Wednesday, January 6, 2016.
A Five-Star Consumes A Former Five-Star. King Cake Day.
Ten days ago, Mary Ann and I had dinner at Le Foret with our friends the Klunas. Another friend who happened to be at the next table let loose a piece of gossip: that John Besh would shortly buy out the restaurant we were sitting in. The source has never fed me a false fact, and he didn't this time. But nobody on the restaurant's staff seemed to know this. That, or they were keeping it a secret. Le Foret opened some five years ago after a heavy renovation of a great building that sat empty for thirty years. The owners were a family in the oil industry. Which, perhaps you've heard, is cratering lately.
The interesting part of this for Mary Ann is that our daughter Mary Leigh is on the verge of reserving Le Foret for her wedding reception this September. But if John Besh has the place under his aegis again by then, the matter becomes a no-brainer. Last year, our son Jude had his reception at John Besh's flagship, Restaurant August. It was everything we could have wanted. August and Le Foret are very similar in their setups. Mary Ann is delighted by the prospect of giving Besh a monopoly on Fitzmorris family wedding receptions. I am delighted with the possibility of Le Foret's resuscitation. It was a five-star restaurant in NOMenu's ratings for a few years, but that diminished after manager Danny Millan left Le Foret to open Cava.
Today is Leah Chase's ninety-third birthday, and the city is according her more honors than ever before. She's on the cover of everything this week, and was interviewed at length on WWNO. She sounds as sharp as ever. Everything she says makes one stop and think that, despite all our problems, New Orleans is a great place to live. Only in New Orleans would the chef of a neighborhood restaurant (albeit one with a worldwide reputation) get so much regard.
I am stuck on the North Shore today. MA headed across about two hours before I did, and she reports a five-mile backup of traffic. I have a lot to do anyway.
When she gets back, MA and I have a quick but immense dinner (no other kind there) at Di Cristina's. Barb--our favorite waitress--says that she and the rest of the staff are back after being closed for twelve days during the holidays. It's nice for a restaurant to be so successful that they can afford to do this. A schedule like that is so appealing to cooks and waiters that the restaurant finds it easy to get and keep staff. How would you like to have to work hard on every holiday?
I have the soup of the day, a pureed white bean soup with cheese and bacon. It could have been lightened up a bit, but I expect this density from this restaurant, whose food is as ribsticking as it is delicious.
Then I have one of Di Cristina's truly over-the-top entrees: three rounds of eggplant Parmesan, with a brick of lasagna on the side. We take half of it home. Sixteen bucks.
We are here not just because we like the food and haven't been in quite awhile, but because MA is leaving for Washington, D.C. in the predawn tomorrow. I make sure we are back home at seven-thirty, as I promised.
DiCristina's.
Covington: 810 N Columbia. 985-875-0160.
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Thursday, January 7, 2016.
There She Goes Again. A Superb Dinner, Even For Arnaud's.
MA is up at four in the morning, preparing her drive from here to the D.C. vicinity of Virginia, where our daughter Mary Leigh lives and manages a large fancy-pastry bakery. ML moved there a couple of months ago, but still has large amounts of her stuff here at the Cool Water Ranch. MA loaded up her SUV with as much of this as would fit. She will drive the entire 1050 miles in one trip. She has done that more than a few times before, with no problems. But I still think it's insane, and beg her to split that into two sections separated by sleep. No dice: when MA wants to get somewhere, she cannot be stopped.
Except for something like this. Just as she is about to leave, she sees the cat Satsuma playing with a small furry animal. It turns out to be a bat. I grab the kitty and bring him inside. When I return, I can't find the bat. I try again when the sun comes up, but no sign. This is good: rabid bats are much less likely to fly away, as this one clearly did. All our animals had their shots, but I haven't. And I really don't feel like bringing a bat to a veterinarian this morning.
Back up again and to my desk at seven-thirty. I call MA and find her just across the Alabama state line, near Toomsuba. I don't hear from her again until around ten p.m., when she reports that she has arrived safely.
During the day I call my little sister Lynn and ask if she'd like to join me for dinner at Arnaud's. Turns out she has never been there. The restaurant is sparsely occupied, but this is 1) early in the evening, which will get much busier, and b) during a week that is notorious for slack business. I know, because some twenty years ago I tried to launch a promotion at Arnaud's involving an old dish on their menu called "Rock Cornish Game Hen Flambee A La Twelfth Night." Twelfth Night was either yesterday evening, or the evening before that. I thought would could launch a new tradition. Wrong!
We take a table in Arnaud's Jazz Bistro, the former Richelieu Room of the big restaurant, sporting the best tiled floor of them all. For a four-dollar upcharge, this room has a three-piece jazz group that plays all night long. Lynn is a music lover, and was even an alto in a chorus called Shades Of Praise. Tonight was the first time she has ever seen me performing solo in public. My usual song: "Sweet Lorraine." I think I impressed her, not only with the song but also because the trio asked me if I'd like to do a song, instead of the other way around.
The food tonight was exceptionally fine. Chef Tommy DiGiovanni sent an amuse-bouche of a fried oyster atop a small pillow of chopped kale in a citrus, buttery pile on a half shell. I am no kale nut, but this was so good that they ought to think about adding it to the menu, if only to grab all those people who think kale is a magical food.
[caption id="attachment_44633" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Shrimp Arnaud (remoulade, really)[/caption]
I have turtle soup--always good here. For Lynn, the matchless shrimp remoulade. A couple of months ago I read Saul Bellow's Herzog, and was intrigued that shrimp Arnaud and shrimp remoulade (same thing) are mentioned at least a dozen times in the book, always as something truly wonderful to eat. Which, of course, it is. That novel was written in the 1960s, when Arnaud's was in decline. But you couldn't get Bellow to go along with that.
Lynn had as an entree a new dish: black drum encrusted with potatoes, held together by a butter sauce and fennel. I tried this during a tasting with the ruling Casbarians at Arnaud's some months ago, and thought it was great. So did Lynn.
For me, my favorite dish at Arnaud's: baked oysters five different ways on the half shell. This is the best baked oyster dish anywhere.
Lynn is tickled to see that the bread pudding at Arnaud's is named for her. Bread pudding Fitzmorris isn't exactly our mother's pudding--the baked meringue she topped it with is missing. But it is riddled with raisins, the way Mama always did. We both had a serving, to make sure it remains popular and on the menu.
Arnaud's. French Quarter: 813 Bienville. 504-523-5433.
The interesting part of this for Mary Ann is that our daughter Mary Leigh is on the verge of reserving Le Foret for her wedding reception this September. But if John Besh has the place under his aegis again by then, the matter becomes a no-brainer. Last year, our son Jude had his reception at John Besh's flagship, Restaurant August. It was everything we could have wanted. August and Le Foret are very similar in their setups. Mary Ann is delighted by the prospect of giving Besh a monopoly on Fitzmorris family wedding receptions. I am delighted with the possibility of Le Foret's resuscitation. It was a five-star restaurant in NOMenu's ratings for a few years, but that diminished after manager Danny Millan left Le Foret to open Cava.
Today is Leah Chase's ninety-third birthday, and the city is according her more honors than ever before. She's on the cover of everything this week, and was interviewed at length on WWNO. She sounds as sharp as ever. Everything she says makes one stop and think that, despite all our problems, New Orleans is a great place to live. Only in New Orleans would the chef of a neighborhood restaurant (albeit one with a worldwide reputation) get so much regard.
I am stuck on the North Shore today. MA headed across about two hours before I did, and she reports a five-mile backup of traffic. I have a lot to do anyway.
When she gets back, MA and I have a quick but immense dinner (no other kind there) at Di Cristina's. Barb--our favorite waitress--says that she and the rest of the staff are back after being closed for twelve days during the holidays. It's nice for a restaurant to be so successful that they can afford to do this. A schedule like that is so appealing to cooks and waiters that the restaurant finds it easy to get and keep staff. How would you like to have to work hard on every holiday?
I have the soup of the day, a pureed white bean soup with cheese and bacon. It could have been lightened up a bit, but I expect this density from this restaurant, whose food is as ribsticking as it is delicious.
Then I have one of Di Cristina's truly over-the-top entrees: three rounds of eggplant Parmesan, with a brick of lasagna on the side. We take half of it home. Sixteen bucks.
We are here not just because we like the food and haven't been in quite awhile, but because MA is leaving for Washington, D.C. in the predawn tomorrow. I make sure we are back home at seven-thirty, as I promised.
