment_50437" align="alignnone" width="480"]
White bean and chorizo soup.[/caption]
The soup of the day--really a seasonal soup, the server says--is a tomato-based soup of white beans and chorizo. It's spicy, but not too, and is served nice and hot. Better suited for the weather than the crabmeat stack had been.
[caption id="attachment_50436" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Boneless sirloin strip.[/caption]
In recent times Ruth's Chris added a few oversize, bone-in steaks. We tried the bone-in filet at the downtown Ruth's about a year ago and weren't impressed. Today I have the bone-in sirloin strip, USDA Prime and aged. I don't pick up a dry-aged taste, but it's good enough that I eat a bit over half of the very large cut. I will get another full meal out of this thing. At $60, that's reassuring.
Mary Ann is tempted by the tomahawk ribeye, which tops the price list at $115. Like the strip, it's big enough for two. But she refrains from ordering that, and instead has a wedge salad, a baked potato, and cream spinach. I wonder whether the caloric intake there tops the bone-in strip, but I don't advance the topic. Mary Ann--to semi-quote her father--is ever trying to lose weight by using the Mary Ann Diet.
The side I get is a nice pile of fresh asparagus with a well-made, thick hollandaise. I burn my fingers picking up the first two or three spears, but I ignore the pain and enjoy.
[caption id="attachment_50435" align="alignnone" width="480"]
New bread pudding at Ruth's Chris with creme anglaise made with Chambord in the little pitcher.[/caption]
The bread pudding has been rebuilt since the last time I was here. It's now a soft, overly moist square, served with creme anglais in your choice of liqueur flavors. But the pudding itself is terrible, certainly in comparison with the excellent version that obtained during the hegemony of Ruth. I'm not the kind who says that everything ought to be the way it was forty years ago, but this is one thing that would benefit from going retro.
