Monday, April 3, 2017.
A Tradition Forgotten.
April Fool's Day has a one in twenty-nine chance of falling on a weekend. That, and the fact that for most of my writing life I have had no deadlines on weekends, means that once every four years or so I don't publish my April 1 restaurant review.
I began publishing that special edition back in 1973, when I was working for the weekly local newspaper Figaro. We filled a page with a bunch of completely fake and, it is hoped, hilarious stories. There are still people out there who, twenty or thirty years later, still believe that one of my frauds were for real.
But this year I clean forgot about the 2017 April Fool restaurant. I didn't even think about it until setting fingers to keyboard for today's diary. I usually run a few days behind in keeping that up, and by the time it came to me that I missed April 1, it is too late to double back and play the game.
I am deeply concerned about this. As my brain descends into its dotage, I must keep at least a little mischief going. And this year, I beg off by pointing out that April 1 fell on a Saturday. I'll start working on next year's now.
Lunch today at DiMartino's in Covington. I am in the mood for oysters today. Although DiMartino's is best known as a muffuletta and Italian food specialist, they do have some seafood on the menu.
The oysters come as a platter, a poor boy, and a small poor boy. All three carry the same market price, which today was $19.95. A bit high for an oyster loaf, but I want what I want.
The big sandwich was very good, using good-size oysters in a count that could have gone higher--but there's no need for me to eat more than I was planning on just to keep the price in a mental balance.
And this was a near-perfect sandwich. I like these things on toasted French bread spread with enough butter that it looks like garlic bread. Then come the oysters, which are too hot to eat immediately, golden on color and crispy in textre. I would have liked some pickle slices and Tabasco, but the service staff at DiMartino's is never quite up to my speed, and watching the beautiful fried oysters cool off was anathema.
And so I enjoy the simplest possible oyster loaf. And because of that simplicity, it is also one of the best. No tartar sauce, no lettuce or tomatoes. Just fried oysters and toasty, buttery bread. Yum.
Rehearsal tonight for NPAS's Motown show planned for June. All the musical seletions so far came from the peak years of Motown, when I was in the my peak years of radio listening. I know it too well. Our conductors tell us to push out of our minds such memories. The only thing that comes from singing the same way the record plays the music is that you get good at imitation. Which is not good in any art form.
In the food universe, the best advice along these lines came from Dale "Del Frisco" Wamstad. Back in the days when he operated a minimal neighborhood steak shack on the West Bank--long before he built Del Frisco's Silver Eagle Steakhouse near Dallas and sold its one location for over $20 million--he said, "I avoid hiring chefs with a lot of experience. I have to make them un-learn everything they know, and re-learn everything the way I want it."
I have no doubt that this is effective. It's certainly a tenet of most of the many-unit restaurant groups around the country. And I can't say I like the results.
DiMartino's. Covington: 700 S Tyler St. 985-276-6460.
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[caption id="attachment_52184" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Italian wedding soup at Marcello's[/caption]
Tuesday, April 4, 2017.
Marcello's. Meatballs Two Ways. Beet That.
The Marys are celebrating. Daughter Mary Leigh, having worked long hours on her employer's most recent project, got a promotion, a raise, and the promise of further projects in which she may exercise design skills. She is more thrilled by that more than she is about the monetary raise. And she's only been there a few months.
The three restaurants under consideration for our celebratory dinner are wildly different: Ruth's Chris, Mariza, and Marcello's. I meet the Marys at Mariza, where I have not been in awhile. A visit there would give me something to write about. But they decide to go to the steak house, until we actually get there, when we shift to Marcello's.
I am the last to arrive, routing myself along St. Claude Avenue, McShane Place (one of the least-known arterial streets in New Orleans. Do you know where it is?), and North Rampart Street. This defines the new streetcar line from Canal Street to Elysian Fields. The streetcars themselves seem to beckon people whose main goal is to ride the streetcar. On the other hand, I have a few friends along the line. Let's see if it will revive the route that let down Restaurant Jonathan thirty years ago.
As I knew they would, the girls are seated at a sidewalk table. The weather is beautiful and the temperature comfortable. When I arrive, my proud beauties are working on a trio of meatballs with red sauce. They love Marcello's, especially this kind of eating. The second course brings out another batch of meatballs and marinara, this time atop spaghetti. Happiness all around, save for the difficulty we all have in getting Marcello's excellent focaccia bread brought to our table. We ask the runner for this at least five times, befor the waiter moves in and makes it happen.
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Meatballs and rustic sauce at Marcello's.[/caption]
Second course for me is yesterday's soup (har de har har), a fine example of Sicilian wedding soup. Chicken stock with herbs, three meatballs about half the size as the ones that came with the spaghetti, and a very enjoyable flavor overrall. I follow that with a beet salad in which the multi-color beet slices intersperse themselves with cubes of braised pork belly. The beets beat the bellies. Nothing new there. With a few exceptions, I have found pork bellies among the most boring hot eating trend in decades. The restaurant that was ahead of the game is Herbsaint, a door away from Marcello's. Both restaurants are close to being filled--tables, bar, and sidewalk. I sure wish I still lived on Camp Street, as I did in the 1970s. I can see the back of my old slave-quarter apartment from Marcello's. Two blocks away from the radio studio. Lots of great restaurants.
Marcello's. CBD: 715 St. Charles Ave. 504-581-6333.
