Monday, November 8. A Buffet Works Its Magic. Good News. Diane Newman called this morning. After she had to cancel dinner last week, I sent her an e-mail with the matter I wanted to discuss at the table: moving the radio show one hour earlier. She seems agreeable to the idea and thinks it will happen, but she needs to run it through the station organization first. My fingers are crossed.
Lunchtime. Mary Ann and I performed the rite of restaurant choosing. She says she won't be eating much, and that I can pick the place. I know this doesn't allow me to choose anything exotic or grubby. Still, she rarely goes along with my ideas. In this case, it was the Camellia Café in Abita Springs. I was hungry for a roast beef poor boy, probably because I currently have no fewer than five radio sponsors that serve them. Talking or writing about a dish makes me hungry for it. Do-it-to-yourself food porn.
Of course, she didn't like the suggestion. But she was happy she went along. The Camellia Café had something new: a buffet. That explained the full parking lot and dining room. We had to wait for a table. On no previous visit have I seen this place more than one-third full.
The buffet was modest in size. What it contained, however, was good enough to make Mary Ann giddy with delight. Fried chicken, which she said was as hot as if it had just come out of the fryer. Red beans and rice, green beans, corn, salad, some little desserts, and a few other odds and ends. The price was $9.95. All you can eat! A promise like that overwhelms considerations of goodness. Even if the food is delicious, as it was here. All you can eat!! I'll bet Mary Ann would not have been persuaded to come here for standard menu fried chicken and red beans, but here she was eating it.
I remained true to my hunger for a roast beef sandwich, which was pretty good but not as good as the last one I had here. The beef was sliced too thickly, and was sliced along the grain instead of across it, making it tougher than it should have been. It did taste as if it had been cooked on the premises, though.
But the conversation did not long leave MA's delight with this buffet. She felt she had to give a speech to defend its honor, knowing my disdain for that method of serving. Well, at least I won't have any trouble getting her to have lunch or dinner at the Camellia Café, whose food I find pretty good if you cherrypick around the gimmicky, chain-style dishes.
Camellia Cafe. Abita Springs: 69455 LA 59. 985-809-6313.
