Friday, February 10, 2017.
Anniversary Meat & Three @t Windsor Court. Then, Andy's.
Mary Ann and I celebrated our twenty-eighth wedding anniversary in the place where we always show up on this date. In significant years, we check into the Windsor Court Hotel and spend the night. In off-years, we have lunch or dinner in the Windsor Court's restaurant, the Grill Room. Mary Ann and I spent the first two nights of our consolidated lives in a spectacular suite at the hotel. The place was at its peak in 1989, and it was all a wonderland for my newly-ordained, deluxe-hotel-loving wife.
On that day we arrived straight from the reception at Kit and Billy Wohl's house. Mary Ann was exhausted, having sewed all the dresses for all the women young and old in the wedding party. She also made her own dress. We both collapsed into bed for a nap. I was nowhere near as fatigued. But I was hungry. You never get anything to eat at your own wedding.
I called room service for a Windsor Court salad. It's kind of like a Cobb salad without the chicken, and has always remained on the menu. Lately, that salad has been incorporated into the Grill Room's delightful meat-and-three lunch menu. For $19.84, you get a choice of a trio of entrees, and three side dishes. Just like you'd find in a diner somewhere in Ohio or Pennsylvania, but with much more interesting food and incomparably better service and surroundings. This is MA's discovery, and we indulge in it every chance we get.
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The meat and three at the Windsor Court.[/caption]
My menu is substantial, starting with turtle soup, then the salad above, and green beans and almonds. The entree is beef daube on noodles. MA has some grilled fish, brussels sprouts, and what I think were pureed carrots. Somebody knew it was our anniversary, and we were celebrated with a miniature cheesecake surrounded by celebratory words. Lovely!
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Anniversary dessert.[/caption]
Our anniversary is nice, but I have something else on my mind. Today is the premiere of the new radio configuration for the Food Show. I had no idea what to expect, although the prospect of having to talk for two hours nonstop was heavy on my mind. What we have here is a radio show trying to persuade listeners to buy our new kind of radio, but requiring them to have the new system so I can tell them they need the new system. I had to wonder whether this would be Catch 22.
It wasn't. We took a number of calls far above what I expected. The only thing that went badly wrong was that I didn't have a plausible name for the medium. It's the Food Show on. . . well, on what? It's not 3WL anymore, or 1350. How do I explain that this audio is sent to an FM station, which then processes it to be sent out on a sub-carrier frequency with only the name "HD2" to nail it down uniquely. It will take a lot of practice to get my moves down.
After I sign-off, the Marys tell me that they are in need of dinner. They choose Andy's Bistro in Metairie. They sat outdoors for a few minutes, even though it is clearly too windy and cold for this. MA loves Al Fresco. We retreat inside, and learn from a waiter about the fire that took Andy's out of commission for a few weeks recently.
Well before that, I had my doubts about Andy's. It started well, but seemed to lose its direction. That idea faded quickly when tonight's dinner came to the table. I have panned veal with fettuccine Alfredo. The veal was as good as any I've had in recent memory. Mary Leigh and I split a large filet mignon. We are reassured by the waiter that this is indeed USDA Prime beef, which most filets are not. It is grilled accurately, crusty around the edges. It's as fine a filet as I've had in many months. Nobody was more surprised than me.
It's looking more and more that this restaurant may finally beat the curse that caused many predecessors to come and go quickly. That began when it was Archie and Danny's (as in Manning and Abramowicz) in the mid-1970s.
