Tuesday, July 5, 2016.
Honduran Eats. Eat Club Crush. Rebirth Revisited.
Back to work, though like everybody else my circadian rhythms are off. Feels like Monday. But not only was all the Monday work left alone undone to allow for goofing off on the Fourth of July, but I have more than the usual amount of Tuesday work. Three commercials to write and record. Two website pages to build to announce two Eat Club dinners coming up soon.
After many months of holding Eat Club dinners on a now-and-then basis, we have a flurry of events. We will have four in thirty days, like in the Club's glory days when we had one every week, and sometimes more than one a week. Among them is the first Greek Eat Club dinner, not counting to one we held at the Greek Islands in Chicago a bunch of years ago. (We went to and from Chicago on the train.)
I'm glad all that work forced me to go into town, because otherwise I wouldn't have met Melissa Araujia, the chef and owners of a Honduran pop-up restaurant. She's a native of that Central American country, with a clear idea of what might be done within its culinary boundaries. We talked on the air for a half-hour about the possibilities. She says that it's her ultimate plan to open a permanent location, but for the moment she's using the space recently vacated by Purloo, next to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.
I don't mean to say I told you so, and in deference to the talents of Purloo's chef and proprietor Chef Ryan Hughes, I never got a positive hum from Purloo. Southern food is very different from southern Louisiana food--too different. Only occasionally has it grabbed the hungers of the city, but never for long. I also think that a restaurant at that price level is too far ahead of its time.
And, frankly, I never thought the food there was very good. Maybe in the new location Ryan plans to open will mesh more deliciously with a menu that addresses the palates of our town.
He ought to change the name, too.
When I call Mary Ann at the end of the radio show, she tells me that she is hanging out with Maria DeLaune, who until recently operated Redemption, the post-Katrina Christian's. After struggling with it for a few years, the DeLaunes sold the place to the owners of a number of very casual restaurants . So the old (over 100 years) church goes down with a whimper. (They may already be open, but who goes to brand-new restaurants?)
Mary Ann and Maria DeLaune have become good friends in recent years. They will join MA and me for dinner at the American Sector, the restaurant in the World War II Museum. We find it closed. Next, we check out Sac-A-Lait Same story.
[caption id="attachment_52105" align="alignleft" width="320"]
Rebirth's chef Ricky Cheramie.[/caption]We shift toward using our brains and telephonel the next few places before we go there. The next two are also closed, but MA finds that not only is Rebirth on Fulton Street open, but it has tables available. (It usually doesn't.)
The second face I see past that of the headwaiter is that of Chris Claus, the market manager of all our six radio stations. Chris is a gourmet, and when we encounter one another in the hallways of the WWL facility, we share our best recent restaurant storiesd. Rebirth was my recommendation to him a couple of weeks ago, and Chris seems to have taken a shine to it. I am happy about that: it can't hurt to deliver a hot tip to the big boss. Tonight he is with Everett Bonner, a longtime major player in the New Orleans advertising world. Their wives are also there. Every time I look over at that table, I see smiling faces.
Wew're having a nice evening at our table, which is distinguished in having a powerful air conditioning vent blowing right on top of our table. I might object to that, but the town is so hot these days that the cool blast is welcome.
[caption id="attachment_52111" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pork belly from Rebirth.[/caption]
MA and Maria are thrilled by the menu tonight, but they eat sparingly--except in one particular. Rebirth offers as a special tonight a gigantic pork belly, the size of a middling-large filet mignons. I am no fan of braised pork belly--the most common way this uncured, unsmoked bacon is usually cooked. This is cooked more like the steak it resembles. It's encrusted with delicious brown edges, and the sauce is a little on the sweet side. If this has been what I'd been served in the past, I'm sure I'd be a fan of pork belly, too.
For an appetizer we split a boat of pasta with a buttery, mildly peppery sauce, topped with fried oysters. Very good.
[caption id="attachment_52110" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Oysters and pasta bordelaise (sort of).[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_52109" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Seafood al ajillo, with pompano, oysters, shrimp, etc.--and lots of garlic.[/caption]
The waiter is wild about what I would have as my entree. It's a cross between bouillabaisse and seafood bordelaise (the New Orleans style, with garlic and butter dominating the flavors. I have a filet of pompano, oysters, shrimp, and crab claws, all awash in nearly-sizzling garlic butter. Simple, but how could such a thing be less than lusty. In addition to all the seafood, I mopped up the surplus sauce with French bread. Marvelous.
[caption id="attachment_52106" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Bread pudding at Rebirth.[/caption]
I love this place. Best new white-tablecloth restaurant of the year so far. Its menu is reminiscent of the dominant style of restaurant back in the 1990s, whose food I would be very thankful to find more commonly than we do.
Mary Ann and Maria are kindred spirits. If MA found a few more sharp-minded, forceful, energetic women like Maria, she might decide that she'd like to spend less time in Los Angeles than she is planning to do. But it's not for me to say, of course. And I'm happy she has this new cadre of friends.
Restaurant Rebirth. Warehouse District City: 857 Fulton St. 504-522-6863.
Rebirth's chef Ricky Cheramie.[/caption]We shift toward using our brains and telephonel the next few places before we go there. The next two are also closed, but MA finds that not only is Rebirth on Fulton Street open, but it has tables available. (It usually doesn't.)
The second face I see past that of the headwaiter is that of Chris Claus, the market manager of all our six radio stations. Chris is a gourmet, and when we encounter one another in the hallways of the WWL facility, we share our best recent restaurant storiesd. Rebirth was my recommendation to him a couple of weeks ago, and Chris seems to have taken a shine to it. I am happy about that: it can't hurt to deliver a hot tip to the big boss. Tonight he is with Everett Bonner, a longtime major player in the New Orleans advertising world. Their wives are also there. Every time I look over at that table, I see smiling faces.
Wew're having a nice evening at our table, which is distinguished in having a powerful air conditioning vent blowing right on top of our table. I might object to that, but the town is so hot these days that the cool blast is welcome.
[caption id="attachment_52111" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pork belly from Rebirth.[/caption]
MA and Maria are thrilled by the menu tonight, but they eat sparingly--except in one particular. Rebirth offers as a special tonight a gigantic pork belly, the size of a middling-large filet mignons. I am no fan of braised pork belly--the most common way this uncured, unsmoked bacon is usually cooked. This is cooked more like the steak it resembles. It's encrusted with delicious brown edges, and the sauce is a little on the sweet side. If this has been what I'd been served in the past, I'm sure I'd be a fan of pork belly, too.
For an appetizer we split a boat of pasta with a buttery, mildly peppery sauce, topped with fried oysters. Very good.
[caption id="attachment_52110" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Oysters and pasta bordelaise (sort of).[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_52109" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Seafood al ajillo, with pompano, oysters, shrimp, etc.--and lots of garlic.[/caption]
The waiter is wild about what I would have as my entree. It's a cross between bouillabaisse and seafood bordelaise (the New Orleans style, with garlic and butter dominating the flavors. I have a filet of pompano, oysters, shrimp, and crab claws, all awash in nearly-sizzling garlic butter. Simple, but how could such a thing be less than lusty. In addition to all the seafood, I mopped up the surplus sauce with French bread. Marvelous.
[caption id="attachment_52106" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Bread pudding at Rebirth.[/caption]
I love this place. Best new white-tablecloth restaurant of the year so far. Its menu is reminiscent of the dominant style of restaurant back in the 1990s, whose food I would be very thankful to find more commonly than we do.
Mary Ann and Maria are kindred spirits. If MA found a few more sharp-minded, forceful, energetic women like Maria, she might decide that she'd like to spend less time in Los Angeles than she is planning to do. But it's not for me to say, of course. And I'm happy she has this new cadre of friends.
