[title type="h5"]Wednesday, May 21, 2014.
A Good Idea For Next Year.
[/title]
The New Orleans Wine and Food Experience begins today with an event we can be proud of. Thirty-two restaurants (the number was thirty-three until yesterday; somebody must have pulled out, but I can't recall who) are having wine dinners tonight.
Simultaneously.
Such a thing does happen in other food festivals around the country, but in almost all of them the chefs are famous guys from out of town. Here in America's second great food city (New York must be given its due), we do it all with top-quality chefs who are to a man (and woman) local guys (and girls). This status should be Criterion Number One for NOW&FE in perpetuity.
I go to the vintner dinners almost every year. Always alone: Mary Ann doesn't like wine dinners (not even my own Eat Club versions of them) because of their all-evening characteristic and focus on the vinous juice. (She much prefers the informality of tomorrow's Royal Street Stroll. )
But this year, I had an idea I thought would make an interesting story. Instead of going to a single vintner dinner, I'd circulate through as many dinners as I could, stopping for perhaps a course, perhaps a sample of wine, and then moving on. If I centered this project on the corner of Royal and Canal, I would find the following restaurants within a two-block radius:
Windsor Court Grill Room
Red Fish Grill
Pelican Club
Mr. B's
Le Foret
La Louisiane
GW Fins
Galatoire's
Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse
Criollo
Canal Street Grill
August
Arnaud's
5Fifty5
Who knows what I would find to write about had I made it to any of them! But it was not to be. I awoke this morning with a terrible backache--in a new spot, at that. I must have rolled over funny in bed and got stuck. This doesn't often happen to me, but since it first did in my early twenties, I know that the best thing to do is give it a rest. If I don't, I find myself on the floor, moving like a lizard.
So I stay at home, eat another sandwich of MA's leftovers, and resolve to carry off the pop-in plan next year.
[divider type=""]
[title type="h5"]
Thursday, May 22, 2014.
Good Party For Press Weasels. Less Good: The Stroll.[/title]
The Wine & Food Experience moves into its big-crowd phase, with three events today, none of which I've been able to attend in recent years. It's not for lack of will. My radio show is and always has been on the air during the time for Vinola. That's a roomful of serious wines for serious wine drinkers--or those with $150 to spend on the lunchtime program.
Even when my show started later, I knew better than to taste wine for more than an hour at Vinola, then try to be cogent during three hours on the air.
That radio schedule also made it impossible for me to attend the mid-afternoon press party. I hated that noisy party, because I was in the middle of it trying to do the radio show. I was at the party, but I couldn't be part of it.
This year, with my radio duties going from noon until three, it is a lot easier. Winemakers come and go, letting us taste their wines. Among them is the delightful Jennifer Wall--the winemaker for the millions-of-cases-per-year Barefoot wines--continues a tradition of dropping by. Barefoot is a ridiculously successful line of wines, almost oll of which sell for less than $10 a bottle.
I wonder whether I should be ashamed of myself for saying that Barefoot wines are surprisingly luscious. They're all a little sweet, with fruit juices in a few of them, and bubbles where you don't expect them. My oenophile brothers deride this kind of plonk. (One semi-regular caller decides he has to get angry about this every few years.) But I see in Barefoot something valuable: it introduces Coca-Cola drinkers and others who don't order wine the wonderful world under the cork.
[caption id="attachment_42453" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Appetizers at the Monteleone Hotel for the NOW&FE media party.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_42454" align="alignleft" width="278"]
Best-ever shrimp on a clothespin.[/caption]I am able to be a guest at the press party for the first time ever. Mary Ann is also here, drawn by the promise of passed-around appetizers. What the Monteleone's chef Randy Buck put out was almost beyond belief. Waiters circulated continuously with beautiful, extraordinarily delicious tapas-style appetizers made of big oysters, big crabmeat, big shrimp, and small chunks of steak, with sprinklings of caviar, wild mushrooms, intense sauces, and house-baked breads.
The media party ends when the Royal Street Stroll begins. The Stroll is the best-attended activity on the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience schedule, filling two or three blocks with a crowd as big as the one on Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras. It's the least expensive and most casual of the major events. T-shirts and flip-flops are common. You dress as if you're going to a parade.
And indeed you are. The Krewe of Cork moves up and down the street, headed by King For Life Patrick Von Hoorebeck. It is his birthday today, so the colorful, laughing assemblage is especially joyful.
[caption id="attachment_42455" align="alignnone" width="430"]
Royal Street Stroll.[/caption]Otherwise, this year's Royal Street Stroll is different. A fixture on the NOW&FE docket since the earliest days, it was originally done in cooperation with the many art galleries and antique stores on Royal, the main street of the French Quarter. You'd step into the shop, look around at the goods, find the wine table, talk with the winery rep and have a taste of his juice. Most of the galleries also provided food. The variance in goodness from one venue to another made for lively conversation among the Strollers.
A couple of years ago, things began to change. A few restaurants were invited to serve food in the middle of the street. This was to be in addition to--not a replacement of--the food in the galleries. Officially, that seems to be NOW&FE's stance still. But I walked the length of the Stroll twice, and saw only two shops with wine or food. There was no list of participating galleries that I could find.
[caption id="attachment_42456" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Stuffed mushrooms.[/caption]
On the other hand, the number of restaurants passing out food in the street is much greater than last year. The quality of the restaurants is. . . well, let's say not consistently fabulous. Here's the the lineup:
Galvez
GW Fins
Hard Rock Cafe
Kingfish
La Louisiana
Le Foret
Little Gem Saloon
NOLA
Deuce McAllister's Ole Saint
Pat O's Courtyard Restaurant
Pelican Club
Rio Mar Seafood
Roux on the Bourbon Orleans
The best food from these tents is very good indeed. GWFins, Pelican Club, and Rio Mar are especially tempting. But the lines for those were so long that another temptation-- to go to booths with the less appealing food but shorter lines--was strong. A lot of that food was very disappointing.
Lines have lately been the curse of the Stroll. Even with two entrances, waiting to be checked in takes a long time. And now we're queuing up multiple times for food. And the galleries, while having open houses, seem uninvolved.
Mary Ann sums it up well: "If I paid $89 for this, I would be furious." More than a few people stop me on the street with the same opinion. I hear it almost as much as the usual "What's your favorite thing here?" (To which I am tempted to say--truthfully--that I haven't eaten much, because someone stops me to ask that question every five feet. But I view that as a blessing.)
The NOW&FE management should take another look at this. It could be the time has come for the Stroll to adopt the French Quarter Festival model of free admission, pay-as-you-eat food and drink. The food would be better, the galleries would get back into the game, and happiness would follow. But if I'm so smart, why have I never been asked to be on the board?
