[title type="h6"]Monday, September 23, 2013.[/title]
[dropcap1]M[/dropcap1]y favorite part of the hour-long walk I take three or four times a week is that it makes me sleep very well that night. And after two days of considering the consequences of the new radio schedule, I needed a good eight hours last night. and I got them.
I wrote most of today's Menu Daily last night, too, out of necessity. This morning, I had to be in the station at eleven for a meeting with the boss and the big boss, at which I would try to persuade them that leaving my radio show put was necessary to the currents that keep it afloat and moving. But they countered with all the reasons why the Food Show had to move to noon. Most of them hinged on a plan to turn WWWL (the former WSMB, and my radio home for twenty-five years) from an afterthought into a serious player. I have to admit that adding two new live, local programs is a big investment on their part. Mine has been the only daily local program on WWWL for almost all of the last two decades. They're also talking about stepping up online delivery of WWWL's programs.
The meeting did not exactly go my way. The next few days would find my mind filled with alternative strategies, but after thinking them through it was clear that the only way I could get out of moving to noon was to get out of radio entirely. Even though I know the day will come when that will happen, I'm not ready for it to happen now.
So there I was, with Spud McConnell and Christian Garic and T-Bob Hebert, making an hour-long appearance on Garland Robinette's show to announce all the changes. Garland had already spent an hour with Angela Hill--his former co-anchor on Channel Four and one-time wife, and now the host who will follow him at middays on WWL. We had a bunch of pictures taken.
No sense in letting this turn me into a crank. It's not the end of the world. I have now survived nine consecutive radio station format changes. In the radio business, that must be considered a miracle.
Mary Ann and I met for lunch at Criollo, the new restaurant in the Monteleone Hotel. MA is turned on by the looks of the place, and with good reason. Other than R'evolution, Criollo is the handsomest restaurant to open around town in years. That's an easier distinction to gain than it once was. Lately, most new restaurants seem to have been designed with maximum faux seediness in mind. Pêche, to name one recent example, retains nearly every aspect of its warehouse past, including the din.
I was running a little late. I walked from the station to Criollo, and literally got caught in traffic. Iberville Street through the French Quarter is being ripped up down to its ancient cobblestones, and resurfaced with a kind of concrete that requires massive pieces of equipment to lay down, blocking the sidewalks as it does.
So she was already eating an appetizer of truffled macaroni and cheese. I caught up to her with a cup of turtle soup. A rare case: the mac was better than the soup. The latter must proceed from some old Monteleone recipe going back decades. I can't imagine anyone inventing a recipe like this on purpose. As a generic soup it was all right, but turtle soup needs more excitement than this.
Then the woman who is fasting one or two days a week ordered osso buco for her entree. It was pork osso buco, cooked slowly until it was falling apart, like pulled pork shoulder. In fact, that's the cut being used here, just presented differently. She loved it, and so did I.
But my entree was better. Fillet of pompano, served with a chunky sauce of butter, capers, little tomatoes, and firmly-cooked yams. The sauce overstated its flavors for the wonderfulness of pompano. But overall this was a very fine dish, and generously served, given the $17 price.
The dessert, improbably, even exceeded the goodness of the fish. It was a mille-feuille ("a thousand leaves") layered with pastry cream and several kinds of fresh berries. This was just luscious. The only things wrong were a) it was enough for two, 2) MA doesn't eat dessert and iii) I couldn't stop eating it.
It was at this lunch that we had our most radical brainstorming session anent the radio situation. We had a couple of intriguing ideas, but they would fade when we shone the light of reality on them in the next few days.
I got back to the radio station in time to take a nap on the floor of my studio. That space has doubled as my office since the station moved there after Katrina. But now it will be in use by other programs at most of the times when I need a place to write. Indeed, I brought this up during the meeting. I was told that there may be a chance I can get a private office--something very few people in our facility have. That made me feel better right there.
The Marys were up for supper after I got off the air. The first idea was Ignatius Eatery. It's on my list for review now that it's well-ensconced in its new, larger location. I like the look of the new place. With its tiled floors, tall ceilings and antique bar and fixtures, it had the look of a very old neighborhood restaurant. It reminded me a little of Tujague's before its recent restoration.
When I ate at Ignatius in its first location, I was very pleased by the roast beef poor boy and the gumbo. A scan of the menu showed that not much of its menu has changed, although it does appear to have more plate specials than I recall.
We were waiting for Mary Leigh and The Boy to arrive, and requested an order of fries to while the minutes away. I'm glad we did that, because here are some of the most perfectly-rendered pommes frites I've encountered in ages. They are candidates for best in town, I told MA. She eats fries more often than I do, and when she's impressed, we are talking about very fine fries indeed.
She didn't like the place, though, nor the New-Age look of the tattoos on the people walking by. It's Magazine Street, I told her. Magazine Street has always been yeasty. That's what's special about it.
Still, I can tell when she's uncomfortable. Did she want to leave? No, she said. I also can tell when "no" means "yes." In this case, it did. By this time I had a catfish poor boy on order. I asked the waiter to make it up to go, and to bring the check.
While waiting for the check to be negotiated, I ate half the poor boy. It was excellent: hot, crisp fish, toasted bread. They made it exactly as I requested, with just pickles and remoulade sauce. Another big pile of ideal fries accompanied the sandwich. These guys are good. I'll call my sister Lynn to come with me next time.
What I also know about MA is that when she rejects something or other, she often chooses an alternative very similar to the original proposal. As she did today: Company Burger, another sandwich specialist with a hip clientele (not as many tattoos, though, I'll admit) and hamburgers. The Marys' favorite thing.
This was my first time at Company Burger, which gets good commentary from all sources. Mary Ann says that the place isn't much in terms of looks. Indeed, I'd say it was much less attractive than Ignatius.
I will give Company Burger this: it puts out a very flavorful hamburger. The patties are neither extravagantly thick nor wide. This is, I think, the perfect size for a hamburger, for a variety of reasons. Judging by its flavor, the specifications for this meat are clearly near the top. The meat is cooked on a flat-top grill generating a lot of heat. The only better method, I think, is over hot charcoal. They could dial up the sear a bit, I'd say. But that's a minor matter.
Like most other restaurants in the miraculous Freret Street dining strip, Company Burger has a lot of unexpected rules. I saw a waitress wearing a T-shirt with this on the back: BYOL&T. Bring your own lettuce and tomatoes? Really, what's that about?
Fries were good, but not in a league with the ones we left behind at Ignatius. Sauces of various kinds were available to dress the burgers. I can see why Company Burger is popular with the college crowd. But it's not a place where I will often exhaust my 1.2-hamburgers- a-month limit.
To paraphrase a cartoon caption I saw once: "Someday, there will be no more room for another gourmet hamburger restaurant, regardless of its quality."
Criollo. French Quarter: 214 Royal. 504-523-3341.
Ignatius Eatery. Uptown: 3121 Magazine St. 504-896-2225.
Company Burger. Uptown: 4600 Freret St. 504-267-0320.
