[title type="h2"]Friday, May 23, 2014.
Angela's Hour. Good Turn At Antoine's.
[/title]
My second appearance as a regular guest on Angela Hill's new radio show goes much better than the first one, two weeks ago. It starts out on the theme of the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience, but we quickly move on to general food matters. We get a lot of callers. Many of them have no idea who I am or what I do.
When that ends at four, I adjourn to my private office for a nap on the hard-carpeted floor. One of these days I'll have to pick up that futon I bought in February. I'll bet the day I do that, I'll be told that I must move out of that office to a place where conking out on the floor for twenty minutes will be frowned upon.
Because Jude he and his fiancee had their first New Orleans date at Antoine's, they are thinking of having their wedding reception there. He asked me to look into it. I call Wendy Chatelaine, Antoine's sales and p.r. manager, hoping we can meet up early tonight. I couldn't connect, but I went over there anyway.
She isn't there, but my waiter Charles Carter is, and he assembles a meal for me, starting with a big plate--enough for two, really--of shrimp remoulade and crabmeat ravigote. Crawfish bisque next, a little heavy on the roux, which in turn is little heavy on the oil. But that's Antoine's all over, and that's what I am here for.
A couple sits down at the table next to mine. The gentleman tells the waiter that he and his wife are in town from San Antonio, celebrating his sixtieth birthday. I don't hear another thing they say (I wasn't trying), but now I know that he and I have something in common. I also celebrated my sixtieth at Antoine's, three years ago.
I call Charles over and ask to have a baked Alaska made up for these people, with a "Happy 60 Years" written with a whipped-cream pen on the side. And put that on my bill, please.
I go back to eating--a big fillet of pompano, with brown butter and a side of creamed spinach. And some little French Chardonnay. Charles sends a meringue glacee--all the ingredients of a baked Alaska, put together a different way. Coffee. All the while, I am enjoying the anticipation of the denouement.
[caption id="attachment_32180" align="alignnone" width="350"]
Baked Alaska.[/caption]
And now, here are the magnificent baked Alaska, three waiters singing, and two people taken aback that a perfect stranger--one who said not a word to them all night long at the next table--would do something like that.
It felt so good that I'm going to do it again, as often as I can.
[title type="h5"]Antoine's. French Quarter: 713 St Louis. 504-581-4422. [/title]
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[title type="h5"]
Saturday, May 24, 2014.
The Restaurant Renaissance. Late Show. Le Foret.[/title]
Last day of the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience. As I have for the last decade and a half, I moderate a NOW&FE seminar. The seminars are panel discussions, four-course lunches, and four-wine tastings, all in one.
As usual, the theme came from upstairs, with the right of disapproval allowed me. I haven't had to shoot one down yet. Most of them were the brainchildren of the late Ann Gooch, who always took a tremendous interest in my seminar. Her husband David told me that on her deathbed, she asked whether things were under control for it.
This year's theme this year takes note of a recent spate of rebirths of old French Quarter restaurants. Tujague's almost died when its longtime owner did, but his son not only saved it but improved it enormously. Broussard's has new owners for the first time in thirty-one years, along with a new staff and menu. Marti's reopened in 2013 after a gap of over twenty years. The odd man was a woman: Susan Spicer, who opened her Bayona restaurant twenty-four years ago in a space where two major white-tablecloth restaurants had been before.
[caption id="attachment_42463" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Sea scallop appetizer, from Broussard's at the NOW&FE Seminar.[/caption]
This seminar had a lot of range. Some of the owners of these restaurants are here with their chefs, adding their versions of their restaurants' histories. Broussard's Chris Ycaza and Tujague's Mark Latter are particularly knowledgeable. We shifted easily to the dishes the chefs cooked, and how they represent what's going on culinarily.
[caption id="attachment_42464" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Gnocchi with crabmeat and mushrooms.[/caption]
I like two dishes in particular. Tujague's superb new signature appetizer--gnocchi with crabmeat and a little bacon--is a fine example of how the old restaurant is renewing its spirit. Susan Spicer tosses a salad featuring one of her favorite ingredients: little birds (quail, today). The food is better than that of any previous Tom seminar in memory.
It ends at a quarter to one, and most people wait around for the Grand Tasting to begin. I can't. I walk back to the radio station, take a short nap, then write about two thousand words' worth of Dining Diary, until it's time for me to host my Saturday radio show on WWL. It's running late today, account of baseball games. I'm there from three until six.
But the day is hardly over. Another restaurant Jude is considering for his wedding reception is Le Foret. The location, venue, and food are all just right, even after Jude learns that the Jesuit church on Baronne Street, two blocks from Le Foret, is completely booked for weddings on the day he wants. (Which, by the way, is 12/13/14. That's my whimsical boy!)
Mary Ann and I converge on Le Foret at six-thirty. It's the first time we are here without the mitigation of former manager Danny Millan, who left to open his new Cava restaurant in Lakeview. We meet the new manager, Ryan O'Dwyer. Who's your father? I ask, having a feeling I know the answer. Yes, it's Ashton O'Dwyer, who I remember very well from my time at Jesuit High School. Ryan says he is coming in for dinner tonight. Would he mind if I told him hello? I ask. I'm sure that he'd welcome you, says Brian.
Mary Ann and I sit down for dinner at a table in a window. We talk with Margaret, the owner of the restaurant, and we broach the reception topic. This evolves into a long dialog about children and how they should be raised, especially in light of what they do when they're in their twenties.
[caption id="attachment_42466" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Le Foret's oysters.[/caption]
The first food is a demitasse of well-spiced potato soup that MA likes so much I arrange to have a bigger cup of it brought out for her. I have oysters en brochette for the next preliminary course. The size and number of the bivalves make it enough for two people. When a salad with some chunks of lightly-seared tuna appears, I don't share--MA doesn't do nearly-raw fish.
[caption id="attachment_42467" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Le Foret's gnocchi.[/caption]
Now a soupy appetizer of crawfish, corn, and gnocchi. It is the third time I've had this dish, and while I love the sauce and most of the ingredients, the gnocchi are too big, too heavy, too chewy, and in general they add less than nothing to the dish. It's the only failure I've encountered here, ever.
[caption id="attachment_42469" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Higgins' crabmeat and tomatoes.[/caption]
Mary Ann doesn't get an entree, filling that place in the dinner with a tossing of little ripe tomatoes and big, beautiful crabmeat lumps from Mr. Higgins, down on the bayou. Ryan O'Dwyer has inherited the job of driving down to Lafitte to buy this magnificent local blue crabmeat, soft-shell crabs and oysters.
I am in a steak frame of mind, and ask for the filet mignon. The resulting plate is not immediately recognizable as a steak, what with the pale green and dark orange sauces, the green beans underneath, the two logs of butter-fried potatoes and the scattering of herbs. This is the hallmark of Chef Brandon Felder's style.
[caption id="attachment_42470" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Sous-vide filet mignon.[/caption]
But the unconventional presentation goes deeper. The rare-mid-rare filet is soft and juicy in the eating, with the thinnest possible skin of sear. The steak is cut in half, revealing this light exterior. It reminds me of a ribeye I had decades ago at the old Maison Pierre, where the house style was to grill steaks on one side only, leaving a face of red meat looking up at you. The juicy softness here also resembles that of a deftly-roasted prime rib.
And then I knew what was going on. Sous-vide. That's the technique in which a foodstuff--usually a big protein--is wrapped in a plastic vacuum pouch, then cooked in hot water at an exact temperature. If I remember right, Chef Brandon said it was 140 degrees. The steaks are cooked for quite awhile at that temperature--much longer than the same steak would require in a broiler or under a grill. The finishing touch is a quick, conventional sear.
I first encountered sous-vide at a New York food writers conference in the early 1980s. I heard then that it would soon take over in kitchens everywhere. I am still hearing that, although lately--unlike back then--I'm actually seeing the process used in a few restaurants.
Tonight's iteration was the eighth or ninth sous-vide steak I've run into in the current era. That's enough for me to say I've given it a fair look. And I say I don't like it. While some aspects of sous-vide are interesting--particularly as regards texture and a couple of health issues (charred beef is not all that good for you)--the flavor it delivers is nowhere near that of a a steak or chop seared a very hot grill or under a Montague broiler. I like that crisp exterior and its various tastes of smokiness.
But there's no way this filet and its garnishes could be called less than excellent. And maybe my misgivings are just the taste preferences of a sexagenarian whom trends have left behind. But give me my slab o' beef Pittsburgh style.
Dinner done, we go upstairs with Ryan O'Dwyer to see Le Foret's private rooms. I've seen them, and even had a few Eat Club events up there. But we're looking at it through the lens of Jude's wedding reception needs. Brian suggests that we could have the food on the second floor, the band (I hear that we are after the Yat Pack) on the rooftop patio, and the drinks in between. That would work.
Back downstairs, Ryan introduces me to his father, Ashton O'Dwyer. He is dining with friends next to Le Foret's wine room--the best table in the house. His son introduces me. He knows who I am, but he is surprised that I remember him.
Ashton always had a high profile. He first caught my attention as the lieutenant colonel--second in command--of the whole Blue Jay Marine Corps, in which I and all other students were compulsory members. I told him about the day when I was dismissed from the Jesuit drill team for having two left feet and not knowing which was my right side without having to stop and think about it. Ashton happened to be standing around at the time, and muttered something about the poor quality of the new crop of drill team recruits. It didn't hurt my feelings--I knew in my heart that I didn't have what it takes. But I do vividly remember the moment, the way I remember almost everything during my tenure as a Blue Jay.
Ashton and I had an entertaining conversation about Jesuit over glasses of his wine. He apologized for his long-ago comment. I said no pardon was necessary. We didn't get into any other issues, other than that we share a liking for Le Foret.
[title type="h5"]
Le Foret. CBD: 129 Camp. 504-553-6738. [/title]
