Friday, November 2015.
Against The Grain, Episode #435533.
Contrary to the theme of the day, I did no shopping aside from picking up cat food and a few other needs from the grocery. Today is a rare three-day vacation for me. No radio show today, tomorrow, or Sunday. I do, however, publish a NOMenu today. After that I get to work on the 2015 Reveillon guide. The holiday-themed menus will open shop starting Tuesday, the first of December.
It occurs to me that the hurricane season ends at exactly the time the Reveillon begins. Another reason to celebrate. And yet another: Tuesday is a major milestone for the radio show. I will explain then.
For now, I am overwhelmed by the Reveillon project. We have forty-nine restaurants participating this year, which I believe is a record. I don't think any of last year's Reveilllons dropped out.
The worst part of this job is remembering how I did it last year. The French Quarter Festivals organization greatly upgraded its website a couple of years ago, making my life easier. But my coverage contains a lot of other knobs and switches that the official site doesn't. Ratings of the menus, for example, and links to full reviews of most of the restaurants. It takes all day just to get into the rhythm of the task.
I break for lunch at a new hamburger joint in Covington. I don't know why I feel the need to go there. The Marys already told me that it's terrible. I find the service attentive. But everything else about the place is worse than in any other restaurant in a long time. Everything seems to point to some guy who knows nothing about cooking but who believes that a certain critical mass of gimmicks and fast talk on the menu are enough to make it good. He is wrong, wrong, wrong. For example, the idea that a burger is better if served on a bigger-than-average bun with a heavy texture is erroneous. Making the meat patties with the texture of an overworked meatball is just as bad. I have as a starter the worst queso dip I hope ever to have. Some mechanism in my brain keeps me from remembering this restaurant's name. I will try as hard as I can never to think about it. So far, nobody has yet called me about it on the radio.
I stay in the mainstream of American eating at suppertime, and get a garlic and cheese pizza at Pizza Man of Covington, the oldest continuously-operating restaurant on the North Shore. Paul Schrem is the Man, but he only works two or three days a week now, what with his son running the outfit. Nothing has changed in the long time since I was last there. The walls are still covered with pizza boxes bearing cartoons drawn by a regular customer. They're always different and clever.
[caption id="attachment_38234" align="alignright" width="400"]
The current academy of children learning pizza from the Man himself.[/caption]
A group of kids still stands in front of the big window that lets them watch the pizza chefs make their pies. The chefs play to this young audience by drawing faces in tomato sauce on the pizzas, throwing handfuls of flour at the window, and other tricks that make the boys and girls squeal with delight. My own kiddos spent a lot of time at that window in their day.
To assist in the reminiscence, I show Paul the photographs Mary Ann took of our first grandson, born four days ago. Indeed, I show the shots to everybody I know, and some I don't. Cute baby, and son Jude seems to be as happy as he was when Pizza Man threw dough lumps at him.
Pizza Man Of Covington. Covington: 1248 Collins Blvd (US 190). 985-892-9874.
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Saturday, November 28, 2015.
The New Fat Spoon.
The Frostop didn't make it in Covington, even though it had a great roast beef poor boy. Some months ago it shut down and drove off, with the neon Frostop sign in the moving van. After a few empty months, the location--energized by what is certainly the busiest Popeyes on the North Shore, and perhaps in the entire area--came back to life with the second location of the Fat Spoon. The original--still open--is on LA 59 near Abita Springs. At that spot, I found that they serve breakfasts topped only by Mattina Bella. They go on through the early afternoon with a substantial lunch of the usual New Orleans fare.
The new Fat Spoon has clearly pushed the right buttons. The restaurant was full enough that the only table available had just been washed down. The menu offers the wide array of omelettes and other egg dishes, plus waffles and pancakes and all the rest. What I am not accustomed to hearing about in a place like this is a long list of verbal specials from the waitress. She rings a bell when she tells of a boudin scrambler. "That would be scrambled eggs on top of or topped by chopped-up boudin, perhaps with some shredded cheese," I offered. Right! the waitress says. I approve. Grits or potatoes? Biscuit or toast?
A few words about those options. First, the time has come for grits to be upgraded. Most upscale bistros serving grits these days have a version of grits that's neither watery nor so stiff you can cut it into wedges. The liquid added to the ground-up hominy is cream or something like it. The grits here at the Fat Spoon (and in almost every other breakfast spot) need such a touch. Or perhaps what my mother did when I was a child: she stirred an egg yolk or two into the hot grits in the pot.
On the biscuits matter: any restaurant serving pre-made biscuits--as a shockingly large number do these days--ought to get hip to the fact that these frozen jobs are seriously inferior to homemade. Only their enormous size grabs attention. We are not fooled. All you need to do in this case is check out what Popeyes does. They make their own from scratch.
Dinner at Tchoupstix. I begin with a very peculiar but excellent version of nachos. Yes! Nachos in an Asian restaurant! The topping is shredded crabmeat in a spicy, alarmingly orange-red sauce. Hard to eat either with chopsticks or by scooping up the fake crabmeat with the tortillas. Once in the mouth, it was quite tasty.
The entree is a special roll made without rice. What holds the tuna and the vegetables together is rice paper, a layer down from the outside. This too was hard to eat with chopsticks (and I'm reasonably deft with those tools). But I manage to get all of it up.
This would have been a meal of the perfect size had the chef not come over with a seaweed salad with marinated tuna and an interesting assortment of vegetables, one of which is avocado. I remember a time when avocados were never seen in sushi bars. Another sign of my aging, I guess. Anyway, all this and the cold noodles push the size of this supper over the top.
Satsuma and Valencia--the two cats trying to fill the emotional gap left by the death of the cat Twinnery--are becoming accustomed to spending long periods of time outdoors. They have almost reached a detente with the dogs Suzie and Barry. Suzie is still not convinced, but unless she starts a rumble with the cats, Barry just looks at the kitties and goes on his way. I am very happy about this development, because Mary Ann insists that the cats must live outdoors, and that the litterbox's days are numbered.
Tchoupstix. Covington: 69305 LA Hwy 21. 985-892-0852.
The current academy of children learning pizza from the Man himself.[/caption]
A group of kids still stands in front of the big window that lets them watch the pizza chefs make their pies. The chefs play to this young audience by drawing faces in tomato sauce on the pizzas, throwing handfuls of flour at the window, and other tricks that make the boys and girls squeal with delight. My own kiddos spent a lot of time at that window in their day.
To assist in the reminiscence, I show Paul the photographs Mary Ann took of our first grandson, born four days ago. Indeed, I show the shots to everybody I know, and some I don't. Cute baby, and son Jude seems to be as happy as he was when Pizza Man threw dough lumps at him.
