Dining Around Town

Christmas time offers extra special eating in New Orleans Restaurants that are dinner-only will open for lunch in December, and of course there are Réveillons. And there are some special December prix fixe menus only for the month. I try to experience as many of these as I can.

The first one that attracted me was Palm & Pine, a restaurant that fascinates me with its stark contrasts of downscale vibe and upscale food. This year they did a series of Friday lunches that were different from the usual prix fixe options. It was a la carte with the exception of a prix fixe 3-course “Extravaganza” on the 19th. I was running errands that Friday and had to pick it up. While this was not ideal, the food is so expertly prepared here the intrinsic goodness was unfazed.

The apps looked good and I had a hard time deciding between a hogshead cheese eggroll and Shrimp Remoulade with amped-up Saltine crackers. It used to be just Saltines, and those were good enough. But somewhere in 2020 I saw the supercharged Saltines. It was at the brand new Anchor in Madisonville. One of my favorite chefs ever, Michael Gottlieb, was serving deviled crab and pimento cheese as a combo with this special version of ordinary soda crackers.

They’re everywhere now, and since I love them, the ubiquity is welcome. The Shrimp Remoulade these accompanied was called Shrimp Rampart Royale. It was described as a red remoulade sauce, but it was a hybrid of white remoulade and red remoulade, with a horseradish component as intense as the original red one at Arnaud’s. It makes a statement. The shrimp are smallish (a trait I prefer) and it’s served with shredded lettuce. The combination of the shrimp, creamy sauce and the flavored crackers was wonderful. The sauce was so hot the coolness of the lettuce was helpful.

I also got the hot sausage stuffed dates. The hot sausage was so spicy it was red. It was wrapped in the dates and then in bacon. I expected this to be a crumble but it was a solid piece of sausage. The sweetness in the dates slightly offset all this spice. To add to all this flavor, this dish was served with a Romesco sauce that included pecans. Delicious.

The entree I ordered was Gulf Fish Pontchartrain, which was Drum. It was served with haricots verts and lots and lots of butter. The crust was other seafood, like crab and shrimp and bread crumbs, making for a crunchy crust. This was also intensely flavored, as everything here is. And the butter coats everything. Husband and wife team Amarys and Jordan Herndon are not afraid to use butter and seasonings and anything to bring robust flavor to their food.

The following night I found myself in the charming Bayou St. John neighborhood on a beautiful evening. The destination was Cafe Degas for their Réveillon menu. I have passed Cafe Degas a lot, but only dined there once. I remember liking it, but this time i was enchanted. The entire block was lit with Christmas lights, and inside Cafe Degas there was a happy holiday buzz. The place reminds me of a treehouse, complete with a tree growing right through the dining room. It had a glittering red bow tied around the trunk. We sat on one side of this tree.

Only one of us got the Réveillon menu, and our French waiter didn’t care. That was nice. One of us got only the onion soup, and there was so much to eat in the Réveillon menu we split a lot of that. He was most accommodating. 

The meal started with a Bibb lettuce salad that was actually fluffy. It had heirloom tomatoes scattered about, as well as cucumbers and carrots and sliced purple onion, and toasted almonds. All this was tied together with a perfect French vinaigrette. To my taste, a well made French vinaigrette is the ultimate salad dressing, and this was a delicious version of a French dressing. I loved this colorful salad, and there was so much two of us ate comfortably from it.

I was working on the onion soup, which was a visual masterpiece. A cliché French onion soup, this had a cheesy crust which sealed in lava-like heat. This was not the best version of onion soup I have had. Tom made the definitive version (recipe in nomenu.com/recipes) but this was very good. The soup broth was a little blonde for my taste, and the onions were plentiful. I loved this anyway. I had to wait a long time to eat it, which only added to its appeal.

The next course on the Réveillon was also mostly a salad. It had enormous lightly-battered cornmeal crusted oysters. They were greaseless, golden brown, and fried to perfection, to use a much-overused term. But it does fit here.

Also part of this ensemble was Char Siu Pork Belly and pickled vegetables.  The fiery Cantonese sauce on this was definitely as spicy as expected, but delectable. I have had better pork belly than the pieces on this plate, which seemed excessively fatty, but this was still a great dish.

The third course was one of my favorites anywhere. Duck Confit was perched over White Bean Cassoulet, and there was a smattering of buttery haricots verts on top of this. This was also not the best version of Duck Confit because the skin was not as crisped as I like. But it was tender and full of the hearty flavor that makes this peasant dish so beloved. The beans were cooked to the sweet spot and creamy enough to hold their shape, being soft and firm at the same time. Wonderful. The green beans were great too.

The last dish was a favorite of mine. Pots de Crème is irresistible to me. This was a large portion of very dark chocolate Pots de Crème topped with strawberry slices and blueberries, with a dollop of whipped cream in the center. This came with port wine, which we told them to save for someone else.

We left Cafe Degas and walked down the street taking in the lights and the spirit. Just being there made me happy. I can’t wait to return to  Cafe Degas. The place is magical, and it has nothing to do with Christmas.

A Tavola is running a December menu of 3 courses for $45, so I went to see what it was about. The soup of the day was stuffed artichoke soup, so I had to add that to this menu. I was glad the table was full of people, because I would need help with this. One got the panini sandwich special and the other a Chicken Alfredo lunch. And one would help me with this menu.

The soup was a little thinner than I expected, but it had a nice flavor. There could have been more to this all around, but anything remotely resembling stuffed artichoke in any way is okay with me.

The first course was Spinach Ravioli Fritti, and I chose a Tuscan-style orecchiette pasta dish for the entree. The dessert was tiramisu, no choice there. I asked to swap it for the chocolate hazelnut torte, which came with espresso ice cream. I asked for a second swap and they obliged both.

The fritti was a portion of six fried ravioli heavily coated in breadcrumbs before frying, and topped in a luscious red sauce. It’s not a cooked-all-day sauce but neither is it fresh and pungent. It was smooth and thick and a perfect red color with a taste to match. Delicious, though I would have preferred "untoasted" ravioli.

The Tuscan pasta had a heavy dose of kale. I hate kale, and got this anyway, thinking it would be a less generous portion of kale. But the portions were generous with every element of this dish The Italian sausage was plentiful as well and crumbled throughout. There were also plenty of cannellini beans. It wasn’t really a cream sauce that held it all together. It was more Parmesan cheese with wet pasta, which creates its own “sauce,” like in cacio e pepe. I liked this okay. It was the cannellini beans that attracted me to this dish. I love them. They were the basis of two separate dishes in two separate courses on this menu, which seemed redundant.

The dessert was a big hit at this table of chocolate fans. It resembled a brownie in texture and had Fior di Latte (vanilla gelato) on top, with a dollop of whipped cream and bits of nuts. This disappeared quickly.

The waitress told us that menus like this are offered to try out the dishes. I wouldn’t get this again. I’ve always had much better food at A Tavola. And I know I will again.