[title type="h5"]Friday, January 23, 2015.
Speaking To Doctors At Le Foret.[/title]
I'm an occasional after-dinner speaker, something I began doing during my years as editor of New Orleans Magazine in the mid-1970s. My reputation as a food writer was slight then. I always wound up talking about food, though, because it was a much more engaging topic than even the most current matters in the magazine. I found early on that going for laughs got better attention from the crowd.
It was also around that time that I began telling three anecdotes on the theme of soup du jour. Forty years later, I'm still telling the same three stories, always to great effect. But by some miracle only my wife remembers my previous telling of these stories. That's true even when I address a group I have spoken to before. As it did tonight, with the very group of doctors from Baton Rouge. The Soup Du Jour trilogy got big laughs four years ago, and again tonight. Nobody raised his hand when I asked whether they remembered the jokes. I wonder if I can keep this up to the end of my days.
I get to the excellent restaurant Le Foret early, and autograph fifty copies of Tom Fitzmorris's New Orleans Food for the gathered physicians. (The organizer's idea, not mine.) We have a fine dinner on the light side. Le Foret's menu has devolved into that sort of thing, every course beautiful to look at and better to taste, but nothing revolutionary. Familiar local seafood and vegetables, with a handsome slab of red meat for those who require big substance. Even that takes a polite direction: the filet mignon is cooked in the sous vide style, with a thin crust at the exterior and an interior like that of a well-tended, slow-roasted prime rib.
I have the fish. Black drum. Butter and crabmeat. Asparagus. Flawless.
When I get up to talk, I feel some of the light-headedness that my regular doctor says is nothing. But once the Soup Du Jour Trilogy is in motion, nothing can stop me. Lots of fun, lots of getting and giving opinions about the restaurants around town. A running joke throughout the talk concerns the inevitability of kale.
[title type="h5"]Le Foret. CBD: 129 Camp. 504-553-6738. [/title]
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[title type="h5"]Saturday, January 24, 2015.
Opal Basil Does It Again.[/title]
The dinner Mary Ann and I had three weeks ago at Opal Basil made us resolve to dine there again, even before we left the restaurant. So here we are. The place is busy but not full. It's also well hidden, even though it's not hard to find (next to the Mandeville trailhead, which is becoming the same center of the town's action that it was when people came here by train).
We were closer to the cooking station than we were last time, and I saw something I didn't then: there are only two burners behind the counter. Although Chef Roberto Vasquez has a larger prep kitchen in the rear, he prepares most of his dinner grub on those two small units.
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Cornbread, plus.[/caption]
That has no negative effect on the food, which comes out pleasantly crusty, handsomely presented, and--best of all--uncompromisingly hot. None of that current vogue for almost-warm food here. We begin with a variation of the cornbread we had last time, with a different sauce--chipotle and chorizo. Again, we all but inhale this.
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A small ribeye steak from the chef's tasting.[/caption]
On to the chef's tasting menu, described thusly: Boneless Ribeye Chop. Mahi. Chicken. Sweet Bite. Asking the server--with whom we are already chummy after coming in only twice--is useless. The chef makes up the details as he goes along. The beef is a bigger slab than I expect, although it remains well within appetizer measurements. The sauce and garnish are composed of potatoes, andouille, and locally-foraged puffball mushrooms (I think I've seen them around the Cool Water Ranch). This is magnificent, even in its small size.
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Mahi-mahi with black raspberry butter.[/caption]
The mahi-mahi comes with a buttery sauce with black raspberries, enhancing the freshness of the fish itself. The waiter reminds me that as part of the chef's tasting package I get either a cocktail and a glass of wine, or two of one of those. I ask for a glass of Pinot Noir, and that takes me through the dinner just fine.
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Chicken from the tasting.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_46421" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Oyster Madeleine.[/caption]
The chicken comes panneed, with an assortment of vegetables and micro-greens in a sauce made of jalapenos and Cheddar. Much better than it sounds, this is my second-favorite dish of the night. Number One goes to something MA orders: a single oyster Madeleine, with a rich hollandaise-like sauce and bacon on the half-shell.
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Shrimp with gnocchi, lime, cilantro.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_46424" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Panneed basil with a pepper butter sauce.[/caption]
Mary Ann gets a lot of other good food tonight. Cilantro and lime shrimp includes gnocchi and feta cheese for the most filling course of the evening--and one so good that only the shrimp tails are left. Another shrimp treatment has them panneed and sent out in a bubbling butter.
[caption id="attachment_46419" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Blueberry crumble.[/caption]
The chef throws in the towel after sending me the finale of his tasting, a blueberry crumble. It comes with thick, powerful coffee, a spoonful of honey and a shot of anejo tequila. A blast.
I can't dope out why this place isn't completely full, on a waiting list. Tonight I can understand--the rain has been pouring off and on. But I know that if I want to keep eating here I will have to keep making reservations. The word has got to get out soon. Either that, or I am overestimating the taste of the Mandeville diners.
[title type="h5"]Opal Basil. Mandeville: 690 Lafitte St. 985-778-2529.[/title]
