Monday, June 28. New Orleans Hamburger. Little Oysters, Big Wedge At Acme. The house sparkles, as the Oedipus dynamic grabs hold of Mary Ann in advance of the arrival of Jude tonight. Like many mothers, Mary Ann worships her son and barely tolerates her husband. Oh, well--no sense fighting that. There clearly is some survival value for the species in it, even though I don't want to think about what it might be.
Mary Ann did deign to have lunch with me, to talk about matters that we didn't talk about. She suggested New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood Company. But wait--we had hamburgers yesterday! But she didn't want a hamburger there, but a salad. I reviewed the place a few months ago, right before they changed the menu a lot. The first thing that caught my eye is that hamburgers can now be said to cost ten dollars in a lot of places. Plenty of other dishes, though, beckoned to be tried for the first time.
For me, those were a cup of gumbo and a catfish platter. You place your order at a counter, put a number on your table, and they bring to food out to you. This creates the illusion that the stuff is cooked to order. And, in the early days of this local chain, they did. They didn't today. The catfish was warm but not hot. And they forgot the gumbo entirely, and even after the server noticed this without my telling him, it was another five minutes until he brought it out. Just as well. It wasn't very good.
Mary Ann was even less pleased by a chicken salad she ordered. The vegetable part of it was riddled with lettuce leaves bearing large stems. She picked the stems out and had enough of them to create another salad, if an unappetizing one. The chicken was even worse, with a sort of cold-cuts kind of texture.
Nevertheless, the place was packed. Making a profit with a restaurant and serving good food in it are not mutually exclusive goals, but each can be achieved without doing the other. It's clear what the main goal is here.
Mary Leigh, who has been across the lake palling around with her buds for the past couple of days, returned home in the middle of the radio show. She wanted to be taken to dinner, specifically at the Acme Oyster House. Although that has been the default restaurant when the two of us sup during the past three years or so, we have not been there in five weeks.
I was eager to see how the oysters were. They had them, and the price had not risen. But they were from west Louisiana and Texas, and were small. The size is normal this time of year. They made up for it with an extra grilled oyster.
Still full from lunch, I had the same wedge salad ML did. The amount of blue cheese on that thing may be worth at retail more than the five dollars they charge for the salad. We agree that it's the finest blue cheese wedge in town.
New Orleans Hamburger & Seafood Co. Mandeville: 3900 LA 22. 985-624-8035. Hamburgers. Seafood. Salads.
Acme Oyster House. Covington: 1202 US 190 (Causeway Blvd.). 985-246-6155. Seafood.
