Friday, July 26, 2013.
Another Good Dinner At Austin's.
Mary Leigh has landed a job with possibilities for the long run, involving the making of ceramic sculptures--something at which she is quite adept and enjoys tremendously. That and a less happy task--driving The Boy to the airport for his return home to Baltimore, after he spent a few days at our house--had her on the South Shore and ready for dinner.
Mary Ann liked the idea of going to Austin's again. We were there a couple of weeks ago--she for the first time. She liked it enough that she was eager to give it another go. But if I thought they were hungry, I was mistaken. Both Marys ate salads. Period. Oh, how I miss dining with people who get excited and even a little bit gluttonous about eating and drinking!
Well, I did my part. I started with oysters en brochette, that very easy but wonderful appetizer of oysters wrapped in bacon and fried. At Mr. Ed's, they finish this off with a beurre blanc, and scatter the oysters atop a salad. It was enough for two people, and a fine first course.
The Marys' salads were the big blue cheese wedge for my daughter (my expert on wedges, she said this one was exceptionally good) and a pile of spring greens with shrimp eggrolls at the four points of the compass for Mary Ann. She liked the eggrolls, but declared that she has had it with spring mix salad. I remember when that bagged product first appeared, about fifteen years ago. Suddenly, the excellence of house salads in New Orleans restaurants improved tremendously. I rejoiced until I realized that everybody in town was serving the same mix. That removed some of the allure, but none of the intrinsic merit. I still like spring mix.
My course at this moment was an avocado and crab salad. It sounded a lot better than it was. The avocado part was essentially guacamole, but an insipidly mild one. The green stuff was mashed, a mistake in terms both of texture and flavor. Avocados should never be smoothed out this much. Should always be chunky. The crabmeat sat on top, ready to be eaten separately. The thing was in the direction of the tuna stack at Zea, but nowhere near as good.
The only real entree at our table was a very large fillet of trout amandine. No new ground was broken. It was just a pretty piece of fish with a light, toasty, fried coating, topped with almonds in brown butter. The classic, and ever shall it be.
During the dinner the young man who plays the piano in the bar came by and revealed his identity. He is indeed a very young man, who I heard in the bar at Andrea's a few years ago. He was in his teens, yet somehow knew dozens of tunes from the Big Band era and played them very well. As he did tonight.
Austin's dessert menu is a show-and-tell tray. Tonight I selected a bananas Foster pie that was lighter than it sounded. Which was just what I wanted at that point.
Austin's. Metairie: 5101 West Esplanade Ave. 504-888-5533.
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