[title type="h3"]
Little Tokyo. Wayfare.[/title]
Tuesday, March 25, 2014.[/title]
A full house of interesting people for the Round Table Radio Double-Hour. Many events going on this weekend, the closest of which is the Edible Evening tomorrow night. It's a celebration of the success that students in five major schools have had raising their own crops, then learning what to do with them. This event has grown quite a bit since we first reported on it five years ago. Forty-something chefs are planning to cook for it.
Then there's Hogs For The Cause, a barbecue competition started six years ago by Rene Louapre (the younger) and Becker Hall. The cause is juvenile brain cancer. The proceeds of the event--which balloon each year--have now taken care of the needs of thirty patients with this sad malady.
[caption id="attachment_41821" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Becker Hall.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_41822" align="alignnone" width="133"]
Justin Devillier.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_41823" align="alignleft" width="273"]
Greg & Mary Sonnier.[/caption]
Becker (who intentionally posed as shown in the photo) invited last year's winner to this year's radio show, to add credibility. Justin DeVillier--the culinary master at the superb La Petite Grocery--was with us to spin a few tales of barbecue.
Chef Greg Sonnier wasn't associated with either of the two events, but he is very welcome. He and wife Mary have finally pulled themselves out of the pit pursuant to the wreckage of their restaurant Gabrielle, and the subsequent disaster when they tried to reopen uptown.
Now Greg is happily at work at Kingfish, a restaurant that is so good that I can ignore its hipness. It's the best new restaurant of 2013. He seems to be happy about it, too.
But what about Mary Sonnier, who was always in the dining room at Gabrielle, running things? "I'm retired," she said. Why not?
Unrelated to anyone or anything else today is author Ann Beloit. Last time we talked to her, she had just completed a new cookbook of Broussard's kitchen. Not long after, Chef Gunter Preuss sold the old place, to be succeeded by the Creole Culinary group. Which owns, coincidentally, Kingfish.
Ann's new book is a gathering of recipes that express all the many ethnic dishes served around New Orleans. To look it over, you'd think that everything here is ethnic, one way or another. And, really, that's true. What is gumbo but an ethnic Creole dish?
First day in the studio since getting back from the train trip, and a good bit of work to do. It kept me at the mic until about seven. After which I was hungry, but not strongly so, and not willing to stay out until ten or later. (I have piled-up work at home, too.)
So it was a quick sushi supper at Little Tokyo in Mandeville, where I have not dined for quite some time. I didn't recognize anyone there, which may or may not mean the management has turned over. Everything else is right where I left it, maybe two years ago.
The sushi chef didn't have great English, but he made up for it with chattiness. He told me that the best fish in the house is the lemonfish. Had some of that, and some salmon and tuna nigiri. Little Tokyo remains the best sushi on the North Shore.
I barely made it there before closing time. Two customers after me were turned away. All categories of restaurant have their quirks. I've always noticed that posted open and close times are treated as law in most Asian restaurants.
[title type="h5"]Little Tokyo. Mandeville: 590 Asbury Dr. 504-727-1532.
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Wednesday, March 26, 2014.
Wayfare Is Way Better Than Fair.
[/title]
Our pre-cruise dinner, in advance of the voyage that 75 people will join me for next month, is supposed to be tonight. I thought so, anyway. In fact, I was sure of it. But Moncef Sbaa, the owner of Jamila's on Maple Street, was equally certain that the dinner is tomorrow night. People who arrived earlier than I did were turned away. Which was puzzling, and put into question whether this cruise of ours--in the works for some nine months--was even for real.
About half of the Eat Club cruisers stayed around to see what would happen. A half-hour of questions and answers ensued (that's one of the main functions of our pre-cruise dinners). But then we had to leave to make way for other reservations. And return tomorrow.
That goof left us with another problem: where to go for dinner tonight. The most obvious place was Vincent's, two blocks away. But that small, popular trattoria was jammed. (Some of the jammers were Eat Clubbers.)
Mary Ann and I, driving two cars and discussing the matter on cells, decided this would be the perfect night to try Wayfare. That's another one of the many cool eateries that transformed Freret Street from a down-at-the-heels district into one of the most interesting restaurant communities in New Orleans.
[caption id="attachment_41824" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Wayfare.[/caption]
Like most of its neighbors, Wayfare aims low, but with high-caliber culinary ammunition. The menu is dominated by finger food, salads, and sandwiches. The ingredients used for these, however, would be welcome in the best kitchens in town. And a lot of those foodstuffs are made in house. Although the many taps behind the bar seem to indicate the main liquid inventory, the menu shows a long list of unique cocktails, too.
[caption id="attachment_41825" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Meat pies.[/caption]
Mary Ann took a shine to the place instantly. This is her kind of food. We began with three tapas-size nibbles. The first was a trio of meat pies, filled tonight with a Bolognese-style compound of pulled pork, tomato sauce, carrots and onions, with a mellow-spicy white dipping sauce with a Latin flavor.
[caption id="attachment_41826" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Arancini.[/caption]
Then three arancini--fried, bread-crumb-coated balls of rice with cores of a really great, hot concoction with cheese. The sauce for this is similar to that of the previous dish, but with much more jalapeno pepper.
[caption id="attachment_41827" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Bruschetti.[/caption]
The third plate bore bruschetti: one topped with chickpeas, one with blue cheese and honey, and the third with a tomato-chunk topping. The last one is the classic, but was the least interesting in this trio of trios. Which we were wild about.
[caption id="attachment_41828" align="alignleft" width="320"]
Sliders.[/caption]
On to the sandwiches. Hers was a pair of sliders made with thick, almost spherical pretzel breads--a great idea I've been waiting years to try. The center was called "beef bologna," which I was expecting to be panneed baloney, an old New Orleans home dish that a fair number of people--most of them my age or older--remember eating as kids. In fact, this was more like a hamburger, but with a breading crust and no identifiable bologna flavor. That lack was a good thing, I think, never having liked panneed baloney. It was dressed with a sort of Asian-flavored cole slaw.
[caption id="attachment_41829" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Media dia sandwich.[/caption]
My sandwich was more impressive still. They call it "media dia" (midday)--a take on the famous Cuban sandwich "media noche" (midnight). Ham, salami, roast pork, Swiss cheese, and homemade pickles on what looked like French bread but had a closer, softer texture. The sandwich was grill-pressed, of course. But I've never seen that trick accomplished this well. MA and I kept passing it back and forth, just to marvel at the solidity of it. It tasted as good as it looked.
[caption id="attachment_41830" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Bread pudding beignets.[/caption]
Interesting dessert: fried bread pudding, made with chocolate and orange juice. They called the two slabs "beignets." Accurate enough, but still a little misleading. I loved it anyway.
Well. Why had we waited so long to try this place? MA is already talking about a return visit. This is the most impressive and distinctive restaurant on Freret's restaurant row. And that's saying something.
[title type="h5"]Wayfare. Uptown: 4510 Freret St. 504-309-0069. [/title]
[title type="h6"] Yesterday || Tomorrow[/title]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris March 07, 2014 21:40 in
