[title type="h6"]Thursday, September 26, 2013.[/title]
Strange coincidences appeared this week. I didn't realize they were going on until we were in mid-collision. We had two Eat Club events on the schedule this week--already a rare occurrence. Yesterday's was at Galvez, which before Katrina was Bella Luna. The owner of Bella Luna was Chef Horst Pfiefer, whose main business now is Middendorf's. Where we are having tonight's feast.
And there's more. Within the next few weeks will be the twentieth anniversary of the first Eat Club dinner. Somehow, I let the exact date vanish from memory, but I do know it was in October or November of 1993. I hold the Eat Club up as the best idea I ever had for the radio show. Everyone loves it: the restaurants, the station management, the listeners and readers who dine with me, and me myself.
And here's the funny part. The very first Eat Club dinner was prepared for us by. . . Chef Horst Pfeifer. At Bella Luna. Hmm. That's. . . slightly interesting.
The Eat Club dinner at Middendorf's tonight pulls its own traditions behind it. Horst--a native of Southern Germany, the home of Oktoberfest--celebrates that season of fun and beer with traditional Oktoberfest menus through the eponymous month. It makes eminent sense for Middendorf's, whose name alone trumpets its own 1930s German roots. The Eat Club is here to take part.
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Middendorf's seafood platter.[/caption]
Of course, you can't go to Middendorf's without chowing down on fried catfish, oysters and shrimp, boiled shrimp and crabs and hush puppies. Which we did, from a frequently-reloaded buffet in the new Middendorf's building. Its ancient cypress bar put out German wines and beer from Abita with no limits.
The Oktoberfest part of the feast began with a platter of bratwurst (the best single item of the night), seared pork belly and slow-braised pork loin. With a big soft pretzel on the side.
Next came a combo plate of some of the entrees Horst plans to serve over the next few weeks. (He changes the German dishes every week.) We sampled a thick slice of sauerbraten, the wine-marinated beef pot roast with the tang suggested by the name. And a slice of wiener schnitzel that appeared to have been deep-fried instead of pan-fried the way it's supposed to be. This gave it a texture a lot like that of the catfish. But turning out seventy wiener schnitzels simultaneously is a challenge.
Also on this plate were homemade spaetzle noodles, the little knurdles of pasta among which no two are alike. And braised red cabbage.
Two desserts: a very dense Black Forest cake, a bit too rich for me but otherwise enjoyable. And a segment of apple strudel, a hard thing not to like.
The Eat Clubbers had a fine time, and there were enough of them that some familiar faces from the past suddenly loomed out of the crowd and made me say more than once, "I didn't know you were here!"
Through all this feasting Julie Council played German tunes on her trademark little red accordion. I hadn't seen her in awhile, either.
I finally got a chance to talk with Horst as the celebrants began to leave. "I've sold the Foundry," he said, speaking of the large party and meeting space he built out of a heavy old warehouse, in the district of the same name. It will go down in history as the place where Horst--spending his nights in the building--fed and watered the police, Army, National Guard, and other disaster relievers in the days through and after Katrina.
"I have a few more parties I'll handle there between now and next summer," he said. "But after that, I want to slow down a little bit."
Well he should. He and his wife Karen are clearly having fun with Middendorf's. For the season, they made two gigantic straw-stuffed dolls--Hansel and Gretel--in front of a barn that looks like something out of a book of German fables. It's in the back of the restaurant, where the Pfeifers raise chickens--not to eat, but as pets. "The kids love looking at all of that," Horst said.
Horst asked me to mention somewhere that his annual Oktoberfest menu at Middendorf's is on just Wednesdays and Thursdays through the end of the month. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, Middendorf's is so jammed with seafood eaters that the kitchen can barely keep up, let alone wit a special menu to vend as well.
Middendorf's. River Parishes: Exit 15 off I-55, Manchac. 985-386-6666.
