Wednesday, January 4, 2017.
First Taste Of Rosedale.
Every day for the last three, I've had a meeting scheduled with Debbie Hilbert, our travel agent for the Eat Club cruises. None of these meetings came to pass because of weather issues. Instead, plans for Mary Leigh and I to have dinner presented themselves. But the first two such attempts were each postponed, too.
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Dining room at Rosedale. [/caption]The third time was the charm for ML and me. She is interested in Susan Spicer's new restaurant Rosedale. That's the name not just of the eatery, but also the neighborhood and the street where the place lives. It's a genuine but little-known New Orleans neighborhood on the south end of Lakeview, developed between the World Wars. The building where Susan set up her third restaurant (the others are Bayona and Mondo) was built as the Third District New Orleans Police station, which in the 1980s moved elsewhere.
It's not the easiest place to find at night. The neighborhood hasn't quite recovered fully from Katrina, which left some very deep water behind. So it's kind of dark, and the streets aren't the best. However, there is a lot of parking within a block (although some are signed as being off limits).
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Cochin de lait poor boy. [/caption]In the daytime, you can see the place from miles away, because a tall, wide police radio tower is next to the restaurant.
Susan has always had a taste for neighborhood cafes, and she must love the look of Rosedale. The furnishings left over from the cop years are still there, including an actual jail cell. (It's been converted into a third rest room, if a creepy one.)
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Venison and root vegetables, a special at Rosedale.[/caption]When Susan opened Mondo, she told me that she wanted it to be a family place, with burgers, pizza, and fried seafood a big part of the menu. Rosedale plays this game, too, but it seems tailored for inquisitive adult eaters.
Non-seafood-eating ML liked the menu well enough to get excited by at least one item: the cochon de lait poor boy. This was not only enjoyable and unique, but a good-looking, generous sandwich. She also gives the soup of the evening a try. It's a thick, ginger-flavored broth with pecans scattered about. I'm glad she ordered that, because it left me free to try the turtle soup, the pursuit of which is one of my perennial quests. In my queries of the waiter, I learned that the meat of the soup is exclusively turtle meat. We don't get a lot of real turtle in these parts.
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Orange-flavored duck breast, with beans.[/caption]
My entree is a special, and the kind of dish that has no recognizable category. Sort of a macro-hash of root vegetables, herbs, and little pasta disks tossed with venison. No, this is not for the hamburger crowd (although I think that they would have liked it).
We wind up the dinner with two ice cream sandwiches, the ice cream held between cookies. The cookies are so hard that I could only eat the sandwich it by breaking it into small pieces with a steak knife. What I dislodged didn't hold enough ice cream.
That was my only problem with this dinner. We can brushed it away by noting that the restaurant is only three months old (the Marys love to go to restaurants not open long enough for me). Let's also note that almost all the entree prices are priced in the mid-teens. That's quite the bargain.
In other news, Mary Leigh said that she'd like to resume the series of dinners we had together when she was attending Tulane. I could also reach back for reminiscences to the wonderful Saturday breakfasts she and I loved when she was a little kid.
But our relationship is different now. The aging process leaves evidence of itself in my behavior. And she is now a grown-up, with talents and directions that need no commentary from me. I still love hanging with her.
Leaving the restaurant I am once again struck by how dark it is around there. Scary.
Rosedale. Lakeview: 801 Rosedale. 504-309-9595.
