[title type="h5"]Thursday, April 16, 2015.
Ironic Dinner, Then Fourth Fleur de Lis.[/title]
In several books I've read about how to be a better writer, the authors strongly advise not to rely on coincidences or irony as a book's central swirl. I have taken this advice, but so far my fiction seems to run into ironic energy pulses where they die, because I can't find a good restarting point short of going back to the beginning. In real life, I am entertained by the number of coincidences that pull the pieces of life together, and without the ironies they generate things would be mighty dull. For example:
To dinner at Cava. I have not dined there lately. Nor have I written a full review since it opened a year plus a few days ago. I am in the mood for Danny Millan's kind of food and service. The Marys are not available. I just go alone.
The last time I at at Cava, it was with my friendly dermatologist Dr. Bob. He had a few rarities from the big Australian winemaker Penfolds that he wanted to share with other friends. The time before that, I was also here with Dr. Bob and his girlfriend Julie, to hear them announce that they were engaged to be married.
I didn't tell anyone I was coming to Cava tonight. In fact, I didn't know myself until I was ninety percent of the way there. I sat down at the table most people would consider the worst table in the house, the one closest to the bar and the front door, and almost under the stairs to the second floor.
Danny, who openly admits that he is not a cook, is cooking tonight for a television show he is involved with. (Of course, you don't need to cook good food if it's just for television.) So he is not in his usual managerial suit. But he does come over to give me a hug. (Danny is from Mexico City, and hugs everybody.) He tells me that I would be out of my mind if I didn't get the pork osso buco. I have my eyes on the pompano en papillote--a nearly extinct dish, now that Antoine's has let it slip off its menu. Then he returns to his project while letting the real chefs tend to a nearly full house.
The service staff at Cava has come a long way since its early days when, despite Danny's great expertise as a dining room boss, most of the servers were less than well acquainted with the ins and outs of a gourmet establishment. The young guy taking care of my table confirms that there is nothing better than the pork shank. It wasn't what I had in mind, but I went ahead and got it anyway.
But first courses first. Here's a black bean soup, with flecks of what look like semi-charred pork belly. I had a big bowl of it, even after asking for a cup. That is the cup, I am told. If it had been a bowl, I also would have finished it with gusto. This is, no doubt, Danny's family recipe. Who makes better black beans than Latinos?
[caption id="attachment_47354" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pork osso buco at Cava.[/caption]
After a suitable pause, the osso buco steers my way, in the shape of a Civil War Confederate ironclad. The brown gravy, laden with carrots and other vegetables, forms a sea, in which one can easily imagine the shank actually floating. I send the fork into the center. The meat falls away, into the gravy. I lift it to my lips. And yes. This is as Danny said it would be. Absurdly tender, the flavors flooding outward, abetted by the fat and gelatin in the sauce. Best one of these I could remember.
When I go in for a second or third or fourth chunk, however, there stand Dr. Bob and Julie, a bottle of Bordeaux in hand. "Sit with me!" I say. "I'm lonely!" It's a small table, and I should have insisted that either we move to a bigger one, or let me wallow solo here. But they stay.
What again, I ask you, were the chances? I don't dine here that often. Dr. Bob and Julie are more regul
ar than I am, but that doesn't lessen the improbability.
We have a fine evening. Bob gets the pompano, which is decidedly a new-age approach. In place of the gloppy (if delicious) sauce that Antoine's made famous in its version en papillote, here is a light sauce, made mostly of crisp vegetables, that steams the fish but doesn't allow the flavors to get carried away or cloaked. There's another fish dish on the table. I give them a taste of the pork, the portion of which is enough to feed my whole family and one of our dogs.
Even though Bob's wine is a second label of a major Bordeaux chateau, and even though I wrote it down, I lose the scrap of paper and don't remember what the wine was. That's probably because it didn't present a strange coincidence.
[caption id="attachment_47353" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Chocolate cake at Cava.[/caption]
It's raining again on my way home. I wonder if I should listen to an audio book about the most heinous aspects of World War II while my delicate nerves are already buzzing in reaction to the rain.
[title type="h5"]Cava. Lakeview: 789 Harrison Ave. 504-304-9034. [/title]
(The Friday, April 17 Dining Diary ran last Friday in error. If you missed it, it can be found here. The Dining Diary has not missed a day in eight years.) [divider type=""]
[title type="h5"]Saturday, April 18, 2015.
Reservation For A Change For Gallagher's Grill.[/title]
Mary Ann is upset that my Saturday radio show--which she is co-hosting with me for the past couple of months--will not be on this week. Sports programs, of course. This is the time of year when I get bumped off the schedule a lot. She is very upset by this, as she continues to battle to pick up her radio career where she left off twenty-seven years ago.
Among the most difficult North Shore tables to book are those at Gallagher's Grill. Chef-owner Pat Gallagher has a reputation for excellent, lusty cooking going back decades--since his first restaurant, the Winner's Circle. The present restaurant is the best place to go when one feels like breaking a diet completely. Steaks, butter, lamb, cream sauces, fried platters, oysters baked under rich toppings, and a great deal of sizzling. . . once in awhile, for the health of the soul, one must eat like this.
[caption id="attachment_47357" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Oysters en brochertte at Gallagher's Grill.[/caption]
We begin with five colossal oysters en brochette, with the Arnaud's-style, thick, medium-brown meuniere sauce.
Mary Ann has a bowl of chilled crabmeat and shrimp in ravigote sauce. Really, there is enough for three people. But Mary Leigh doesn't eat seafood, so we had to eat it all ourselves.
Pat can swing a steak like nobody else, and he buys the good, prime, well-marbled strip sirloins. It's always on my mind when I come here. But today he walks out with a half-dozen lamb chops, which are impossible to resist. I didn't ask, but Pat sends out these chops in not only their sizzling butter and crusty char, but also with a quail. He says that he just got a bunch of the birds in that morning, and that he can't remember quail of that large size. I have touted that lamb-chops-and-quail combo here for years, but my appetite isn't what it once was. But a friend can always circumvent a personal restriction.
[caption id="attachment_47355" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Tableful of food at Gallagher's Grill. Lamb and quail in center. Bone-in ribeye upper right. Brussels sprouts and wedge salad upper left.[/caption]
As hearty as I am eating, Mary Ann has me beat. She is the queen of bone-in ribeye steaks, and Pat Gallagher is one of her knights. Lucky for her, she has Mary Leigh to split it with. On the other hand, ML has a big wedge salad to keep her eating under control and her lissome figure in safety.
There are no first-class national steakhouse chains on the North Shore. For that we can thank Pat Gallagher and his equally-deft competitor Keith Young. Both are well into the upper half of any ten-best steakhouse list in the New Orleans area.
[title type="h5"]Gallagher's Grill. Covington: 509 S Tyler. 985-892-9992[/title].
