[title type="h5"]Thursday, April 30, 2015.
Chilly night. Also At BoulignyTavern.[/title]
I awaken at around two-thirty in the morning to find that the bedroom is actually cold. The clearing of the skies today is accomplished by a large polar air mass that just pulled into New Orleans. I pull out my blanket and turn on the heater. Mary Ann will probably joke later that I am like an old lady in my need for a warm bedroom.
Mary Ann calls after the radio show to say that she'd like to have dinner at Bouligny Tavern. That's the hip bar next door to and owned by Lilette. We had dinner at Lilette a few weeks ago, and she took a look inside the Tavern and liked what she saw. Especially outdoor seating, which MA prefers above all other indices of restaurant appeal.
I get there well before she does. She blundered into the deep, wide, and extraordinarily inconvenient digging of a new drainage system Uptown. If you happen to blunder into the works (and I have made this error myself more than once), you will almost certainly be forced to drive far afield of your destination. People who live uptown know how to get around the digs, but for us Abita Springs yokels it's like a troll under a bridge.
While I wait, I order a cocktail called the Great Northern. Probably no connection with the railroad that once went by that name, but it puts me in mind of a happy prospect. This summer, I will take an extended train journey that spans the original Great Northern route. Haven't been on that train before. I hear it's the best train in America.
But back to the drink. It's a cousin of the Negroni, made with gin, two flavored liqueurs and two species of citrus. It comes out with large cubes of ice in a rocks glass, and a muddy look. That doesn't affect the flavors, though, and I find it enjoyable.
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Fries at Bouligny Tavern[/caption]
When the waiter delivers that, I ask for an order of fries. We liked them when we were here for dinner, and I know MA will get them. May as well get started: they're fresh-cut, and served in a very generous bowl.
MA enters, passing around a party of six young adults, all of them stylishly dressed for a night on the town. Some of these look like they could be models. But this may be because all young professionals--including both of our kids--look the same to me.
The young man who brought me the drink and the fries yields our table to a young woman wearing what Mary Ann later tells me is "cat-eye makeup." But by that time we have shot through a rapids in the hospitality dimension. Now, the waitress asks MA whether she'd like a drink. To which she gets MA's standard answer: "Can I just have an iced tea with extra lemon?"
"We don't have iced tea," she says, and lets her answer just sit there.
"Do you just have to brew it?" MA says. "If so, I'll wait."
"No. We don't have iced tea. Not ever. This is a bar."
That's a little harsh, I think. But then I see that MA and the waitress are locked in a charged staring contest, in which neither would move in any conciliatory way. MA's strategy is always to hold her ground.
"How about some San Pellegrino water, then," she says.
"We don't have San Pellegrino," says the waitress. "We have Mountain Valley." So to the exchange another cup of gasoline is added. Mary Ann has been complaining that San Pellegrino--her favorite spring water, from Italy--is being replaced by Mountain Valley from Arkansas in restaurants all over town. The women's eyes lock again. "Just plain water, then," MA says, between her teeth. "Do you have that here in your bar?" The waitress marches off.
Almost in unison, we say to one another, "What in the world was that all about?"
Mary Ann goes on. "If that had kept up, it would be moving in the direction of the floor and pulling hair! She may as well have said, 'Excuse me, but did the bus from the nursing home drop you two off here by mistake?'"
"Do you want to leave?" I ask.
"Maybe so," she says, and starts munching on the fries. "But I tell you what, you'd better not put a twenty percent tip on this check!"
And I am already thinking how low I will go. It's so long since I last gave a tip below fifteen percent that I can't remember when. (But then, I am very, very old.) The only thing that motivates such a thought is being insulted, as we have been here.
The waitress returns and is surprised to hear that we are staying and eating. I put in an order of four dishes, after I ask what's good. She quickly says that I want the burger. Okay, I say. The two women hardly look at one another.
A long time goes by. We fill it by eating the fries. They are, miraculously, still good and plenty. The drink is finished, and I would have ordered a wine, but the list has been removed from the table, so I let it slide. We don't want to stay here a lot longer, anyway.
The waitress with the cat-eyes returns with the first half of the food, as I requested. She seems to be much warmer than she was in the original encounter. Is it that waitress's twin? I wonder. No, MA says. "Somebody tipped her off about you." That's likely. I didn't see anyone I knew inside the very handsome bar or outside. I am usually spotted by waiters, who move around a lot and have many opportunities for remembering my face.
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Bruschetta with Italian sausage.[/caption]
The menu is interesting, with foodstuffs like burrata, grilled baby octopus, Scotch eggs, gnudi, and the raw fish of the day). MA doesn't go for such things. We get a Greek salad, beef short ribs, Italian sausage bruschetta, and the burger. The best food here is the bruschetta, one with teh sausage and another bearing the cheese.
[caption id="attachment_47503" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Short ribs when they are overcooked.[/caption]
Short ribs--something that MA loves--are way overcooked, to the point of inedibility. Not even the chimichurri sauce--a great touch--helps it from being a total failure. The burger is utterly ordinary. I think about complaining, but know in my heart that what we want to do is get out of here as soon as we can, and leave it to the Millennials. Which is, I'm sure, what the waitress and perhaps the management would like from us, too. But I have a hard time believing that the people who operate Lilette also have this.
I tip just a shade under fifteen percent, so the check is a round eighty bucks.
It's a good thing we are in two cars, or else I would have listened to MA's analysis of this massacree all the way home. As it is, as I struggle to extricate myself from the drainage project (because I wander into it too), I thought of one good reason why Bouligny Tavern should have iced tea. It's the drink for my designated driver. Hah!
[title type="h5"]Bouligny Tavern. Uptown: 3641 Magazine St. 504-891-1810. [/title]
