Wednesday, July 6, 2016.
The Eat Club's First Greek Dinner*
I learn today a) that Mary Leigh is coming over this Sunday for a few days, to work on her wedding, and 2) how much it costs to fill a big church with flowers for a wedding. MA tells me it's a great bargain. I nudge my neanderthal ideas about such details out of the way of the Marys, who are unstoppable in their quests to have everything just right.
The Eat Club convenes at Acropolis Cuisine, the only fulltime Greek restaurant in New Orleans these days. It is one of those dinners at which many of the guests learn about an unusual ethnic cooking style for the first time. Events with that purpose are my favorite kind. The more one knows about food, wine, and all other targets of taste, the more one enjoys them.
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Moussaka at Acropolis Cuisine.[/caption]
My readers and listeners fill the dining room almost completely, to the chagrin of many regular customers who show up at the front door with dinner on their minds. Even though I made a beeline from our downtown radio studios to mid-Metairie, the restaurant's staff has already put the first course down on the tables when I arrive. I flop down at the table of Vic and Barb Giancola--the reigning king and queen of the Eat Club these days*. We have tsatziki, hummus, baba ghannouj, and pita bread, followed shortly by by spanikopita and tiropitakia (spinach pie and cheese pie, in the shape of but lighter than Hubig's pies).
Then come soups. The six-onion soup topped with puff pastries is the signature of Acropolis, but I like the avgolemono (egg and lemon soup, although it would be more accurate to call it a rice and chicken soup). Although some of what has come so far is Lebanese, this soup is as Greek as it could get.
Greek salad is next, with a caesar option. And then come four platters of big-time food. The first is the best: the flavorful and light moussaka, a layered casserole of ground lamb, cheese, bechamel, and herbs. I've never had it better anywhere in New Orleans*. Then we have broiled fillets of flounder. And leg of lamb cooked sort of in the style of osso buco, with a good brown gravy.
The last of the four entrees is eggplant a la Nikos, another casserole, made with a good deal of tomatoes and olive oil. Nobody told the story of the dish's other name--Imam Bayildi, so I may as well do so here. It means "the imam fainted." His newlywed wife cooked a magnificent dish that he loved so much that he asked for it seven consecutive nights. What made the cleric pass out was that the dish used up all of the big jars of olive oil that was in his wife's dowry.
We wrapped up with bread pudding and baklava. I had some Greek coffee--as powerful as espresso, but made in a different way. This would keep me alert on the Causeway all the way home.
It was as much a social evening as a gourmet class, and all were at least as happy as they were stuffed. And this was as filling a dinner as we've had in some time.
*We actually had another Greek Eat Club event when two dozen of us took the City of New Orleans train to Chicago. Vic and Barbara were on that trip, too.
Acropolis Cuisine. Metairie: 3841 Veterans Blvd. 504-888-9046.
Moussaka at Acropolis Cuisine.[/caption]
My readers and listeners fill the dining room almost completely, to the chagrin of many regular customers who show up at the front door with dinner on their minds. Even though I made a beeline from our downtown radio studios to mid-Metairie, the restaurant's staff has already put the first course down on the tables when I arrive. I flop down at the table of Vic and Barb Giancola--the reigning king and queen of the Eat Club these days*. We have tsatziki, hummus, baba ghannouj, and pita bread, followed shortly by by spanikopita and tiropitakia (spinach pie and cheese pie, in the shape of but lighter than Hubig's pies).
Then come soups. The six-onion soup topped with puff pastries is the signature of Acropolis, but I like the avgolemono (egg and lemon soup, although it would be more accurate to call it a rice and chicken soup). Although some of what has come so far is Lebanese, this soup is as Greek as it could get.
Greek salad is next, with a caesar option. And then come four platters of big-time food. The first is the best: the flavorful and light moussaka, a layered casserole of ground lamb, cheese, bechamel, and herbs. I've never had it better anywhere in New Orleans*. Then we have broiled fillets of flounder. And leg of lamb cooked sort of in the style of osso buco, with a good brown gravy.
The last of the four entrees is eggplant a la Nikos, another casserole, made with a good deal of tomatoes and olive oil. Nobody told the story of the dish's other name--Imam Bayildi, so I may as well do so here. It means "the imam fainted." His newlywed wife cooked a magnificent dish that he loved so much that he asked for it seven consecutive nights. What made the cleric pass out was that the dish used up all of the big jars of olive oil that was in his wife's dowry.
We wrapped up with bread pudding and baklava. I had some Greek coffee--as powerful as espresso, but made in a different way. This would keep me alert on the Causeway all the way home.
It was as much a social evening as a gourmet class, and all were at least as happy as they were stuffed. And this was as filling a dinner as we've had in some time.
*We actually had another Greek Eat Club event when two dozen of us took the City of New Orleans train to Chicago. Vic and Barbara were on that trip, too.
