Diary 7|9|2015: Marti's Off Track. Meauxbar.

[title type="h5"] Thursday, July 9, 2015. Meauxbar.[/title] A message arrived from the management of Marti's saying that the restaurant will close after dinner on Sunday, and will remain closed for the rest of the summer. They don't mention a reopening date, but they have a reasonable excuse: the construction of the new streetcar line on Rampart Street from Canal to Elysian Fields. Although access to Marti's is not impossible, all it takes is the spectre of not being able to make left turns and other potential traffic impediments to make customers avoid the whole area. If Gerard Crozier were still around, he could tell us how the building of a streetcar line destroys the trade of restaurants on the the line. Part of that damage will be the restoration of Marti's staff when the project ends. Where will all the waiters and cooks go in the meantime? To other restaurants, is where, because the restaurant industry in New Orleans right now is being squeezed tight by a lack of personnel. Will they come back to Marti's afterwards? One hopes so, but. . . will it be like a new restaurant again? Or will the streetcar bring a lot of new business? On the other hand, it's not uncommon for restaurants to take a long pause in the summer. It's almost universal in Europe to do so, or in cold places like Cape Cod. And still, my fingers are crossed for the return of Marti's, which I rather like. This development gave me an idea for dinner. At the other end of the same block of Rampart Street from Marti's is Meauxbar. A year or so ago, Meauxbar's owners sold the very French bistro to the outfit running Sainte Marie on Poydras Street. Sainte Marie was a pretty-good American-French-Creole bistro. Their motivation to move out of the CBD--whose streets are not exactly jammed with people in the evening, unless there's something going on at the Superdome or the Arena--paired well with the desire of Meauxbar's owners to get out of the business. The only curious wrinkle in the deal was the demand by the sellers that the buyers keep the name. Which, frankly, is not especially good. Meauxbar is a serious restaurant, not a bar. (It does have a small bar, of course, but the dining room tables are where the action is.) [caption id="attachment_48252" align="alignright" width="480"] Chandelier in the dining room at Meauxbar.[/caption]Meauxbar (and Marti's for that matter) get a lot of business when something's going on at the Mahalia Jackson Theater, right across the street. Not much in there this time of year, though. However, they did seem to enjoy some enhanced volume from Tales of the Cocktail, a week-long, mixed consumer-industry event. A table of eight people near my deuce gave off signals that made it clear that they were her for work-pleasure, and that they knew their way around the New Orleans dining and music scenes. This is exactly the clientele I suspect the new Meauxbar was looking for. A very pleasant, knowledgeable waitress took care of my comparatively deserted table. She asked if I had been there before. Yes, and no, I told her. I dined many times in the old Meauxbar. And just as many at Sainte Marie. But this was my first time since the merger. This seemed to make an impression on her. She said that she is one of only a few remaining staffers who moved here with Chef Kristen Essig when the swap happened. As well as a fair number of former Sainte-Marie customers. The new Meauxbar has only about half the menu as the old one did--a condition that I remember from Sainte Marie, which I always thought had too abbreviated a menu. But it seems to me there are twice as many small plates as entrees here now. I constructed a dinner entirely of these appetizers, resulting in the best meal I've had from either of the restaurant's antecedents. I begin with a cocktail whose name makes it hard for me to pass up. "Old Tom's New Trick" is another of the second and third cousins to the Negroni that bartenders love to make. It starts with a barrel-aged gin called Old Tom, and adds amontillado sherry, maraschino syrup*, and Aperol. Shake and strain into a Sazerac glass. Good! One of the reasons I order this is that I see excellent fries coming out of the kitchen. Cocktails and fries are great together. The quantity is for two people. I consume about eighty pecent of them. Hot, crisp, fresh. Just right. [caption id="attachment_48251" align="alignnone" width="480"] Pork belly and scallops @Meauxbar.[/caption] The waitress--who by now is my friend--says that the best dish here is the combination of pork belly and scallops. I do not follow the followers who bow at the mention of pork belly. But I'll put up with them if the cause is right. Even though the belly clearly dominated the scallops, this was a good dish. The pork fat also played well against the flavors of the cocktail. [caption id="attachment_48250" align="alignnone" width="480"] Seared sweetbreads on zucchini bread.[/caption] Now I have veal sweetbreads, seared in what clearly had been a very hot pan with no small amount of butter. This is a very generous portion for a small plate. It sits atop (grab hold of something solid) zucchini bread, with some goat cheese that had a whipped texture. All these unlikely ingredients come together in another fine bunch of flavors, practically sizzling when it arrives. Gnocchi can be had on either a large or small plate. I get the small, after checking with the waitress. (More restaurants than you'd imagine insist that every patron have an entree. I didn't think that would be the case here, and it wasn't.) [caption id="attachment_48249" align="alignnone" width="480"] Crabmeat gnocchi,[/caption] It is my experience that only one out of seven or nine or eleven servings of gnocchi are made well. I have had much worse than these, but the texture and flavor of the little pasta dumplings are still too starchy-gummy for me. However, the dish also includes crabmeat, corn, tomato concassee, and a butter sauce sort of emulsified with pork far and Parmigiana cheese. So, not a failue, if you push most of the gnocchi to one side. I'm about full. This is what I love about small-plate restaurants. I can eat a lot of different things and not eat too much. The desserts don't move me to take that step, but ice cream from La Divina La Gelateria sounds good. I get a scoop. I leave, and indeed have a little bit of trouble heading uptown through the restricted road space of Rampart Street. They do seem to be moving rapidly along with the streetcar tracks. *It's pronounced "maa-riss-KEE-no." This matter was the subject of an argument Mary Ann and I had on our first vacation together. Neither of us have given in yet, twenty-seven years later. [title type="h5"]Meauxbar. French Quarter: 942 N Rampart. 504-569-9979. [/title]