[title type="h5"]Monday, December 29, 2014.
Tchoupstix Goes Phenomenal.
[/title]
My department of self-criticism notes that the amount of coverage I give the dining scene on the North Shore is greater than it should be, especially considering the number of important South Shore restaurants I have not reviewed. But what can I do, short of buying a second house on the South Shore?
And there is important cooking on the North Shore. The opening of Ox Lot 9, the restaurant in the restored, beautiful Southern Hotel in Covington, for example. And Pardo's, whose rating soared to the full five stars during 2014.
Now we see that Osman Rodas, the owner of Pardo's, has taken over the restaurant next door in the same strip mall. Tchoupstix has been there since before Pardo's was, but it never really came to anything. The idea of combining Japanese and Creole flavors was interesting, and the premises were distinctive in a loud sort of way. (Imagine a Chinese New Year parade with floats from Mardi Gras.) More damning was the food, which was never quite good enough for me.
But Osman likes the Pan-Asian idea, the place was close at hand, and it tempted him to bring his substantial restaurant management skills to bear. He bought Tchoupstix a few months ago, and got to work--principally on the menu.
About two months ago Mary Ann and I had dinner at Tchoupstix. It was a little too soon for a review, but the eating was already a good deal better than what I remembered. Still not enough to draw a lot of people from ten or fifteen miles away (a normal trek for eating anywhere on the North Shore), but the place made it onto my radar.
It was I who suggested we go there this early evening. The weather has been cold, engendering a hankering for the soups and light fare one finds in Asian restaurants. This time, it was the whole four of us. Mary Leigh was here before without The Boy. He's not an adventuresome eater, but he likes pad Thai, which does indeed show up on Tchoupstix's wide-reaching menu.
We had yet a fifth member of our eating conclave. Osman learned we were here, and came over from next door to say hello. He also asked that we try a few new dishes he felt good about. And he refused to bring us the check. (I balance this out by giving my estimate of what the check should have been to the server. I don't care who gets the money, but I pay for my meals.)
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Tuna martini.[/caption]
After the complimentary-for-everybody hot consomme and mushroom soup, a pair of tuna martinis came from the sushi bar. The only thing it has in common with the cocktail is the glass, but that is the perfect serving plate for this beautiful collection of raw tuna, cucumbers sliced as thin as playing cards, crispies before they become ground up, and a few crunchy vegetables run through a gadget called a Spiralizer. This turns something like a radish into what looks like angel-hair pasta.
Osman said I should give a lemon wedge a squeeze above this very pretty collection, and to make sure that the juices at the bottom of the glass coated the tuna. The total flavor was quite peppery in a refreshing way, the tang of the citrus amplifying that effect. I ate two of these (Mary Ann doesn't do raw fish, and would not allow Osman to see a rejected dish). If this is the kind of excitement Osman wants to see coming from his chef, then Tchoupstix is not far from becoming a phenom.
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Tuna and green onions.[/caption]
That was followed by a plate of tuna wrapped around bundles of green onions. I ate one of the eight of these, already approaching fullness, with a full entree still on the way. We got the rest of them boxed to go.
We shifted from the Japanese side of the menu to China, and "General Lee's chicken." It's Tchoupstix's answer to that other general whose alleged chicken is on every Americanized Chinese restaurant in America. It's a good chicken stir-fry. The Boy--who for the past few years has been sitting in for Jude as A Chicken's Worst Nightmare--thought this was quite good, and so did the rest of us.
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Grilled shrimp and several sauces.[/caption]
Now we have shrimp grilled on skewers with onions and vegetables and two sauces with Asian flavor profiles. And we have finally finished the appetizer course, groaning with fullness.
[caption id="attachment_46127" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pad thai at Tchoupstix.[/caption]
But we soldier on. The Boy gets his pad Thai, extra hot as he likes it. Mary Leigh gets her standard "boneless chicken" (Chinese for Just Plain Fried Chicken Fingers), with an alarming red, mildly spicy, somewhat sweet sauce. Now here's a sliced pork loin over a salad with ramen noodles at the bottom--the only dish today that I find uninteresting.
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Vietnamese poor boy.[/caption]
My entree--because I am trying to lighten up--is a Vietnamese poor boy (bahn mi, if you're trying to sound cool) with pork and that funny ham sausage the Vietnamese people like. It's cut into two pieces. I cut one of the halves again, and eat the resulting quarter. The only thing I can ingest afterwards is hot green tea. This is what happens when one gets caught in a restaurant's test running of new dishes.
We go home, where I try to take enough of a walk to get my digestion going. It's a good thing NPAS has no rehearsal tonight. One can't sing well on a stomach this full. (It's called the Mario Lanza Effect.)
[title type="h5"]Tchoupstix. Covington: 69305 LA Hwy 21. 985-892-0852. [/title]
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[title type="h5"]Tuesday, December 30, 2014.
Bistro Orleans.[/title]
Today feels like New Year's Eve, because tomorrow will feel like nothing special. It doesn't look as if we will be going anywhere to observe the onset of 2015, nor will anyone come over to the Cool Water Ranch, even with the promise of fireworks going off in all directions for miles around.
And I have six commercials to write and record. They take about a half-hour each. I take my time, secure in the knowledge that I will adjust the dinner plans to the time I have left in the day. I am still quite full of that mega-feed yesterday at Tchoupstix.
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Grilled oysters.[/caption]
I wind up for the second time at Bistro Orleans. Its new location on West Esplanade off Causeway (the spot behind the doughnut shop and the Middle Eastern café, and next to the feed store) is clearly working well. The main dining room is about eighty percent full, and some twenty people are in the bar.
I am here to satisfy an appetite for oysters, which have entered the good time of the year for those of us who love to eat them. I have a half dozen raw--big and briny--then a half-dozen grilled with a topping made of white cheese, garlic, and bacon (I think).
The entree is a very large fillet of speckled trout. It really is that fish, and really does come from local waters--I asked, and Chef Archie assured me that's what it was. The fish is cooked more with steam from the pan than in butter or oil, and is seasoned very lightly. It would have been better with a heavier blast of heat and a more generous hand with the Creole seasoning. But a fish of this size and taste can be forgiven for presenting only its natural flavors.
On the other hand, the pasta bordelaise is much improved over the way it was last time. I'm tempted to think this means somebody's paying attention to what I say, but I know better.
The most striking part of this meal is dessert. I've already had what I thought were the really outstanding finales (the bread pudding, creme brulee, and bananas Foster), and get the carrot cake with no high hopes. How good could a carrot cake be, after all. Well. This one, I am assured by the server, is made by Chef Archie himself from scratch and is better than it sounds. She is right. I consume far too much of this very large slice of cake. Fresh, great texture, not overwhelmingly sweet: a fine job.
[title type="h5"]Bistro Orleans. Metairie: 3216 West Esplanade Ave. 504-304-1469. [/title]
