[title type="h5"]Wednesday, February 11, 2015.
Twenty-Six Years At The Windsor Court.[/title]
Mary Ann and I were married on this date in 1989. Every year, we recall the event by returning to the scene of the crime: the Windsor Court Hotel, where we spent our first two nights as woman and husband in the biggest suite the glitzy hotel had. Sometimes we have breakfast, lunch, or dinner. If it's a big anniversary, we sometimes check in and try to remember how these dance steps go.
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"The Porch" in the Windsor Court Grill Room.[/caption]
Our anniversary often bumps into Mardi Gras. There are parades tonight, one of which has the potential of blocking the garage where I park. We meet at the hotel as soon as the radio show ends to get this show on the road.
I enter the hotel through the door on the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Gravier. There, the bar staff is setting up a sidewalk oasis of alcoholic beverages. I am sure it will do good business, although I wonder whether the hotel's usual lofty prices will prevail.
There is almost nobody in the Grill Room. Two other couples are dining, and a highly listenable pianist plays my kind of music. I'd go over and ask if I might be allowed to sing with him if I thought we had the time. The sommelier, who knows it is our anniversary (I told them when I made the reservation) drifts by with an open bottle of Trouillard, a rather rare Champagne. The bad news is that they charge is $16 a glass for it. But the good news is that we get free refills.
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Amuse-bouche. What was this again? Pretty.[/caption]
Grill Room Chef Daniel Causgrove--the best chef of the four who came and went at the ultimately ill-fated Dijon in 2013-2014--came by to say that he recently added a number of new items to the menu, and that we ought to consider the gratin of crabmeat and the squab. Sounds good to me, but I ask to let the menu sink in before I make any decisions. But all I find amusing is that nearly all the entrees have an optional addition of foie gras. That seems a little silly.
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Roasted oysters with red peppers, etc.[/caption]
We start with what will prove to be the best dish of the evening. Oysters roasted on the shells--an obligatory dish wherever one goes now--with an utterly unique sauce made with red chilis, fennel, sorrel (better than spinach for this, I'd say) and satsuma juice. What I like about it is that there is very little butter or fat of any kind, yet the flavors are big and the oysters are cooked a point.
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Gratin of crabmeat.[/caption]
But that is not cooked hard enough for Mary Ann, who swaps the oysters with me for the dish I figured her to get in the first place: a gratin of crabmeat with black garlic (!), asparagus and radishes, all covered with a sheet of semi-molten Manchego cheese. It looks funny, but tastes okay. (And not much more than that.)
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Squab, with tortellacci.[/caption]
In the entrees, the chef has found a rare variant on an Italian word that I have not heard until tonight. The server is proud to explain that tortellacci is much larger than the mini-ravioli tortellini, and a little larger than tortellini. It is stuffed with duck confit and awash in pecan puree that forms the sauce along with cherries and orange. But the star of this plate is squab--baby pigeon, bigger than the adults. My favorite bird to eat, most of the time. It's lost in this sauce, especially because of a mouthfeel (caused by the pecan puree) that I find disagreeable.
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Breaded redfish.[/caption]
Mary Ann gets redfish breaded with an actual, thin slice of French bread. Not a good idea, we both agree. On the side is sunchoke (a.k.a. Jerusalem artichoke) purée, wild mushrooms, Swiss chard and brown butter.
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Cookies.[/caption]
We decide not to stay for dessert. In the back of my mind, I suspect that we might get a little something along those lines to mark our special evening. And here it is! A place of cookies on a decorated plate. How nice of them. It's a pleasant note at the end of a disappointing meal. It is not helped by the fact that we are on a schedule. We only have two hours for dinner, if we want to escape the escapees from the parade. Not only that, but Mary Ann needs to pack for her trip to Los Angeles tomorrow, now that we have this anniversary business out of the way.
[title type="h5"]Windsor Court Grill Room. CBD: 300 Gravier. 504-522-1994.[/title]
