Saturday, November 7, 2015.
First Taste Of Boulé--Or Is It?
It rained ferociously overnight and most of the day, courtesy of a cool front sweeping from the West Coast and across Texas, which is having many years' worth of drought reversed by floods. Meanwhile, the rain is much lighter in Los Angeles, but that's still enough to slow down renovations to the home or Jude and his wife Suzanne. Will the job be finished in time for the blessed event scheduled for this month? Am I the only one who thinks that the investment side of the real estate business is making life difficult for most of us?
Mary Leigh and I have breakfast at Mattina Bella. Pancakes for her, a spinach-artichoke omelette for me. I get one of these every now and then, and always come to the conclusion that the filling is too rich for my tastes.
Each breakfast ML and I have is supposed to be the last one before she and Dave (formerly known as The Boy) permanently move to the Washington, D.C. area. But she keeps coming back. They have an apartment nailed down. Now ML is getting to work on building furniture. She and MA will work on a table throughout the weekend.
I have no radio show today, and spend my time on miscellaneous projects. Installing the new tail-light lens on the PT Cruiser, for one. This time I do it right, which I didn't a couple of days ago. It really shouldn't swing in the wind.
Dinner is at Boulé Bistro, which opened some eight months ago in a handsome, spacious, well-windowed building on Lee Lane, just off Boston Street, the main route through Covington. Although many restaurants and some neat crafts shops are nearby, Boule's block is somewhat obscure. At least four restaurants have come and gone since it went up some fifteen years ago. The first one was a spinoff of Pat O'Brien's. Then came a Caribbean place called Calypso. A steakhouse was next, determined in the beginning not to make a profit, and to turn over any proceeds to the greater good. (Did anyone tell them that making a profit in the restaurant business right out of the box is unusual?)
This is the third time around for Boulé and its owner Jeff Curtis, who made his first splash in the restaurant biz when he was in his twenties. That edition of Boulé was where the Acme Oyster House is now. Curtis then moved to the cool building that hangs out over the bed of the Abita River, just above the Causeway Boulevard bridge. (Where the RocketFire pizzeria came and went later.) That chapter of the Boulé saga ended in a squabble with the landlord. Curtis dropped off my radar after that, long enough that I was surprised to hear that not only was he back, but he was reviving most of the essence of the previous Boulés. (The name is a biblical reference, but I can't exactly recall what.)
Curtis has two elements of Boulé 3 just right. The premises are comfortable and good-looking, in a style primed to attract younger customers, perhaps away from the chains. Good place to watch a football game, or go out on a date. The noise level is low and the lighting is agreeable. The service staff is friendly, understands the menu and the possibilities, and eager to please.
The food. . . well, the food we had tonight was more or less the same that we found last time our appetites we were in Curtis's care. He made his name with USDA Prime steaks, aged for weeks. The Marys are always ready for a filet, and they get their usual medium-well job. They love it. Cooked to perfection, they say.
I would have ordered a steak had there been a sirloin (a.k.a. New York) strip on the menu. But there isn't. How can a steakhouse not have a strip? Even in the knowledge that it's the most expensive standard cut in the world of steakhouses, the strip is the connoisseur's cut.
So I look for another entree. Most of the other choices show the style of popular restaurant kitchens of ten or fifteen years ago. Creamy sauces with crawfish or shrimp. A lot of cheese where it doesn't belong. (That was also a problem in the previous Boulés.)
A good example of this is the dish I wound up ordering: panneed veal with shredded mozzarella. I had no idea it would bear that much cheese. Also part of the recipe is a Cajun-style marinara sauce. So, it's a little like veal Parmigiana. An enormous plate of food, of which I can't eat more than half.
[caption id="attachment_49532" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Bacon-wrapped oysters,[/caption]
The dinner begins with a martini for me, and bacon-wrapped oysters with remoulade sauce and a bit of cheese in the middle. The oysters are small, but they came forth with eight of them.
[caption id="attachment_49530" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Crabmeat and brie soup.[/caption]
I also had the crabmeat and brie soup--a widely-copied dish on the North Shore, where Dakota introduced it. Very, very rich, but that's the nature of the beast. The Marys have a wedge salad that they like enough that I get not a leaf of it. On the other hand, the fries that the Marys always order did not possess the fresh-cut qualities that they love.
The desserts are quite good: a bananas Foster bread pudding, and a pear poached in wine.
It wasn't until the end of the meal that Jeff Curtis showed up at our table. He appeared to be the chef. Come to think of it, he was usually in the kitchen at the previous places.
It was raining when we arrived, and it was still raining when we left.
Boule Bistro. Covington: 326 Lee Lane. 985-888-1146.
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Sunday, November 8,2015.
Crabby's Rings. Acclimating Cats And Wife To One
Another.
Mary Ann okayed the acquisition of the new cat Satsuma to replace the late Twinnery a week ago. And she gave her permission for me to also get Valencia--Satsuma's brother--from the pound. But that doesn't guarantee that there will be no friction. MA doesn't really like cats. So I must develop a program by which the cats will move to the outdoors ASAP, while at the same I broker a peace deal between the little cats and the large dogs Susie and Barry. And I must housebreak the cats. All of this is vexing MA, and I keep telling her that a week from now all this will be accomplished. I have had cats all my life, and I can do this.
What I can't do is cut the grass, as I hoped. The rain has stopped, but the grounds are so mushy that getting stuck in the mud was inevitable.
The Marys and I have lunch at Crabby's Shack, which is very close to joining the list of our default easy-style restaurants. When I arrive, the girls are most of the way through a pile of fried artichoke hearts. Those will be followed by the Shack's excellent, thin-sliced onion rings. All of us are trying to lose weight, and these are not the things to get to that end. But these are really great onion rings.
The Marys split a large plate of grilled chicken over pasta with Alfredo sauce. Not lo-cal either, but it's Sunday.
I am thinking of a dozen raw oysters as my meal. A roast beef poor boy also rings a bell. But someone at the next table comments very favorably about the hamburger. Crabby's owner Keith Young (of steakhouse fame) and his family (of Young's in Slidell) began their restaurant business by making spectacular hamburgers. Is that the kind of burger served at Crabby's? I ask the server. It sure is, she says. I get it dressed on French bread. And it is indeed good, if not quite as exciting as I could have made at home. But very few burgers make that mark. Indeed, every American ought to be able to grill a hamburger better than he will be served in any restaurant. It's not that hard!
I spend most of the rest of the day retooling the templates for the email edition of the NOMenu, so that it will be compatible with mobile units like smart phones. I'm still looking for somebody to do this kind of stuff for me. I don't have the knack. Or the time.
Crabby's Seafood Shack. Madisonville: 305 Covington. 985-845-2348.
Mary Leigh and I have breakfast at Mattina Bella. Pancakes for her, a spinach-artichoke omelette for me. I get one of these every now and then, and always come to the conclusion that the filling is too rich for my tastes.
Each breakfast ML and I have is supposed to be the last one before she and Dave (formerly known as The Boy) permanently move to the Washington, D.C. area. But she keeps coming back. They have an apartment nailed down. Now ML is getting to work on building furniture. She and MA will work on a table throughout the weekend.
I have no radio show today, and spend my time on miscellaneous projects. Installing the new tail-light lens on the PT Cruiser, for one. This time I do it right, which I didn't a couple of days ago. It really shouldn't swing in the wind.
Dinner is at Boulé Bistro, which opened some eight months ago in a handsome, spacious, well-windowed building on Lee Lane, just off Boston Street, the main route through Covington. Although many restaurants and some neat crafts shops are nearby, Boule's block is somewhat obscure. At least four restaurants have come and gone since it went up some fifteen years ago. The first one was a spinoff of Pat O'Brien's. Then came a Caribbean place called Calypso. A steakhouse was next, determined in the beginning not to make a profit, and to turn over any proceeds to the greater good. (Did anyone tell them that making a profit in the restaurant business right out of the box is unusual?)
This is the third time around for Boulé and its owner Jeff Curtis, who made his first splash in the restaurant biz when he was in his twenties. That edition of Boulé was where the Acme Oyster House is now. Curtis then moved to the cool building that hangs out over the bed of the Abita River, just above the Causeway Boulevard bridge. (Where the RocketFire pizzeria came and went later.) That chapter of the Boulé saga ended in a squabble with the landlord. Curtis dropped off my radar after that, long enough that I was surprised to hear that not only was he back, but he was reviving most of the essence of the previous Boulés. (The name is a biblical reference, but I can't exactly recall what.)
Curtis has two elements of Boulé 3 just right. The premises are comfortable and good-looking, in a style primed to attract younger customers, perhaps away from the chains. Good place to watch a football game, or go out on a date. The noise level is low and the lighting is agreeable. The service staff is friendly, understands the menu and the possibilities, and eager to please.
The food. . . well, the food we had tonight was more or less the same that we found last time our appetites we were in Curtis's care. He made his name with USDA Prime steaks, aged for weeks. The Marys are always ready for a filet, and they get their usual medium-well job. They love it. Cooked to perfection, they say.
I would have ordered a steak had there been a sirloin (a.k.a. New York) strip on the menu. But there isn't. How can a steakhouse not have a strip? Even in the knowledge that it's the most expensive standard cut in the world of steakhouses, the strip is the connoisseur's cut.
So I look for another entree. Most of the other choices show the style of popular restaurant kitchens of ten or fifteen years ago. Creamy sauces with crawfish or shrimp. A lot of cheese where it doesn't belong. (That was also a problem in the previous Boulés.)
A good example of this is the dish I wound up ordering: panneed veal with shredded mozzarella. I had no idea it would bear that much cheese. Also part of the recipe is a Cajun-style marinara sauce. So, it's a little like veal Parmigiana. An enormous plate of food, of which I can't eat more than half.
[caption id="attachment_49532" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Bacon-wrapped oysters,[/caption]
The dinner begins with a martini for me, and bacon-wrapped oysters with remoulade sauce and a bit of cheese in the middle. The oysters are small, but they came forth with eight of them.
[caption id="attachment_49530" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Crabmeat and brie soup.[/caption]
I also had the crabmeat and brie soup--a widely-copied dish on the North Shore, where Dakota introduced it. Very, very rich, but that's the nature of the beast. The Marys have a wedge salad that they like enough that I get not a leaf of it. On the other hand, the fries that the Marys always order did not possess the fresh-cut qualities that they love.
The desserts are quite good: a bananas Foster bread pudding, and a pear poached in wine.
It wasn't until the end of the meal that Jeff Curtis showed up at our table. He appeared to be the chef. Come to think of it, he was usually in the kitchen at the previous places.
It was raining when we arrived, and it was still raining when we left.
