Monday, April 2, 2012.
The Old 300. Light Eating Day. DiMartino's.
It was a simple enough message. One of my readers who lives far away from New Orleans says she's coming here as part of her honeymoon trip. She wants to know which are the best restaurants for a grand dinner. The answer to that question depends so much on one's own taste that when I'm asked it I direct the writer to my list of the 300 best restaurants.
I went to that article to check the directions to it, and was distressed to find that it's been over a year since I updated it. That discovery turned what started out early as a relatively loose day into one with more for me to do than could be done in a week.
So I told the honeymooner to go either to Commander's Palace or Restaurant August. That's what the list would have told her, anyway.
Mary Ann gives me my choice of meals on Mondays: lunch or dinner, the former preferred. We both wanted something simple. This was found at DiMartino's, the muffuletta specialist that has grown into a much more varied kitchen. The best dish here, for example, is grilled redfish with a side of spaghetti bordelaise. Only the order-at-the-counter aspect of the service makes it less than a good neighborhood place.
My body said salad. DiMartino's makes one with artichokes and olives over greens and tomatoes, with shrimp or chicken for the protein options. Chicken, I said, as the order-taker took the order. She had already survived Mary Ann's several departures from the menu standards with a smile. So why did my next request stop her cold?
She said, "That salad comes with Caesar dressing on the side. Is that okay?" I guess she was asking whether I'd prefer a dressing other than Caesar. But what I asked for was to have the salad tossed with the dressing.
A cup of dressing on the side is an artifact of over-programmed kitchen operations. It takes less time to grab an already-plated salad from the refrigerator, put the grilled chicken on top of it and a cup of dressing on the side. A salad can't have the dressing added in advance, because it wilts the greens. But how long does it take to dump the plateful of greens into a bowl, pour on the dressing, give it two or three strokes, and put it back on the plate? Too long, say the restaurant industry's time-and-motion studies. And it doesn't matter if it makes the salad twice as good.
This request threw the kitchen. It proved that they had no idea how much dressing to put on a salad, and what I wound up with was a salad soup, flooded with dressing. I'll stop complaining now--it wasn't bad, really. But I keep wondering what this says about the skills of chain-driven restaurant kitchens. Take their formulas away, and they don't know what to do.
An enormous line of thunderstorms came through during the radio show and most of the night. The power didn't go out, but I'll bet a few trees came down.
DiMartino's. Covington: 700 S Tyler St. 985-276-6460.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
