Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Superlative Eat Club Dinner @ Trenasse.
The Eat Club has dinner at Trenasse, the two years new restaurant in the Hotel Inter-Continental. I wish every Eat Club event went off as well as this one did. We were slightly overbooked, but the restaurant jumped into action and made up an extra table for us tout de suite. They were on top of everything else all night long.
The people who filled all these forty-three seats were an unusually light-hearted bunch. The first-timers were a majority, something that almost never happens. (The breakdown for a typical Eat Club dinner is equal thirds of novices, occasional diners, and frequent attendees.) This made it a good party all night.
But the food stood out, according to everyone I spoke to. There was a story behind ou menu. The owners of Trenasse, asked by the hotel's developer to show its stuff in a big dinner, passed the test with such flying colors that they brought the same menu back especially for us.
We began with a grilled oyster with its cheesy, smoky sauce. Then a trio of soups: fowl gumbo, crabmeat bisque, and an artichoke soup. All three were excellent, especially if the eater saved the very spicy gumbo until last.
Now a tidbit that seemed trivial: a miniature puck of potatoes au gratin, topped with a creamy sauce with crabmeat. How the chef managed to elevate to the lofty extent that he did I don't know, but almost everybody remarks how remarkable the thing is. The dish has a track record: at the Wine and Food Experience this year, the dish won Best Of Show. For once, an award proves its veracity in reality.
The entree is surf and turf, a phrase that usually indicates a restaurant without ideas. Not here, though. A nice fillet of redfish with a powerful medium-brown meuniere sauce is on my left, and beef short ribs--first smoked and then braised--are on the right. I am no fan of short ribs, but this is astonishingly fine. Mary Ann, a short-rib admirer, is thoroughly pleased.
The dessert is a nice, soft landing, a clafoutis of local berries with vanilla mint ice cream (!).
The wines make no huge statements, but the idea of serving a Trimbach Reserve Pinot Gris with the amazing potato dish is inspired. On the other hand, I'm still trying to figure out why the Clendenon Pinot Noir was served cold.
The dinner even ended on time. And before it started, I interviewed the owners and the chef and found them full of stories. But I expected that, since Trenasse is a descendent ofn a Florida Gulf Coast restaurant called "Stinky's Fish House." In digging into that, I discovered an odd fact. One of the owners worked in the kitchen of Commander's Palace during the Jamie Shannon days. He said that everybody in the kitchen back then referred to each other as "Stink." As in, "Hey Stink! Got that veal chop mid well?" "In my hand, Stink!" I guess it's better than some of the languages I've heard in restaurant kitchens.
Trenasse. CBD: 444 St Charles Ave. 504-680-7000.
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Thursday, August 4, 2016.
Into The American Sector.
With the addition of the four food-and-beverage outlets at the newly-reopened Pontchartrain Hotel, John Besh is clearly in the restaurant management business. That's a very different thing from being the chef of a restaurant, requiring different skills. But John has those skills. Perhaps even more important, he has a staff of restaurant-management professionals who execute the day-to-day at a very high level.
When the number of restaurants in a management group gets large enough, it's typical that some units ("restaurants," to translate from the industry jargon) stop being a good fit with the others. That appears to be the reason why John and company stopped running the American Sector, the restaurant in the World War II Museum. A couple of years ago, the Sector was taken over by Centerplate, a management company that handles such projects here and there around the country. Locally, this includes the food services in the Convention Center and the Superdome.
For some reason, I've been asked about the American Sector more than a few times lately. That makes sense: the WWII Museum is such a spectacular draw for New Orleans visitors and the millions of people interested in history. And the idea of having a restaurant with food, music, and graphics from the 1940's makes perfect sense.
If only they did it in even a little above average way.
The first time I went to the American Sector recently was the day after the Fourth of July. It was closed. The second time was today. It was open, but sparsely populated for dinner. A women's club that has some connection with WWII history was in a semi-private room having dinner.
The menu does indeed have a number of dishes that were much more popular in the 1940s than now. Meat loaf, to name one. But ordering a war-era dinner that's both true to the tastes of the past and good is not, let's say, easily done.
[caption id="attachment_52375" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Fried oysters and pork belly, with a levee of microgreens.[/caption]
But we try. We begin with a big bowl of fresh-cut fries, squirted here and there with aioli and flavored (faintly) of truffles. The server said it was a tall order, but we finish it off handily. Then a sort of deconstructed fried oyster sandwich, with no bread (MA's spec). The oysters come with cubes of pork belly and tomato jam. Interesting flavor, big, crisp oysters. But this is no 1945 dish. More like 2012. Not a huge failing, since the eating was agreeable. But still. . .
[caption id="attachment_52373" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Garlic chicken with orzo.[/caption]
My main dish is also very much a latter-day recipe. It's described as garlic chicken with orzo. What comes out is a bowl of rich, thick pasta nodules (orzo is pasta in the shape and size of rice grains). The chicken is in small cubes, totally overwhelmed by the pasta and its creamy sauce. It's not bad, but so rich that I could only get through about half.
MA has a second entree, but only after she ascertains that the salmon involved is wild-caught from Atlantic waters. (Most of her food has to pass tests like this lately.) It's big, and she doesn't finish that, either. I put a modest dent in it. Again, pretty good, but about as much along 1940s tastes as rap music is like Big Band. (Salmon in New Orleans was, until around 1978, almost always canned product, which this clearly was not.)
[caption id="attachment_52374" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Salmon with Brussels sprouts (in the skillet).[/caption]
We have more fun watching the silent movies of classic World War II moments. Lots of Bob Hope and his nemesis Jerry Collona. (I think comedians ought to have their own nemeses these days.) And female singers we couldn't identify. MA remarks that women back then had much bigger thighs than now.
I leave with the same thought I came in with. If I were visiting New Orleans I would certainly spend a long time in rhe WWII Museum. But I'd have lunch or dinner elsewhere. Many, many great places to eat in that neighborhood.
American Sector. Warehouse District & Center City: 945 Magazine St. 504-528-1940.
The menu does indeed have a number of dishes that were much more popular in the 1940s than now. Meat loaf, to name one. But ordering a war-era dinner that's both true to the tastes of the past and good is not, let's say, easily done.
[caption id="attachment_52375" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Fried oysters and pork belly, with a levee of microgreens.[/caption]
But we try. We begin with a big bowl of fresh-cut fries, squirted here and there with aioli and flavored (faintly) of truffles. The server said it was a tall order, but we finish it off handily. Then a sort of deconstructed fried oyster sandwich, with no bread (MA's spec). The oysters come with cubes of pork belly and tomato jam. Interesting flavor, big, crisp oysters. But this is no 1945 dish. More like 2012. Not a huge failing, since the eating was agreeable. But still. . .
[caption id="attachment_52373" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Garlic chicken with orzo.[/caption]
My main dish is also very much a latter-day recipe. It's described as garlic chicken with orzo. What comes out is a bowl of rich, thick pasta nodules (orzo is pasta in the shape and size of rice grains). The chicken is in small cubes, totally overwhelmed by the pasta and its creamy sauce. It's not bad, but so rich that I could only get through about half.
MA has a second entree, but only after she ascertains that the salmon involved is wild-caught from Atlantic waters. (Most of her food has to pass tests like this lately.) It's big, and she doesn't finish that, either. I put a modest dent in it. Again, pretty good, but about as much along 1940s tastes as rap music is like Big Band. (Salmon in New Orleans was, until around 1978, almost always canned product, which this clearly was not.)
[caption id="attachment_52374" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Salmon with Brussels sprouts (in the skillet).[/caption]
We have more fun watching the silent movies of classic World War II moments. Lots of Bob Hope and his nemesis Jerry Collona. (I think comedians ought to have their own nemeses these days.) And female singers we couldn't identify. MA remarks that women back then had much bigger thighs than now.
I leave with the same thought I came in with. If I were visiting New Orleans I would certainly spend a long time in rhe WWII Museum. But I'd have lunch or dinner elsewhere. Many, many great places to eat in that neighborhood.
