Saturday, December 5, 2015.
Another New Breakfast Place. Another New Dinner Place.
Still no radio show today, or next week, either. The timing is perfect. During the next week I have three choral performances and two rehearsals in advance of them. I think I'll do a little practicing right now, in fact:
Christmas future is far away
Christmas past is past.
Christmas present is here today
Bringing joy that will last.
First person who emails the name of this song to me at tom@nomenu.com wins a free subscription to the NOMenu Daily, or an extension if already a subscriber. It includes up to three subs for your friends who aren't already on my list.
Mary Ann and I have breakfast in the newest location of the Abita
Roasting Company. It is indeed a coffee roaster for retail sale, but they also have two cafes with full menus of breakfast and lunch items. It's operated by the same people who own Friends Coastal restaurant in Madisonville.
This Abita Roasters in Covington is in one of those locations where many previous restaurants have been, everything from a gourmet Creole bistro to a Mexican place. None did well, likely because the place is off most people's mental map. Nice-looking spot, though, with a slick and imaginative menu.
Here's a good sign: The server is a young woman who, when I ask if I can have a version of eggs Benedict with hot sausage patties underneath the poached eggs, doesn't wrinkle her face, but says immediately, "Sure!" That's not on the menu, but afterwards she said that she and the kitchen were intrigued by the idea of it. A restaurant with a staff that thinks about what it's doing!
The dish is very good, except for the eggs, which are cooked the way Mary Ann likes them: stiff. I neglect to ask for the somewhat runny eggs that are classic for a Benedict, but it's enjoyable enough.
Coffee's good. Café au lait comes out in oversize cups, with a satisfyingly powerful chicory blend.
I buy a new chair for my office. The beat-up one that Jude gave me--already well used eight years ago--no longer remains at working height, but slowly descends to child's level, like a really slow elevator. Besides, the thing has been killing my back lately.
I try two dozen chairs at Office Depot before finding one that has the kind of support I want. I didn't know it until I checked out, but it's also about a third of the price of the others. And it has a further clearance discount that takes it down to eighty bucks. That's as much as the dry-cleaners bill when I make that stop on my Saturday route.
Abita Roasting Company. Covington: 1011 Village Walk. 985-246-3345.
Mary Ann suggests that for dinner we go to Bourre, a new bistro in Mandeville. It's a nice if spare, modern dining room at the end of a strip mall. I remember a time when the idea of having a restaurant in a strip mall was anathema in the New Orleans area. I mean there was not a single restaurant in such a situation. This was in the 1980s. I first noticed this when I began attending food writer conferences around the country, and saw that strip-mall-based restaurants were common all over the country. Houston already had numerous upscale restaurants so located. That would have been unthinkable in New Orleans then. No more.
Bourré is named for a Cajun card game at which many coonasses have lost many moneys. Doesn't fit the restaurant, which looks civilized. The menu is a standard collection of Creole dishes, with a lot of hamburgers.
What is "a standard collection of Creole dishes"? That would be, in 2015, any restaurant that serves char-broiled oysters. Which they do. They sent eight of them out in lieu of the four-pack. Oysters are still running small. The sauce is the usual amount of butter and herbs, plus too much parmesan cheese.
And it took a long time to come out. That would be a theme that ran through dinner. I never go to a restaurant in a hurry. (Mary Ann, on the other hand, can be. . . impatient? But can I even suggest such a criticism as we enter her birthday weekend? Dicey.)
But she was right about the service. The server herself was friendly and accommodating, but the pace of the food and drink deliveries were like. . . well, about like the slow descent of my old desk chair. What should take a few seconds takes a few minutes.
We have a very good French onion soup, which suited the chilly evening. I would return to this restaurant for this soup alone. MA has a salad. Entrees: a hamburger for her--excellent, she says. For me, a double-thick pork chop with a spicy shake of red peppers and pepper jelly. They also said it had been brined in an herbal brine. I considered asking for it medium but rosy. I wish I had. It looked great and tasted good, but quite a bit overcooked--if not for the average North Shore diner.
Each iteration of food or drink--including the bread pudding that I ate alone, because MA had had enough and left--had a big gap before its arrival. They need to work on this. It takes too much away from what was otherwise an eminently edible and attractively-priced dinner in a nice place.
One more thing I noticed: whoever put together the musical playlist must have been a member of 1968 high school class. It was all precisely the music I listen to when I try to conjure up that halcyon era.
Bourre. Mandeville: 22 St. Ann Dr. 985-778-2601.
What is "a standard collection of Creole dishes"? That would be, in 2015, any restaurant that serves char-broiled oysters. Which they do. They sent eight of them out in lieu of the four-pack. Oysters are still running small. The sauce is the usual amount of butter and herbs, plus too much parmesan cheese.
And it took a long time to come out. That would be a theme that ran through dinner. I never go to a restaurant in a hurry. (Mary Ann, on the other hand, can be. . . impatient? But can I even suggest such a criticism as we enter her birthday weekend? Dicey.)
But she was right about the service. The server herself was friendly and accommodating, but the pace of the food and drink deliveries were like. . . well, about like the slow descent of my old desk chair. What should take a few seconds takes a few minutes.
We have a very good French onion soup, which suited the chilly evening. I would return to this restaurant for this soup alone. MA has a salad. Entrees: a hamburger for her--excellent, she says. For me, a double-thick pork chop with a spicy shake of red peppers and pepper jelly. They also said it had been brined in an herbal brine. I considered asking for it medium but rosy. I wish I had. It looked great and tasted good, but quite a bit overcooked--if not for the average North Shore diner.
Each iteration of food or drink--including the bread pudding that I ate alone, because MA had had enough and left--had a big gap before its arrival. They need to work on this. It takes too much away from what was otherwise an eminently edible and attractively-priced dinner in a nice place.
One more thing I noticed: whoever put together the musical playlist must have been a member of 1968 high school class. It was all precisely the music I listen to when I try to conjure up that halcyon era.
