Friday, August 6. No Daddy-Daughter Dinner; Sob! Dinner At Meson 923; Grin! Mary Leigh called en route home from a week on the Florida beaches. She wanted to have dinner with me. I don't know which of us felt more remorse about my not being able to do it. Since we're leaving for Los Angeles Monday, I must go into town to record a bunch of radio commercials.
And I have a dinner appointment with my friend and dermatologist Dr. Bob DeBellevue, who wants to go to Meson 923. We've canceled that dinner twice already, and I can't do it again at the last minute. I always feel terrible about disappointing my daughter, but I suppose it must happen now and then.
I first met Dr. Bob in 1982, when he and I were regulars at the marvelous Thursday wine tastings at Martin Wine Cellar. Bob was an early expert on Australian wines--not widely consumed in New Orleans then. We became good enough friends that he was one of the groomsmen at my wedding. He's also one of the few people whose taste in restaurants I trust completely. When Bob calls to have dinner at a new restaurant, he's already been there several times and found it worthwhile. That's enough for me.
Bob, his lady friend Julie, and his cousin Nye Simmons were already there when I crossed the threshold of 923 South Peters Street. Nye is also an M.D., specializing in emergency medicine in Knoxville. And he's a wine collector. He was packing bottles of 1989 Chateau Pichon Lalande and a 1962 Chateau d'Yquem. That's some collection he must have. Bob also brought a little something: 2007 Vosne-Romanee, produced by the owners of the nearby Domaine de la Romanee Conti. That outfit makes what may be the best red wines in the world. Or at least the rarest and most expensive. The Vosne-Romanee is just over $100, making it a comparative bargain.
I brought nothing. My wine money has gone in other directions since that day Dr. Bob stood next to me in the church, as we waited for Mary Ann to walk up the aisle. I have some wine, but it's not in this league. The best I can offer is to pick up the corkage fees.
Meson 923's opening a few months ago was one of the most auspicious in recent years. It's a serious, stylish gourmet house. Former Emeril's and August chef Christopher Lynch is in the kitchen. The owners put significant dollars into the handsome renovation of a fine old Warehouse District building.
There doesn't appear to be much more than a bar on the ground floor. Dinner begins with an elevator ride to a cool, imaginatively lit room on the second story. The first thing I noticed: placemats. Nice placemats. No tablecloths. That trend must really be picking up steam if a place like this is following it.
The menu also moves with the currents. It starts with a section of "crudo"--uncooked food. Quite a lot of those, some of it with a sushi-bar aspect. We began with several of them. My first was corn, avocado, tomato, hamachi (Japanese for yellowtail fish), and a mild jalapeno vinaigrette, all tossed together land laid out in a line. I listed the ingredients in order of their bulk in aggregation. The whole thing had a fresh appeal, with a nice contrast of textures.
Somebody else (it didn't matter who, because we were passing plates around all night) had diver scallops, again served raw, in a puree of cauliflower. I don't know why top-quality scallops aren't served raw more often. We eat oysters that way, don't we?
One more move in the raw-seafood theme. Cubes of tuna tartare, little tomatoes and a ball of sorbet whose flavor had aspects of ginger and tomato (I should have asked).
More preliminary courses, still cold. Paper-thin prosciutto with a little salad and some crisp asparagus spears. A bowl of the soup du jour, with the intense color and flavor of beets and some kind of herbal oil floated on top.
We shifted to the hot side of the menu. Pappardelle pasta (extra-wide fettuccine) was tossed with shreds of duck leg confit, with a creamy sauce and a topping of what looked like peanuts and arugula. We avidly devoured two portions of this.
The timing was perfect for the Vosne-Romanee. Vosne-Romanee was the first big-deal wine I ever bought. (From Jack Duarte, 1963 vintage.) I was crazy about it, but that was an off-bottling, and I have not seen much of it since. It's a great Pinot Noir with a wonderful finish. It sure worked with the pappardelle.
With great care but still a breaking of the cork, the Pichon-Lalande was opened as the entrees arrived. The upper one tenth of one percent of my wine experiences involved old Pauillacs. Their fabulous bouquet was something I noticed before I'd ever heard that this was what these wines were famous for. It was like discovering that girls smell good. (Different aroma.) I have been concerned that I've not noted this magical Pauillac nose in a long time. I wondered whether the wines weren't making that anymore, or whether I've lost that part of my sense of smell. That's why the Pichon was a double ecstasy for me. Here was that bouquet again. A lot of people call it a cigar-box aroma, and I can see that--but I wouldn't call it that. It's something like. . . well, there's nothing like it, really.
It was good in the drinking, too. I was very happy that I'd ordered the filet mignon, even though a) I consider that an unimaginative order in a place like this and b) it was cooked sous vide, a method of which I am suspicious. Sous vide is the process of enclosing a food in a vacuum pack, simmering it in a water bath until cooked a point, and then finishing it in a broiler or in a pan. The result, in this case, was incomparable juiciness and tenderness. And a piece of protein eminently well paired with this magnificent wine.
Everybody else ordered the slow-roasted duck breast with sweet potatoes, mushrooms, and corn. The sauce was a new one on me, but it worked just fine: cherry-bacon vinaigrette.
That course was memorable. But another marked moment was coming. Three desserts: rice pudding, a blueberry cake, and a cheese plate. All nice, they performed a sideshow to the big event: a very well-aged Chateau d'Yquem, the world's most celebrated sweet wine, bought somewhere in Alabama (the ancient tax sticker said that), and cared for well in Dr. Nye's cellar. It was deep into the brown phase of its color evolution. A blind wine buff could have said that. The flavors and aromas were wonderfully caramelized. It smelled like butterscotch sauce. Spectacular! We only drank half the bottle; a little Yquem goes a long way. (They finished it the next night, I later learned.)
As it turned out, the restaurant didn't charge a corkage fee. The dinner for four, before the tip, was $287. Less than I expected. (Of course, we tipped extra for the special wine work the waiter needed to perform.)
I would have paid another $50 for a tablecloth. I know that this feeling is fueled by a lifetime of always seeing tablecloths in restaurants where one would go for distinguished food and wines. I know the vogue is going the other way. That doesn't mean I like placemats, or will ever stop complaining about them.
As long as I'm carping, I think they could have picked a better name for the restaurant, too. I'm already sick of being asked on the radio about "Mesa 458,or whatever." Every time I look at the name, it seems like the name of a subatomic particle.
On the other hand, we now have another new restaurant in the four-to-five-star range.
Mesón 923. Warehouse District: 923 S. Peters. 504-523-9200.
