Running Around, Looking For Events That Couldn't Be Found.
I spent the morning talking with Mary Ann about the NOMenu website, to which we are adding more fine points day by day. Today I am getting more agreement from the others to the effect that what I am proposing is approximately the way I've written and designed the newsletter since I started publishing a daily e-mail New Orleans Menu in the early 2000s.
After we reached that point, MA suggested that we have lunch at Keith Young's Steak House. It seemed to me that we didn't have time to make it to Keith Young's--which we love--and then back home, where we would broadcast the Food Show from the Cool Water Ranch. We actually did make it on time, but close calls like that do nothing to make the show happy and interesting.
I was invited to attend a dinner with a local rum tasting tonight, with MA acting as my chauffeur. She wanted to keep me from messing up a suit of mine that she likes. But something went wrong when we tried to find the event, which was close enough to the recent building collapse on Canal Street that the police had most nearby streets shut down. Our plans ended, we considered other places for dinner. The first idea I considered was Emeril's Delmonico, not far from where we were. But it's also a place I haven't dined for quite some time.
We arrived a bit after eight--which would give us a long, drive home. We agreed with each other that we would have no more than two courses in this dinner, and massive steaks would not be one of them. (Delmonico makes a specialty of beef.)
But we were fooling ourselves. This is Delmonico, a Class Act since Day One. The dinner began with a number of amuses bouche (little pre-first-course nibbles) followed by a couple of serious appetizers. The one I was interested in most was crabmeat Remick (pictured.) That's a great but rarely-encountered dish from the late 1950s. The crabmeat is broiled with mayonnaise, ketchup, (!) green onions, Creole mustard, and tarragon. I know it sounds like an ancient dish, but when done carefully is a fine taste.
That had me up to four dishes out of the two I limited myself. But then came the USDA Prime ribeye steak. Too heavy for MA, of course, so she deferred to chicken bonne femme, an old classic Creole chicken dish. Need I say that this was way over the eating budget for all involved? But it was very enjoyable. MA balanced things out by declaring that she would not be having any kind of meal with me for the foreseeable future.
On an unrelated note: there seemed to be a slower pace in restaurants than I'm accustomed to. Especially when we were trying to catch up, we had a long wait before we could get the check and leave the restaurant. Could this meat that there is a slowing of pace in some restaurants that used to rush everything? It happened both at Keith Young's and Delmonico, although I don't blame it on them, because it was us who were trying to get a move on.
Keith Young's Steak House. Madisonville: 165 LA 21. 985-845-9940.
Delmonico. Garden District & Environs: 1300 St Charles Ave. 504-525-4937.
