Friday, January 22. Royal Palm. Mary Ann and I were both concerned by the news that Robert Bruce--who has been the chef of the Royal Palm and its affiliated restaurants in Harvey--is no longer there. Most of the time when a chef leaves a major restaurant there's less change than is generally supposed. Unless the chef is the owner, in which case all bets are off. Even after the past two decades of chef supremacy, it's still the owner who matters most to the goodness of a dining establishment.
The two of us decided to check it out at dinner tonight. We encountered the usual scene: a nearly empty dining room. And a waiter who had a great deal of style and hospitality but was a little weak on culinary knowledge. It would be a cliche to say that this is the West Bank. But it would also be true.
The Rodgers and Hart song Manhattan was running through my mind. It always wells up--completely unconsciously--when I find myself on Manhattan Boulevard. I kept the theme going by ordering a Manhattan cocktail, with a little Campari in place of the bitters. The waiter asked what kind of whiskey I wanted: good question. Rye, I told him. "What brand?" he asked. Impressive! Sazerac, I said. He came back to tell me that they didn't have Sazerac rye--just Old Overholt, the default brand everywhere. Not only that, but they were out of Campari, too. Shucks. Well, these are not enormous problems.
After that was all worked out, he told me something that I hear so often that I believe I'm jinxed. "We have a new menu starting next week," he said. This is enough to make a restaurant critic walk out. It means that most of what I will eat tonight will be unavailable to those who read my report on it. Would the kitchen be willing to prepare some of the new dishes? He checked, and came back with good news. Some of the specials tonight were, in fact, on the new menu. The night is saved!
I began with the established escargots. The chef is keeping them. He'd be a fool not to. They're the standard garlic-herb butter variety, but just perfect at that, sizzling and smelling so good that Mary Ann--no eater of snails--said she found the aroma fabulous. She had a crock of French onion soup, which she said was about eighty percent as good as her benchmark: the potage served in The Point, the supper club aboard the Carnival Conquest. It tasted fine to me.
By this time we had a bottle of Willamette Valley, Oregon wine on the table: Chehalem Chardonnay "Inox." I think the nickname is a reference to its not having been aged in oak at all, and therefore free of any oxidized flavor. Mary Ann has enjoyed a few other wines along this line. Anything to please one's lover. It was crisp and had decent fruit. And a screw cap. We killed it, not something the two of us do often. (Mary Ann does not hold her liquor well.)
The next course featured what the menu called a wedge salad, but really wasn't. You can't really cut a head of butter lettuce into a wedge. And the bacon component was more of a visual statement than one aimed at the palate: two stiff, flat slices crisscrossed on top of the leaves. Good enough.
"Try the new scallop dish," said the waiter. Go find out whether they're dry-pack scallops, said I. He returned with the good news, and a few minutes later, with a generous serving of the bivalves themselves, with an emulsified butter and sweet potatoes. Mary Ann went after the duck, served with a non-sweet, orange-tinged sauce and risotto. I didn't know she liked duck that much. It's the crisp skin that gets her, she said. And the risotto was good, too.
We were told that the new dessert menu had been implemented a couple of weeks earlier, so I wouldn't be eating anything obsolete. The lead item: king cake. "They make them individually," the waiter said, "and they're really unique. What came out was an overly dense, dry ring decorated in purple, green and gold, topped with a gold-coated chocolate fleur de lis, next to which was a little abstract baby made of marzipan. It was more delightful to look at that to eat. Most king cakes are either too dry or too sweet; this was both.
Mary Ann said that she'd very much enjoyed the evening, and wanted to come back again. Women? You can't figure 'em.
Royal Palm. Harvey: 1901 Manhattan Blvd 504-644-4100. Creole.
