Friday, June 15, 2012.
Liuzza's On Bienville.
For the seventh year, Georgetown Prep in Washington, D.C. sent a crew of their seniors to help work on hurricane-damaged houses around New Orleans. It's part of their community service commitment, spread out among many towns across the country. But they seem to like coming to New Orleans, where there's certainly enough for them to do, after all these years.
Jude was taken in by Georgetown Prep after Katrina, and although he was not needy, the school allowed him to stay there as a resident student at a very substantial discount until, three years later, he graduated as a Prep Hoya. He made himself valuable while he was there, but we owe a big debt of gratitude to the school, one we gladly pay back at every opportunity.
This annual visit, for example, motivates Mary Ann to make vats of jambalaya, pick up trays of mini-muffulettas from Parran's, and otherwise cater to the young men. I think the food is one of the big draws for the Prep guys.
After the finished their day's labors in the Hollygrove section, they adjourned to Parkway Poor Boys (which, I'm happy to see, has changed its name to just the way I spelled it above). Mary Ann and I stopped by to see how it was going. Mary Ann says she's never seen so good-looking a crew in all the years' she's cooked for them.
Hmph.
We left Parkway for dinner at Liuzza's on nearby Bienville Street. This was motivated not by preference--we love Parkway--but by a need I had to check the place out. After two tragedies took out both the family managers of the place last year, the place has new folks (still family) at the helm. And I haven't been there in a long time.
The restaurant was packed. When Liuzza's is packed, that means like sardines, so close are the dining room's tables. The barroom was full too, many of the occupants waiting for tables. Liuzza's is a smaller restaurant than it appears from the outside.
It's so tight in there that the first table we occupied actually prevented passage by the employees into and out of the bar. We were asked to move, and we gladly accepted. But the waiters continued to brush by, rotating their torsos this way and that to fit through the gaps.
This is not MA's kind of restaurant. She has nothing but disdain for the funky side of the local dining culture so much loved by so many Orleanians. But I thought I'd get her with Liuzza's stuffed artichoke--one of her favorite dishes, and one served by few restaurants. She liked that okay, but she said that the fried chicken was better.
We went through an order of onion rings and an Italian salad (no longer shown as "wop salad" on the menu, although all the regulars still call it that).
At that point I remembered that Liuzza's is one of the very few restaurants that accepts only cash. They have an ATM in the bar, but that doesn't make up for the inconvenience and failure of hospitality the cash-only policy shows customers. In the 1970s a restaurant could get away with it. Now that sno-ball stands, coffeeshops, and every other kind of business takes cards, it's not only absurd but offensive.
After collecting sixty bucks from the machine (while a guy who recognized me watched and talked from his chair, literally touching the ATM), I stayed with the Italian theme with eggplant parmigiana, with an Italian sausage on the side. All of that was old home style, with a long-cooked, smooth, sweet red sauce poured right over the spaghetti. I no longer have much nostalgia for that array of tastes, and it doesn't stand on its own merits. The sausage and eggplant (below) were worth eating, however.
None of this wound up being enough to charm Mary Ann, and she said she didn't want any part of restaurants like this or Mandina's for a few weeks. I will never understand why a girl who was born in the Irish Channel and grew up in Kenner can be such a snob. She thinks more or less the same about me. A marriage made in heaven, I guess.
Liuzza's. Mid-City: 3636 Bienville. 504-482-9120.
