[title type="h5"]Thursday, February 12, 2015.
Bistro Orleans Pleases More. Home-Alone Time. [/title]
Mary Ann flies out to join Mary Leigh and Jude in Los Angeles. Poor old Mardi Gras! Nobody in my family but me goes to parades anymore, preferring to leave town instead. And the weather is even nice--although it's not looking too good for Fat Tuesday itself.
To avoid getting caught in tonight's parades, I leave the radio station as soon as I get off the air, and begin thinking about restaurants where I might get stuck or--worse--shut out. I wind up at Bistro Orleans, for which I am doing a couple of commercials every day. In that situation, I need to go to the place more often so a) I know I can still get behind it and 2) develop some worthwhile matters to talk about.
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Bistro Orleans.[/caption]
Specifically tonight, I want to try the oyster artichoke soup. That attracted me to the restaurant a couple of years ago. They've improved it, with the adjusted recipe having some qualities of the old-style West End oyster stew, made with a little richer cream base. I order a cup but get a bowl, yet finish it off with pleasure.
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Panneed chicken with pasta. [/caption]
The entree is panneed chicken with angel hair pasta and red sauce. The chicken is very good, light ad greaseless, but with a nice crunch at the interface with the atmosphere. The pasta is not tossed with the sauce, but by the time I've had my fill, I am still nowhere near the white layer.
I go home, and am home alone. I think about watching some late-night talk shows, which in my twenties and thirties was a nightly ritual so strong that it could be said that my entire day wrapped around it. Those were the days of Johnny Carson and David Letterman. I don't know any of the people hosting those shows now. I only watch them on vacation, and find that I still enjoy the genre. But I don't know how to make the television work. So I sit down at my desk, where there is always something to use up my time.
[title type="h5"]Bistro Orleans. Metairie: 3216 West Esplanade Ave. 504-304-1469.[/title] [divider type=""]
[title type="h5"]Friday, February 13, 2015.
Porter And Luke's Rebounds.[/title]
One of the great advantages of my new-old-new-old-new radio show schedule from 3-6 p.m. is that it allows me to get all my writing done by noon. Then I take the walk that is largely responsible for my great weight loss in the last two years. And then take a shower and a nap. And still have time to give myself an hour and a half to cross the lake, lowering the tension of being against the clock every day.
When Porter & Luke opened on Metairie Road a few years ago, it created a lot of conversation on the radio show. Then I stopped hearing about it, and occasionally heard reports which, while not terrible, seemed to say that the early excellence was wavering. But in the past couple of months, after this long lull, I am once again getting calls saying how much the callers like it. The menu hasn't changed. Chef Vincent Manguno is still there. So why all the new excitement?
I thought I'd better check, for the first time in quite awhile. Although the place is nearly full and the bar overflowing, I get a table immediately. Almost as soon as I do, I am approached by people I don't know who want to say hello and, in three cases, want to take a selfie with me. That's always reassuring, what with twenty more years to go in this restaurant critic dodge.
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Triple wedge and seafood salad.[/caption]
The soup of the day is oyster-artichoke. Even though I ate that yesterday at Bistro Orleans, I get it again, knowing that this one will be different. A little too thick, but I leave none of the big bowlful of it. For an entree I get the triple wedge, a great idea. Small heads of lettuce are quartered and three of the quarters are plated. Over one goes shrimp remoulade, crabmeat ravigote tops the second one, and fried oysters with blue cheese cluster around the third. This is a big plate of food, but I finish it because, after all, it's really a salad, right?
The salad does not go at all with the glass of Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine I have not sampled in a long time. I loved it in my early days of tasting wines. It's still a mouthful, and if I had been eating anything else I would have finished the very generous glass.
When I approach the Cool Water Ranch House in the dark, the dogs and cats surround me. I hear a voice coming from inside the house. I know it is WWNO on the radio in the kitchen. I leave it on all the time whenever I'm the only one here. When Mary Ann gets home from her trip to Los Angeles, the first thing she will do is to turn the radio off. Rituals.
[title type="h5"]Porter & Luke. Old Metairie: 1517 Metairie Road. 504-875-4555.[/title]
