Wednesday, December 22, 2016.
The Week's Third Reveillon Is The Best: Pelican Club.
Mary Ann and I love hanging out with Chef Richard Hughes, the owner of the Pelican Club, which for my money presents the best Reveillon dinners every year for over twenty years. The three of us have positions on the subject of losing weight. I keep my mouth shut, mainly because I've lost more pounds than either of the others. And I must make room for Mary Ann, who always has a theory of dieting by which she believes is the great answer. It turns out that neither MA nor Richard agrees about much on this subject. Add Richard's wife's plan, and it becomes incomprehensible.
Fortunately, the conversation goes to what we came here for. For years, Chef Richard has involved the Pelican Club in the annual Reveillon feasting. He takes it much farther down the road than other restaurants, with many choices offered. None of what comes from the Reveillon selections is less than first-rate. In short, it's the best of them all, as I said a few days ago here.
We begin with soups. MA's is an oyster soup with mirlitons and a lot else going on. I have a combination turtle and alligator soup, in the style of the first reptile. Dark roux, interesting seasonings and texture. . .a very good rendition, one I don't mention often enough, mainly because so many other dishes populate the Pelican Club's menu.
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The lightest of ravioli.[/caption]
Next comes some grilled oysters on their shells, ordered by MA and shared with me. These are made in the bacon-and-herbs combination that we have loved at the PC for a long time. I have ravioli filled with three light cheeses, slippery and good, with mushrooms and a little Herbsaint (I think). Everything is superb so far. And the situation doesn't change with the next course, which in the ordering shows carelessness on my part. Here's another pasta fish, but one much more robust than the first, with a spicy red sauce tossed with linguine, enormous shrimp and scallops, mussels, clams, and black drumfish. It's cioppino, a dish that was very popular in Italian restaurants for a short time in the early 1990s. The Pelican Club had just opened, and it has featured cioppino on and off ever since. The presentation is cool: all the ingredients come to the table in a big metal saucepan. You transfer the sauce and the seafood to the pot, or you dump the pasta into the pot. There's enough for two, and the freshness of everything is obvious.
Through all this Chef Richard has pours samples of several wines from Austria, which intrigue him lately. (Richard always seems to be hot on a few wines every time we're there.) Desserts are simple: ice cream (I don't know why I'm eating a lot of ice cream lately) and a chocolate dessert MA eats so quickly I don't get an idea of what it is.
Mary Ann is the Parking Witch. She never parks in garages, always on the street. Today she is a mere block away from the PC, at the other end of the Monteleone Hotel's piece of Exchange Alley. This is the first time I've seen that passageway in decades. It's a straight shot now to Canal Street.
Two days ago I was made aware of a major change at the radio station. The bottom line is that my Food Show will finally escape the problems engendered by AM radio, and will move to the FM band. However, there's one little challenge: in order to hear my radio show, listeners will have to get HD radios. These are not expensive. I've seen them for $20, and I'll bet they can be had for less. People who bought new cars in the last few years may already have HD radios installed in them. The sound quality is better than FM, and it doesn't get lost in static the way AM does--a situation that gets worse with every year. And there's a lot of other programming to be had there, too.
If you want to try it out, buy an HD radio at the likes of Target or Wal-Mart. Or see if there's one in your car. Tune it to 105.3 FM, then turn the dial a little bit backwards to get HD2. Bingo! There it is. I can't wait until the Food Show moves there.
Pelican Club. French Quarter: 615 Bienville. 504-523-1504.
