Coast Cuisine.

Even though Tom was never a beach person, we spent our share of time at the beach. We were often invited to the pretty part of the Gulf Coast, Orange Beach and points east. We had an Eat Club at Voyages in the Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach when New Orleans chef Gerhard Brill arrived there.

The opening of Zea at Watercolor brought us to Watercolor for a few days when it was just starting out as a new town on the coast.

But the best invite of all was a few days in the Krier Cottage at the brand-new development of Seaside. The founder and his wife had us over for dinner to explain how it all came to be. Jude was nine months old.

I haven’t been to any of these places since before Katrina. I have seen Perdido in the last few years when visiting nearby Turquoise. Just seeing it made me want to revisit those great memories. It was a trip to Turquoise Fourth of July weekend that brought me back to this area with a strong desire to become a regular visitor. It was so lovely those two days that I couldn’t wait for the following weekend to return. And we did, grabbing the last room at Perdido.

I realized right away that other than a slightly darker color on the exterior and the distinctive pool area, I recognized nothing about the place, and that made me sad. All the interiors were decorated in cheap industrial mode. All of the landscaping from the front of the building was now concrete and painted that shiny naval warship gray color. WTH??? The hospitality level, with an exception or two, was commensurate with this look.

But we were not in Orange Beach to bask in a hotel environment, we were there for the beach. And to eat, of course. Most of the eating for the holiday with family came from the condo refrigerator, except the Fitzmorris’s, who remain on a dining mission.

It’s been two trips now and I still haven’t made it to Lambert’s Home of the throwed rolls, because I can’t cajole anyone to accompany me! My daughter now owes me one after LuLu’s, but I am getting ahead of myself.

On the first trip last weekend, I stopped in Fairhope at Little Bird, a brand new place where the chef in-house came from Cochon and Emeril’s. It’s a beautiful place on the edge of Faihope with distinctly different dining spaces. I sat outside because that’s what I do, but inside is beautiful.

The menu at Little Bird is one of those where you may have to work to find something to eat. I settled on the gumbo for a starter and it was one of those “everything” gumbos, though it didn’t have everything. It had shrimp, okra, and andouille in a very dark roux, like chef Bill Baird made so often at Cochon. I asked him if the andouille was coming from Cochon and he said no, but that he would be starting to make his own soon. The gumbo was served with Louisiana popcorn rice, which is just the most delicious grain. I wish I saw it more often. The gumbo was also delicious, but not as fabulous as I expected, given the chef’s resume.

I kept it pretty traditional in the remainder of the order, getting housecut fries and fried oysters for an entree. Process of elimination dictated my selection. The fries came from the “shareables” section, which meant it was an enormous portion, and the oysters were an appetizer that came with a side of coleslaw. This was all plenty enough for me.

None of it blew my mind, but it didn’t have to. I enjoyed it just fine. The fries were mildly disappointing. They were shoestring fries and I usually like a bit more skin, but they were good. Jalapeño aioli was the accompanying sauce for dipping, and that made it a little perky.

The oysters were smallish, which I like. They were fried in cornmeal, which I like. And they came with a housemade hot sauce which I also liked, though I mostly used the sauce for the fries as tartar sauce.

The coleslaw was the wispy vegetable variety, which is my preference, though it was too lightly dressed for my taste. It was still very good, and this was a nice New Orleans-style meal.

Little bird appears to be an evening hangout for people getting Raw Bar seafood. That is not me, and this little lunch suited me just fine. I learned in talking to the owner that it is part of a local group called Deep Roots, and the sister restaurant that came first is a little farther on the outskirts of Fairhope. It is called The Hope Farm, and I resolved to eat there too.

My next opportunity for dining came the following day, when ML and I went down the beach to Coastal, a recommendation from a friend. It was literally walking distance, and is a happening hotspot.

Coastal is enormous, and there are separate dining spots with corresponding kitchens, so menus are similar but with nuanced differences.

We couldn’t decide where to sit because of these subtle differences, like one side has French fries and the other cubed fried potatoes. In the end we chose based on something I saw when I passed a table, which was a strictly brunch item of scrambled eggs in puff pastry. The account of that meal is on nomenu.com., but suffice it to say it was much better than it needed to be based on the setting. It was literally on the beach separated by only some light dunes and sea oats. Gorgeous.

The following day was Saturday, and we strolled around Fairhope’s charming shops. A tiny place nestled between shops caught our eyes. It was called Pearl, and the logo was an oyster shell. It had to be promising. And indeed it was. A smart and sophisticated interior with dark hues, there wasn’t a lot of space for tables. It seated about 40, maybe 50, including at the bar.

We sat in the rear of the space where there was another back bar with a few stools. The process of elimination kicked in again as I searched for something to order. The first course order was Crab and Pimento with grilled French bread slices. And we got an order of Hush Puppies with green onion and honey butter. For an entree I got an appetizer of crawfish rice with ginger, turnip root, cilantro, and a fried egg on top. And ML got short rib with creamy turnip greens and banana peppers.

Everything in these parts seems to have pimento cheese in it somewhere, which is fine because I love pimento cheese, but I seem to have eaten an extraordinary amount these last two weekends. The crab dip was a pretty color, and much looser than I expected, but otherwise it was tasty. I have never met a crostini I didn’t like but these toasted French bread slices didn’t cut it. The grill marks tasted like grill marks, and they were barely toasted. There was plenty of crab meat in the dip, and that is always a plus. 

I liked the hush puppies better than ML. They were fluffy on the inside and had a nice corn taste. The exteriors were crunchy and the butter was a nice sweet and rich contrast to the savory crunch.

My crawfish rice was weird. I got it because it was weird and I wanted to see just how weird it came across. The rice was fine and what’s wrong with crawfish and rice? I always appreciate ginger for its health properties, and that goes double for cilantro. The-fried-egg-on-everything trend annoys me, but eggs are healthy so I deal. This was about what I expected, a bowl of incongruous ingredients that were worth their health properties, but moved me in no other way. I’m always titillated to eat a handful of cilantro sprigs. Seriously.

The short rib entree was even weirder. A gigantic wonk of smoked short rib was placed over a mess of cheesy turnip greens and covered with banana peppers. I have marveled at my mixed feelings about pickled vegetables on meats. I am crazy about pickled vegetables, but I can’t seem to decide what they should be eaten with. Not meat, yet the muffuletta nixes that argument. The banh mi nixes other arguments about this theory, but I hold fast to the complaint about fancy beef dishes and pickled veggies. This was my favorite piece of meat smoked, which is in itself already a downgrade, sauced with a near demi sauce, resting on stringy turnip greens that a cream sauce didn’t fix, and then straddled with a pile of banana peppers. Too much!

The meat was perfectly braised and worth bringing home for a do-over. There a few days later, we rinsed the turnip greens off and the banana peppers from the top and ate just the meat, though the smoking was still a distraction.

While we ate at Pearl we overheard a waitress talking to a nearby table, and the name of a beloved but now defunct restaurant called Fisher’s kept coming up. It seems that Fisher’s alums were in the kitchens and dining rooms of a lot of restaurants in Fairhope. Bill Baird at Little Bird and the creative minds at Pearl have found new homes for their aesthetics and flavors.

We returned to the coast again the following weekend. The first stop was at LuLu’s, a hotspot there owned by hometown guy Jimmy Buffet’s sister. When we arrived I remembered that I had been there before. I had no recollection of the experience though I don’t think I viewed it positively. The place reminded me of the Chimes, a place I described as in need of a good power wash. The food is better at The Chimes.

We started with a cup of gumbo and an order of fried onion rings. This was not a large portion of ordinary onion rings. It occurred to me that at $12 this amounted to about a dollar per onion ring. These were not nearly good enough for that price. The best thing about these was the horseradish remoulade, which was pungent and terrific.

The gumbo was not a lot better. It was ordinary in every way, and a little watery as a bonus.

ML also got a wedge salad which was enormous. It seemed to be a whole head of iceberg cut in half and dropped in a basket, round side up. Plenty of chunky bacon bits and clumps of Bleu cheese dotted the landscape between the half-globes of lettuce.

If one is eating in a place like this a seafood platter seems the obvious choice. I got a combo plate of oysters and shrimp that included fries and coleslaw, as well as hush puppies. The shrimp were a nice size and the oysters were smallish, which works for me. They were fried in cornflour. There were six shrimp and a dozen oysters, which was a generous portion of seafood stacked on a pile of breaded ordinary fries. There was nothing wrong with this seafood plate. It was perfectly fine. I’ve had worse, and I’ve had much better.

I remembered why I didn’t remember going to LuLu’s. It was forgettable.

After a day at the beach we finished the day at the pool. It was there that we started to discuss dinner, which we had no business doing because we were still not hungry from that lunch. I called in to Voyages, the acclaimed restaurant at Perdido Beach Resort. They were “fully committed” for the evening, as I expected, so I asked if we could sit at the bar. I was informed that there was no bar. Huh? I asked if someone could call me if there was a cancellation and they told me to keep checking back.

I called 90 minutes later and the story was the same, so we headed down to Coastal again. This time we sat in the section they call The Lawn, where the floor is turf and there is no indoor space. There was a table at the beach which we asked for and got.

It was dusk, and someone on the beach had a lighted sign that said MARRY ME. I love when this serendipity happens. It was festive down on the beach, and we were delighted to be onlookers. But you really couldn’t see much after dark because they kept the lights off for the turtles. A yellow light hangs from the umbrella that is used to see menus. Unfortunately, it’s not helpful to see what you are eating. The menu is really abbreviated, so we got more pimento cheese. And we got a burger and fries to split.

This version of the pimento cheese was completely different from the other kitchen’s version. Here was a dark look, with blueberry preserves cascading from the top into a dark pool on the plate. Nuts and pieces of blueberry made for a tasty contrast to the sharp pimento cheese. More of the housemade crackers were on the plate, which was exactly like the other nuts and honey version of the pimento cheese from the other side. Both plates had red grapes and fruit as accompaniments, and were garnished with an orchid flower.

Coastal does a very nice plate of pimento cheese and I’ll bet they sell an awful lot of it. The darker version was my preference, and the lighter one ML liked more. Both were excellent.

I was astonished at how great the burger that followed this was. Last week on the other side the burger looked just fine. This one was exceptionally good. It was the right size and thickness, melted cheese oozing from the sides, with crunchy house pickles and a mushroom demiglace sauce. The bun was just right, and this was a really tasty sandwich. The fries were ordinary, but this burger definitely was not.

We left Coastal after a lovely evening, not missing our chance to dine at Voyages.

The following morning ML had to return to Sweet Cone Alabama, an ice cream shop she’s obsessed with. We got two waffle cones with a single scoop in each, and the screen said $18! Is this normal? I need to start paying more attention.

On the way back home we stopped at The Hope Farm, the sister restaurant of Little Bird, and the flagship restaurant for the group known as Deep Roots. We had planned a return for me at Little Bird, but when I told ML about Hope Farm, we both decided the menu looked more promising there. 

It was so promising narrowing down the choices was impossible. We need a return visit. I was shocked to see Monte Cristo sliders on this menu. I have had a fascination with this sandwich since I first saw it in the cafeteria at The Grand Canyon. A fried sandwich dusted with powdered sugar? Who came up with this? I didn’t know then that I would one day be describing it as a savory French sandwich served with raspberry or blueberry jam or syrup for dipping. This idea was so exotic to a girl from Kenner I have to get it when I see it. Here were it was Monte Cristo sliders? Done.

And there was a pastry basket that sounded great when the waiter described it but there was also a biscuit board on the app menu and we decided on that. This is the second "Biscuit board” we have seen in a month. I asked the waiter if it was a cut biscuit or a drop biscuit, but his stare made me glad I didn’t phrase it “cut biscuit universe”, or “drop biscuit universe.” We weren’t deterred, choosing the Biscuit Board.,small size, containing two biscuits, maple butter and syrup.

Entrees were a much tougher call. We wanted everything. There was a pork belly Reuben, a French dip, and a short rib Birria bowl, Migas, Steak Frites, and a smash burger. We settled on the French Dip and the Birria bowl.

The Monte Crist0 sliders came and I had never seen anything like these. They looked like biscuits. Fluffy and high, with a hint of cheese peeking out the side. They were very lightly dusted with the powdered sugar. Inside was a slice of Swiss cheese and Benton’s ham. I am not a Benton’s fan. I find the flavors of this processed ham out of Tennessee to be way too strong for me. I call it the “European” taste where I imagine pork to be air-curing for months. This is true of their bacon as well.

But I couldn’t help delighting in the sandwich, which was so rich ML said she’d be sick if she kept eating it. But nostalgia kept me coming back for more. If someone wanted to try a Monte Cristo, this would be starting at the apex. I have never encountered such a highfalutin’ version of this high falutin’ sandwich. It was more than I had hoped for. In this case I ate more of the syrup than I am usually inclined to eat, offsetting the Benton’s ham flavor.

Next to arrive was the Biscuit Board. On it were two very ordinary circular cut biscuits. I almost never see circular biscuits that are cut, but here they were, looking uninteresting. And they were room temp. I asked for them to be toasted, and to also have some regular butter. ML remarked as they left the table that if a restaurant is offering a “Biscuit Board,” shouldn’t the biscuits be special? When they returned and the regular butter melted into the toasted biscuit, they were much better. Still not particularly special, but much better.

The entrees arrived and the Birria bowl was missing its fried egg, which suited ML fine. She doesn’t understand any more than I do why everything now has to be topped with a fried egg, so its absence was a relief. The waiter brought it for me, because I wanted to eat it as a breakfast item with the biscuit. I’m glad I didn’t get my usual American breakfast, because I'm sure the bacon would have been Benton’s.

The Birria bowl was very good. ML loved the rice in particular, which was fancy Carolina gold rice, and the corn, avocado, cilantro sprigs and pickled onions made it pleasing to the eye with its mix of colors. And the broth was rich as always. Both of us love the intensity and mouthfeel of Birria. The way the flavors and textures played off each other was refreshing.

I love French dip whenever I see it, but I find it salty. As I have said many times, salty is not a problem for me, but in the case of French dip I find it at the threshold. This French dip had a different problem. The short rib was divine as always, but there was a Mornay sauce on this sandwich that I found off putting. It was not a very good Mornay sauce, which may have been the problem because usually I love it. This had more Bechamel than cheese. I am not a fan of Bechamel at all, so this ruined the French dip for me. 

The sandwich came with great housecut fries that were old-fashioned fatter fries, not shoestring, with the proper amount of skin and a dusting of coarse salt. Really good fries. There was a jus for dipping alongside thie sandwich, and a spicy ketchup for the fries.

Although the food was very good but not spectacular, this was a spectacular lunch. The Hope Farm is such a gorgeous place and the vibe was so local and welcoming that we loved the experience. We can’t wait to return to The Hope Farm and try the fast-casual space next door, called The Barn. Good stuff.