Thursday, August 8, 2013.
Filling The House At Le Foret. The Yat Pack. Road To Winnipeg.
A couple of weeks ago Mary Ann had her regular bimonthly lunch with Danny Millan and one of his girls Friday, allegedly to discuss the advertising MA sells. I'll bet that matter never comes up, but that's the way it is in sales. Certain clients just want to spend a few minutes with the salesperson on a regular schedule.
MA came home that day with a menu from Danny for a wine dinner. He asked whether I could mention it on the radio and in the newsletter. This is, of course, the very kind of news that I disseminate and spend a lot of time looking for.
But this menu went way beyond the typical. I wasn't finished reading it over before we were on the phone with Danny about it. Could we take over a few tables that night for the Eat Club? We didn't have a dinner scheduled that week, and in every way this was the kind of dinner the Eat Clubbers are accustomed to. And it was a little offbeat in being an all-seafood repast. Perfect for lighter summer eating.
"Of course!" Danny said. "Have them call the restaurant to make reservations."
Today was the first time I checked on the progress of that. I didn't expect to hear that 110 people were on the list. Or that a second list included seventy people who had to be denied.
We filled the main dining room. Some of the people who weren't among my readers and listeners dined in other areas of the first floor. The dinner required every inch it could get. It also raised the din to uncomfortable levels.
A lot of people made that last complaint. But they did so after a few minutes of solid praise for what the kitchen cooked up for us, and how nearly perfectly the servers had delivered it. It was, really, one of our best dinners, outclassing both of the more expensive ones of the the past few weeks.
It began with a cava that had what seemed like a touch of sweetness. Not something you get often from Spain. Meanwhile, the waiters passed around fried oysters with ravigote sauce, little canapes of crabmeat and caviar, and a number of other amuses bouche I was too busy greeting people to note in detail.
Lobster bisque was the first course at the table. It was in the lighter style, with the clear notes of lobster but also the tang of Cognac and the mellowness of amaretto (of all things).
Danny Millan goes down to Lafitte a few times a week to pick up the matchless Louisiana crabmeat of Mr. Higgins down on the bayou. The jumbo lumps outweighed the little salad of arugula, frisee, citrus sections, and the local caviar. Basil aioli, too. (Doesn't he play for the soccer team? How's the soccer team doing, by the way?)
Good wines so far: a Viognier, Sonoma-Cutrer Russian River Ranches Chardonnay, and Cade Sauvignon Blanc. The latter came out with pretty, perfectly-seared (on one side only), sea scallops with pureed cauliflower keeping them from rolling off the plate.
So, three courses, all with a nearly-unanimous A grades (except from Mary Ann, who doesn't like scallops). And here we were, at the moment of truth, ready to find out whether the chef could keep this momentum going through the entree. Well, I'm glad the last two meals gave me cause for complaint, and that I expressed them, lest I be charged with liking everything.
And I'm also happy that everybody else around me felt the same way about this yellowfin grouper. "That's a great fish not many people know about," said Frank Brigtsen when he was on the radio with me two days ago. Frank's assessment is confirmed from this quarter. Lightly browned surfaces from a walk through a pan of butter, with beurre manie. That's what you get when you roll a ball of just-soft butter with herbs and a little flour, in your hand. Then it melts over the fish. A thrill all around the room.
In my visits to the other tables, I met two young women who were in town attending a meeting. They are from Winnipeg, Canada. They thought Le Foret looked like a good place for dinner, and when they heard that the whole place was in a wine dinner, they joined us anyway. I asked them whether they knew that a direct, historic road to Winnipeg begins a block away from the restaurant. I escorted them to the corner of Camp and St. Charles, where is a stone obelisk marking "The Beginning of the Jefferson Highway, New Orleans to Winnipeg." It was erected in the 1920s, and I'm glad it was still there, if only to keep me from looking very, very strange.
We finished with a French dessert we don't see often: lemon bavarois, which is a sort of cookie-like cake topped with a meringue-like toping that gets glazed a touch. I ate two of them with the glasses of kir royale (French bubbly wine with a little Chambord, the honey-and-raspberry liqueur in the orb-shaped bottle).
Big happy in this room.
Mary Ann had an idea. Uh-oh. "I just realized that the Yat Pack is playing tonight at The Saint Hotel," she said. She said this to a number of people, and asked them to join us. We wound up with one other couple, and I think we barely caught them. But they have cruised with us a couple of times, so are friends.
Mary Ann herself says that she can't quite explain how she has become a groupie for the Yat Pack. This is the third time in recent months when we went out of our way to listen to David Cook and Tim Shirah pretending they're Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Harry Connick Jr., and Dean Martin. They were backed up by six instrumentalists (two trombonists tonight!) and worked up a good sound. Better every time I hear them. And, unlike Mary Ann, who isn't really a music listener at all, I have always liked the repertoire the Yat Pack plays.
And then the big thrill. "Want to come up and do a song with us, Tom?" David said. I thought he'd never ask. Mary Ann's request was for "those two Frank Sinatra flying songs." Tim had already rendered "Fly Me To The Moon." I took a shot at "Come Fly With Me." I don't think I embarrassed anybody.
Le Foret. CBD: 129 Camp. 504-553-6738.
The Saint Hotel. 931 Canal Street. Yat Pack plays there every Thursday evening.
To browse through all of the Dining Diaries since 2008, go here.
