Thursday, September 21, 2017. No end to surprises at Trenasse.
When I leave the studio at the end of my two hours on air, I usually walk around the maze of corridors linking our eight radio stations, and calculate what I managed to accomplish today, if anything. Today, this summed itself up in one sentence: When a show ends well, I feel as if an hour has been added to my life.
The show began with two contestants in this weekend's Fried Chicken Festival. Celestine Dunbar is the proprietor of a neighborhood café that was just beginning to become a legendary eatery when Katrina hit. After a long hiatus, she reopened some months ago on Earhart Boulevard just off Carrollton. Her best work was fried chicken and red beans. The latter tasted exactly like my mother's. And she had fried chicken figured out, too. The other guest was Kelly Fiorella, owner with his brother of the a neighborhood café in the UNO vicinity. (It's the place that was for a long time Teddy's Poor Boys.
It was fun talking with these two. I was able to field a long-running question: should chicken destined for the fryer be brought to room temperature before frying, or should it be ice cold? The funny thing about this is that a few cooks have given me both answers as the absolute truth.
After the hour-long interview with Celestine and Kelly, I found a couple of people waiting on hold to talk on the air. During the hour, there was not a moment that lacked a caller, a news burst, or a commercial. Several people called to extol the excellence of the HD radios I have been handing out for free. (To get one, go to Mobile One, and they'll give you the radio and installation for free. (If you have odd wiring in your car, there might be an extra charge of around $30 work around the issue. And, of course, some day we will run out of HD radios.)
Now we're getting somewhere. And that's why I feel an hour younger.
I took a nap in my office chair for twenty minutes, then called Mary Leigh to see if she would be available for dinner. When I suggested Trenesse, she was actually excited about the idea.
Trenasse, the casual all-day restaurant and bar in the Hotel Inter-Continental on St. Charles Street, continues to confirm my first impression of the place. They start off strong with oysters. The list of varieties runs to almost a dozen. I had the version with a sauce made of Champagne, Parmigiano cheese, and garlic. Nice size bivalves here.
[caption id="attachment_48581" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Oysters Bienville at Trenasse.[/caption]
An amuse bouche had snails in a rich brown sauce with mushrooms. ML doesn't eat seafood, let alone escargots. But she does like the sauces found on seafood. I was very surprised to watch her mop up the snail sauce with bread. Women are sure surprising.
Her order began with a bowl of chicken gumbo. She says that Trenasse's version is the best around. And she eats the chicken gumbo everywhere she goes. She followed that with a sizeable wedge salad. Meanwhile, I ate my oysters and followed them with a spicy, nicely-grilled pork chop. "The chef recommends getting it medium," said the waitress. Not necessary to tell me that. I like to see a blush in the meat, especially when it is as thick as this was.
Our conversation is enjoyable. Her big design projects--one for a restaurant and the other a bit of civic engineering--are going well. Her eyes are open for a boyfriend to appear, but I'd better not pursue that elusive matter.
I'm very proud of her.
Trenasse. CBD: 444 St Charles Ave. 504-680-7000.
Written by Tom Fitzmorris September 22, 2017 12:01 in
