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Sunday, July 5, 2015.
Chimes In The Heat.[/title]
[dropcap1]M[/dropcap1]ary Ann insists on having our one meal of the day at The Chimes. She notes that I have not been forced to go there in a long time. The fact that the place has a twenty-minute wait for an outdoor table (forty-five minutes for the air-conditioned indoors) does not deter her. We get a table in an isolated spot where not even the ceiling fans are moving the air around. The waiter--who knows us from his N'Tini's days--is very cooperative about easing our misery, and manages to get the fans going.
One of our reasons for being here is a rumor that The Chimes has gone over to fresh-cut French fries. Mary Ann cannot resist the call of those. And, frankly, neither can I. But we are disappointed. The fries that emerge are better than the really bad ones they had before, but don't have the magic of hand-cut fresh-potato fries. Our helpful waiter says that he's noticed more than one change in the fries lately. But neither he nor anyone else here will tell us whether these are fresh. They seem to be batter-coated fries, which add crispness. So it's a step up--although not alluring enough to make me look forwarded to my next visit.
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Eggs Pontchartrain.[/caption]
I will give The Chimes credit for two areas they handle consistently well. The oyster bar, whether it's shucking them raw or grilling them, handles the bivalves well. And the Sunday brunch menu is surprisingly good. Poached eggs tower like yellow golf balls (coincidence: golf is on several of the seemingly hundreds of video screens in the place) and covered with very well made hollandaise. Today I get the Pontchartrain eggs, with a puck of hot sausage and grilled ham.
Mary Ann has a salad. She could get a salad anywhere. Why does it have to be out here in the jungle steam heat? Even the goats that wander around in the flood plain below seem to have moved to cooler grounds.
[title type="h5"]The Chimes. Covington: 19130 W Front St. 985-892-5396. [/title]
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[title type="h5"]
Monday, July 6, 2015.
Pardo's.[/title]
[dropcap1]T[/dropcap1]ransmitting the radio show from home offers lunch opportunities that I don't take often enough. Mary Ann suggests that we do lunch today. We show up at the five-star Pardo's. Although I've had dinner there often enough to feel very confident in its dining room, for some reason I have never had its lunch there. Mary Ann, on the other hand, is a regular.
So there we are. The server advises us as to what he's seen in the kitchen. He is high on the Cuban-style duck sandwich and the pork belly with mirliton slaw. What's the pizza du jour? It involves pork belly, sliced tomatoes, and a topping of Havarti cheese--not something I've seen on a pizza before. Two restaurants ago, this location made a big deal out of pizza, and had a wood-burning oven. Pardo's owner and tastemaker Osman Rodas has said since opening day that he didn't want pizza to become a signature dish here, because the oven isn't big enough to handle large numbers of pie. But lunch is a different story.
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Osman Rodas at Pardo's.[/caption]The pizza is everything I expect from a wood-burning oven. Crisp, lightly charred crust. The diced pork belly is restrained and makes the pizza juicy in a meaty way. The sauce is not the standard tomato concoction but something a lot like barbecue sauce, including the sweetness. I can't say I'm in love with that idea, but otherwise it's enjoyable. We each eat two slices, preceded by salads. Interesting: they don't have a side salad here. But the regular salads are not so large that they can't be finished.
Osman joins us for awhile. We get into the matter of menu statements. That's what you get in restaurants that are more concerned with selling you on an intriguing food idea than they are about how good the food will taste. I've beat that drum for decades. I think Osman agrees with me.
[dropcap1]O[/dropcap1]n my way back home, I listen to an episode of the radio drama "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar." It was one of the last dramatic programs from the Golden Age Of Radio, and ended on CBS in 1962, along with "Gunsmoke" and "Suspense." I love all that stuff and have thousands of hours of old radio shows from that era. Listening to this one makes it clear to me why radio drama died. This episode of "The man with the action-packed expense account, America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator" is so lame that the writers must have known that their show would soon be dead.
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Pardo's. Covington: 69305 Hwy 21. 985-893-3603. [/title]
