Friday, October 9, 2015, Part 2
Remotely Celebrating Frank's Fiftieth.
I broadcast the radio show from the upstairs dining room at Frank's Restaurant across from the French Market. The streets for a block in each direction are blocked off for a big bandstand and a larger crowd than I expected. The music starts with Harvey Jesus, and ends with Benny Grunch and the Bunch. Benny comes upstairs during a break and we talk for a few minutes. As usual, he's hilarious. On the stage, he let loose with a parody of "Graduation Day," the perennial local lament for the end of schooltime happiness. Benny's title tells the whole story of his parody: "Evacuation Day." Benny then jumps from one quip to the next, each one a laugher. He could do stand-up comedy.
Also coming up to be interviewed is one of the members of the band that created "Graduation Day." Singer Stark Whiteman is no longer with us, but one of his band members is here to tell the backstory.
The Gagliano brothers make hundreds of muffuletta wedges and just as many plates of rigatoni with marinara sauce, all given away free to the people helping them celebrate.
When the Frank's party ends at six, I make my way over to Jackson Square, where Mary Ann is waiting for me to go to dinner. En route, I run into some of the management team at Tujague's. The big issue there lately has been whether to remove the famous boiled beef brisket from the menu. Mark Latter, the owner, wonders if it's relevant to the much improved menu that the old place installed a few years ago with great success. Mark asked me about it, and I said he ought to keep the dish but upgrade it. It doesn't seem to me to be as good as it once was--but that might just be my aging palate talking. Ralph Brennan may have made the ultimate decision when he--a competitor-- was asked what he thought of the brisket: "If you take it off your menu, I will immediately put it on mine."
My first thought for dinner is Muriel's. But MA has an aversion to old, dark buildings, regardless of the goodness of the food, wine and service. We cross Jackson Square to Tableau. We have not had good luck there. One excellent meal out of five, so far. The place is one of the handsomest restaurants in the city, but I find the menu uninspiring and abbreviated. Mary Ann is miffed by something that happens almost every time we've dined here: we are treated like tourists. It must be said that the way Dickie Brennan and company take care of customers from out of town is very good.
But Mary Ann is astonished that we don't know anybody there, nor do they know us. I wish that would happen in every restaurant, but even when I go to little ethnic places for the first time, somehow I am spotted before we're halfway through the meal. Tonight's episode: the hostess gives us a table in the doorway of an empty room on the second floor. It's a beautifully finished space, but it is Siberia, with no other customers in sight, even though the place is fairly busy.
The waiter--a pleasant man, handsome enough to be a model or or a movie star--starts in explaining dishes and ingredients about which even a parvenu New Orleans native would know everything. And if I can slip in and remain anonymous almost every time I'm here, how do the other locals like it?
I look over the menu once again while MA fumes about this. All the dishes I'd be interested in eating are those I've had here before. Again I say, this menu is too narrow. (Literally as well as analytically.) We apologize to the waiter, saying that this wasn't the menu we were thinking about for tonight. We move on.
MA's next idea is Kingfish. We haven't been there since Chef Greg Sonnier left. Besides, right across the street is the spot where MA's parking-witch powers provide us with a legal space on Chartres Street.
We check in and find a jammed bar and a nearly-jammed dining room. "This looks like a full house," I tell the young woman at the door. "Totally," she says. "It will be forty-five minutes for a table." She doesn't know me, either, but I get a nod from the piano player and one of the servers. I don't want to jump ahead of anyone waiting for a table. I don't play that game. We move on.
Café Giovanni has a sparsely-populated dining room. We pop in and find Chef Duke at the bar, shooting the breeze with staff and local customers, and then with us. Chef Duke greets us with, "What are you two doing together?" He is intrigued by the relationship MA and I have, and keeps hinting that he'd like to hear the real story. But what you see is what you get: two highly opinionated, talkative people who don't agree on the little things, but concur totally on the big issues. Although one of the little issues is which matters are the small ones and which the large. I was advised about this before we got married by the late Dick Brennan Sr., the great sage of my life. He told me back then, "My wife and I decided that I would handle all the big decisions and she would take care of all the little ones. We have been married for thirty-seven years, and so far, no major question has come up yet."
MA and I agree to stay at Café Giovanni, whose dining room fills substantially during the next hour. The new female singer there sounds better than any other mezzo-soprano I've heard here in the last ten years. And the pianist is fantastic, focusing on jazz and doing a lot of inspired improvisation. Turns out that he's from Italy, and auditioning for the Café Giovanni gig. I enthusiastically vote for him.
Mary Ann tells Chef Duke not to send us a tableload of food. "Nah, just one thing," he says. Then we get both kinds of bruschetta, a loaf big enough for a table for six. Then a cup of minestrone each. Mary Ann really loves that, and so do I, but I am distracted with the thought that I haven't seen a minestrone on a menu on a long time. I remember when it was a marker of an ambitious Italian menu.
Then we get Tuscany asparagus: a bundle of spears held together with prosciutto around the outside and cheese in the center, then more or less panneed. I've always loved this. It's another portion that could be split three or four ways.
The fourth course brings the entrees we'd actually ordered. Mary Ann is wild about Duke's bolognese sauce. It comes over a big pile of spaghetti. I see that the fish of the day is sheepshead, making an automatic order for me. I love that fish. It's topped with a bunch of crabmeat and stuff.
Duke comes over to discuss all things. His bartender brings my second double Negroni. I amaze him by leaving it alone after one sip. But my limit is one cocktail. I don't like what the second one does to me.
Cafe Giovanni. French Quarter: 117 Decatur. 504-529-2154.
Mary Ann tells Chef Duke not to send us a tableload of food. "Nah, just one thing," he says. Then we get both kinds of bruschetta, a loaf big enough for a table for six. Then a cup of minestrone each. Mary Ann really loves that, and so do I, but I am distracted with the thought that I haven't seen a minestrone on a menu on a long time. I remember when it was a marker of an ambitious Italian menu.
Then we get Tuscany asparagus: a bundle of spears held together with prosciutto around the outside and cheese in the center, then more or less panneed. I've always loved this. It's another portion that could be split three or four ways.
The fourth course brings the entrees we'd actually ordered. Mary Ann is wild about Duke's bolognese sauce. It comes over a big pile of spaghetti. I see that the fish of the day is sheepshead, making an automatic order for me. I love that fish. It's topped with a bunch of crabmeat and stuff.
Duke comes over to discuss all things. His bartender brings my second double Negroni. I amaze him by leaving it alone after one sip. But my limit is one cocktail. I don't like what the second one does to me.
