[title type="h5"]
Saturday, August 8, 2015.
Blue Line Bistro. La Provence. [/title]
Mary Ann--who keeps telling me that she doesn't want to go to restaurants with me much, because I am the near occasion of sin as regards her diet--has hardly missed a chance to dine with me since she laid down that law. This morning, for example, she says that she will allow herself to be taken to breakfast. Specifically, she has the Blue Line Bistro in Covington in mind. It has no connection with the Blue Line Café in Old Metairie. That place is named for a streetcar line that followed the curves of Metairie Road in the ealy 1900s. The Covington eatery--whose name comes from blue lines all over its exterior--makes its living from the lunch breaks taken by attorneys and their clients, jurors and judges, and those accused of lawbreaking at the courthouse across the street.
I was here for lunch during jury duty a few months ago. This is my first breakfast there. It looks as if the place were doing a brisk business, but all the parked cars are for patrons of the Covington farmer's market. The Blue Line's breakfast menu is quotidian. We push it nearly to its limits by ordering scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes, an omelette, orange juice and coffee. All of it is just okay.
Mary Ann is trying hard to fly to Seattle on her last buddy pass. She didn't make it today, and tomorrow looks iffy. However, she is in a good mood because she knows she will escape soon enough.
She asks me out for dinner at La Provence. Before she presents that scheme, she calls Mary Leigh--who is working for real in the actual kitchen of this five-star restaurant, composing the desserts. MA and I are both surprised that she says it's all right with her if we dine there tonight, but not to expect any special attention.
We keep a low profile. Chef Erick Loos comes out to say hello. How is the new pastry person doing, I ask. She's very good and easy to work with, he says.
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Oysters Ooh-La-La[/caption]
After we have a goodly quantity of the famous La Provence chicken-liver pâté, I order some Oysters Ooh-La-La. This is a brilliant idea created (I think) by Chef Erick. They're oysters baked on the shells, with a little yellow pad on top. The pad is too thick to be a sauce, but too light to be a stuffing. It's made from crab fat, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese (I think) and just enough red pepper to give it a glow.
This is the sixth or seventh time I've sampled Oysters Ooh-La-La. It has never varied from one order to another, and is always enjoyable to the point that I can't imagine how it could be improved upon. After dispatching today's half-dozen--which I do so readily that I forget to take a picture of it--I think about the dish for five or ten minutes. Then I tell Mary Ann that for the foreseeable future, I will call this the best dish served in any restaurant anywhere in the New Orleans area. It's worth a trip all the way across the lake to eat it.
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Pasta emvelopes filled with sweet corn.[/caption]
To balance the table, the chef sends Mary Ann (who isn't nearly as excited as I am about Oysters Ooh-La-La) a dish of pasta made to look like little envelopes, including the flap (but not the glue). They are stuffed with a sweet concoction made of corn, then floated in a buttery sauce that is almost a soup.
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Chilled corn soup at La Provence.[/caption]
The next course for me is an actual corn soup, chilled and beribboned with a green herb oil. Such floating green shapes are a signature of Chef Erick, and always enjoyable. Mary Ann has a fist-size central cut of a butter lettuce, which is exactly the kind of thing she loves to eat.
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Rabbit and pasta and tomato broth.[/caption]
Now comes a rabbit and pasta dish in a substantial flow of a light tomato broth. This is filling, mainly because of an excess of courses to this point. I can finish only half of it. It also reminds me of not one but two dishes we had last night at Trenasse.
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Drumfish with a thick crabmeat sauce.[/caption]
Mary Ann tells me to tell her not to order fish at La Provence any more. She says thay cut the fish too thick. Another piece of evidence that she has learned very little from dining with me lo these twenty-six years. It won't make any difference. Next time, she will get the fish with the crabmeat, as she always does.
I should note that my three-course dinner (not counting the Oysters Ooh-La-La) is the day's Market Menu for $31. That is always at La Provence, and always a great deal. It is also doubling this month as the restaurant's Coolinary dinner.
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A little goat- cheesecake.[/caption]
The dessert that comes with my table d'hote menu is taken out for a pinch-hitter: a little cheesecake made with goat cheese and a fruit puree. It is made by my favorite pastry chef of them all.
[title type="h5"]La Provence. Lacombe: 25020 US 190. 985-626-7662. [/title]
