Saturday, January 16, 2016.
A Second Location For Marcello's Opens.
I find myself overwhelmed by major decisions lately, most of them involving financial matters. Even though none of these portend any evil or are especially complex, I don't like dealing with them. (Well, I am a bit rattled by the current silliness on Wall Street, but my strategy of ignoring such news is probably the best course, and it's working as well as ever.)
But this car-wreck matter. Nobody hurt, no expensive cars involved, everybody insured. Yet, during the hours I spend tossing and turning half the night, it's all I can think about. But I like the conclusion to which I have come: I will give my old PT Cruiser to a charity. Probably Bridge House, which helps people down on their luck, and about which I have written articles a few times in the past. The Cruiser is twelve years old, with some 220,000 miles. It has served me well, but is now less than reliable. Time to get a new car. But that easy-sounding assignment is not something that can be accomplished by a few clicks on a web page.
What I do instead is check out the new car I've thought about for the past two or three years. I invite the Marys to join me in making the decision. We have lunch at La Carreta (ML's last for the next few months; the usual fare). Then to the Volkswagen dealer a couple of miles away.
We are met by a sales consultant with the highly appropriate name Hans. I make no bones about my desire: it's a Beetle, or nothing. My first car, purchased a few months shy of fifty years ago, was a dark-blue, 1960 VW with a sunroof.
Hans says that he has only two Beetles in stock. Both of them are dark blue. One of them is a convertible. Mary Leigh reminds me that I am not nearly cool enough a person to own a convertible. I agree. I don't like that much fresh air.
Hans says that the one remaining Beetle has a stick shift, which is why it is the last one in the lot. Bingo! Every car I have owned except one had a manual transmission, and that's what I want now.
I take a drive. It has the pep I recall in my last two VW's (a Rabbit and a Jetta). But this car isn't boxy the way those were. It looks more like a Beetle than VW's first attempt at reviving Ferdinand Porsche's iconic design. (Yeah, I know the Beetle was born during the Nazi years, but all of that evil has long since been filtered out.)
The girls are enthusiastically unanimous. This is the car for me, they say. As suitable for a demi-nerd as the PT Cruiser was, and with a history to boot. The price--just under $20K--is better than I thought it would be. Hans gets the paperwork and the get-ready process rolling.
We probably could have taken delivery today, but a few essential pieces of paperwork are in the Cruiser, across the lake. Besides, I have a one-hour radio show to do. After that, I fill time with a few miscellaneous projects in my new office. I am just barely settled into it, my third in the last two years. This one has no window. The one before last had a fantastic view of the French Quarter, but they gave it to a strong salesperson, who certainly had more right to it than I. My next office had a window, but not much to see--and a lot of office storage cabinets and a gigantic computer printer. And now I have this little room. I'm fine with it. I need an office a few times a week, but not for the six-hour stretches I used to put in when my show was at midday.
[caption id="attachment_50315" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Dining room at Marcello's in Metairie.[/caption]
Mary Ann and our Bride To Be go to the Home Show in the Convention Center, then collect me for dinner. We go to a soft opening of the new Metairie location of Marcello's. It's in a cluster of mostly chain restaurants, in the space that had been Coyote Blue. Now it's Gene Todaro (senior and junior), flush with success first in Lafayette and for two years near Gallier Hall. Marcello's (pronounced mar-CHELL-oh, in the Italian way) claims to be Sicilian in its cooking. Many other local Italian restos make the same claim, which plays out differently in different places. I've had good luck with Marcello's interpretation of the cuisine in its St. Charles Avenue place.
[caption id="attachment_50314" align="alignnone" width="480"]
You shop the racks to buy wines at Marcello's. The markups are astonishingly low. [/caption]
Although the former occupant of the Metairie restaurant was a Mexican restaurant, this has a nice environment for an Italian place with a heavy emphasis on wine. Many racks of bottles run through the dining rooms, and many walls are covered with the sides of the imprinted wooden boxes that fine wines come in.
[caption id="attachment_50313" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pappardele pasta with a lamb chop.[/caption]
We begin with a board of salumi. The Marys split an order of spaghetti and meatballs. Didn't MA just have this last night? Yes, she did--but that was a straight marinara sauce, and this is a Bolognese. I have a somewhat similar dish with more or less the same sauce. But my pasta was handmade pappardele, and the whole plate was topped by a nice, thick lamb chop that has given some of its flavor to the sauce. A hearty plate of food for a rainy, cold evening.
[caption id="attachment_50312" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Spaghetti with bolognese sauce at Marcello's in Metairie.[/caption]
Between courses, we find many friends in the crowd. The daughter of two of our most frequent Eat Club cruisers are here. Quite a few people I'd never met wanted to talk, too. Most of them come to a standard conclusion as to the food and service tonight: The service is still a little stiff, but that is normal for a new place. The food is right on the money in every course. And the wine collection is rivaled only by the antique pieces here and there, most of which came from the owners.
I still don't like the idea of showing up so early, but I am at MA's mercy. She loves going to new restaurants.
A question I hear from the folks I speak with is whether there's room in Metairie for another Italian restaurant. That ethnicity is the only one I can think of that Metairie has in sufficiency. Yet I feel pretty sure this one will do find. I hope it pulls lots of customers away from those nearby national chains.
What I like most about this dinner is that it took my mind off the car story. Which will keep me awake nights for a few more days. Everything happens on the Friday afternoon before a long weekend.
Marcello's. Metairie. 4860 Veterans Blvd. 504-301-3848.
Dining room at Marcello's in Metairie.[/caption]
Mary Ann and our Bride To Be go to the Home Show in the Convention Center, then collect me for dinner. We go to a soft opening of the new Metairie location of Marcello's. It's in a cluster of mostly chain restaurants, in the space that had been Coyote Blue. Now it's Gene Todaro (senior and junior), flush with success first in Lafayette and for two years near Gallier Hall. Marcello's (pronounced mar-CHELL-oh, in the Italian way) claims to be Sicilian in its cooking. Many other local Italian restos make the same claim, which plays out differently in different places. I've had good luck with Marcello's interpretation of the cuisine in its St. Charles Avenue place.
[caption id="attachment_50314" align="alignnone" width="480"]
You shop the racks to buy wines at Marcello's. The markups are astonishingly low. [/caption]
Although the former occupant of the Metairie restaurant was a Mexican restaurant, this has a nice environment for an Italian place with a heavy emphasis on wine. Many racks of bottles run through the dining rooms, and many walls are covered with the sides of the imprinted wooden boxes that fine wines come in.
[caption id="attachment_50313" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pappardele pasta with a lamb chop.[/caption]
We begin with a board of salumi. The Marys split an order of spaghetti and meatballs. Didn't MA just have this last night? Yes, she did--but that was a straight marinara sauce, and this is a Bolognese. I have a somewhat similar dish with more or less the same sauce. But my pasta was handmade pappardele, and the whole plate was topped by a nice, thick lamb chop that has given some of its flavor to the sauce. A hearty plate of food for a rainy, cold evening.
[caption id="attachment_50312" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Spaghetti with bolognese sauce at Marcello's in Metairie.[/caption]
Between courses, we find many friends in the crowd. The daughter of two of our most frequent Eat Club cruisers are here. Quite a few people I'd never met wanted to talk, too. Most of them come to a standard conclusion as to the food and service tonight: The service is still a little stiff, but that is normal for a new place. The food is right on the money in every course. And the wine collection is rivaled only by the antique pieces here and there, most of which came from the owners.
I still don't like the idea of showing up so early, but I am at MA's mercy. She loves going to new restaurants.
A question I hear from the folks I speak with is whether there's room in Metairie for another Italian restaurant. That ethnicity is the only one I can think of that Metairie has in sufficiency. Yet I feel pretty sure this one will do find. I hope it pulls lots of customers away from those nearby national chains.
What I like most about this dinner is that it took my mind off the car story. Which will keep me awake nights for a few more days. Everything happens on the Friday afternoon before a long weekend.
