[title type="h5"]Tuesday, August 19. 2014.
Not Enough Microphones. Legacy Kitchen.[/title]
It's either feast or famine on the Round Table radio show. Today, both Mary Ann and I had a full slate of guests coming in, adding up to six people for four microphones. A little juggling made it work for everybody except Gary St. Angelo, who was kind of jammed into a corner. He's one of the owners of Annadele Plantation, but he was here with his chef Ron Bonnette, who fielded most of the conversational points that came his way.
Also here from MA's list was Shawn Toups, one of the owners of Lakeview Harbor. For my money, that's the best hamburger in New Orleans, although that opinion is one of many held strongly by others around town.
But the guy with the best story was Kenneth Holder. He is the owner of a new outfit up the river called Hola Nola. It's a new maker of tortillas with a New Orleans touch. Ken was one of the main men at Zapp's Potato Chips, but after founder Ron Zappe died a couple of years ago and the business was bought by Utz (an old, family-owned outfit in the Northeast), Ken thought he'd go on his own.
"The biggest surprise as I was checking out other tortilla plants was that there didn't seem to be one universal way of doing it," he said. "I had some ideas, but they kept telling me that they had never heard of anyone doing what I planned to do."
The quality of the product cannot be besmirched. We passed around both the standard flour tortillas (the kind for making street tacos and fajitas; they're also perfect for moo shu pork) and the ones made with fresh spinach. Ken said that nobody he talked to had ever made spinach tortillas with, you know, like, spinach.
The guests who had booked through me were allied with Molly Kimball, who is rising to top prominence locally among those whose main thoughts about eating are how healthily it can be accomplished. She seems to be taking her own advice, looking like a model who just finished her workout. (She also looked that way when we ran into her and her husband at Chateau du Lac last week.)
Molly's organization Eat It Fit Nola (a dot-com on the end of that gives more information) is pulling together an eat-out-for-charity night tomorrow around town. She had in her tow two participants in that. Diana Chauvin, the owner of La Thai Cuisine and a genuine Thai Cajun--runs the best Thai restaurant in the area. I imagine that this would indeed appeal to Molly and her program. Thai food is loaded with stocks, lean proteins and vegetables, and easy on the fat and carbs.
Molly's other minion was Glen Hogh (with a hard "g"), the owner of Vega Tapas Café. Here is a guy whose restaurant is really a restaurant and a half, what with all the special menus he runs. Right now, Vega is in the middle of its annual virtual tour of the Mediterranean, just leaving Greece for Turkey. Of course, the Mediterranean diet is just what Molly and her cohorts want to see more of.
We don't get into healthy eating all that much on the Food Show. We're about the pleasures of dining and cooking, not the salubriousness of it. Of course, that aspect is unavoidable, so we have to let it in once in awhile.
[caption id="attachment_43574" align="alignleft" width="270"]
Fresh salmon salad at Legacy Kitchen.[/caption]The Marys and The Boy and I went about as far away as we could from eating healthy when we dined at Legacy Kitchen. That's the spinoff of the New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood Company, right across the street. (Oddity: both restaurants play the same exact music, and by going to their websites you can keep track of the songs.)
We are here because Mary Ann just sold an ad to the outfit. The news contained in the ad is that Legacy Kitchen has added a major steak component to its menu. They say that the beef is all USDA Prime and dry aged. Yet the prices are in the high $20s. That is remarkable, because we are now seeing strips on menus in the $40s and even higher.
We began with a salmon salad--like a classic American tuna salad, but with poached, chilled, fresh salmon. Very good. And guacamole. This needs to go back to the drawing board. Unlike crabcakes--in which the more crabmeat there is, the better--a guacamole that's 95 percent avocado will not be any better than an avocado, period. The latter is what they're really serving here.
The steaks showed the truth of Tom's Laws of Steak Cookery. The filets (the young lovers each had one) came out much better than my strip. Reason: filets are thicker, and thicker steaks cook better. (This is why I am proposing that strips should be cut twice as thick and half as wide as they usually are.) Also, I don't think the grill is hot enough. Steaks need to be blasted to bring out their excitement.
But all of this is new to Legacy Kitchen, and they will work it out in time.
I walked across the street after dinner to find that the Futon Shop was closed for the day. Eight months ago, I bought a futon for my office there, but never picked it up. I hope they still remember me. And that I can find the receipt.
[title type="h5"]Legacy Kitchen. Metairie: 759 Veterans Memorial Blvd. 504-309-5231. [/title]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris August 27, 2014 12:01 in
