Misunderstanding Mandina's

One day an email came in from a name I recognized, but it was not a person I actually knew. When the kids were littleTom was often on the South Shore at dinner and soon after ML was born, the Eat Club Dinners began. These were born out of necessity, and only now am I understanding the necessity. It is simply impossible for one person to eat as much as is required to write constantly about food. 

In the beginning, the Eat Club was such a small group, a table for eight sufficed. It became an entirely different entity when ten or twenty tables for eight were required. 

The aforementioned email came from one of the original eight Eat Clubbers. He has since moved to Indianapolis after he got married to a girl from there, but they are here four times a year. She loves it as much as he does. These two were inviting me to lunch at Mandina’s, a place I almost never go. I have often picked on Mandina’s as being one of those “institutions” with only history to offer now. But I continue to return whenever I am invited in the hopes that I will discover what I am missing about the place.

It is indeed an institution, with a N’awlins charm that few still have. It is filled with enthusiastic locals and visitors alike, though I often wonder if the visitors return to their Ubers scratching their heads. The menu at Mandina’s is so large and so Old School I could go just to read it. It’s overwhelming to me, and I almost always order wrong. (Something Tom always said about me. I concur.) In perusing the menu while I waited for them (they were literally driving to Mandina’s from the airport) I noticed two things I wasn’t expecting. One was Buster Crabs. The other was Daube and spaghetti, a special for that day.

We talk a lot about Daube and spaghetti on The Food Show because I have fond memories of it from childhood. It’s almost a mythical Sicilian dish that had gone so far out of vogue as to be in danger of extinction. I am seeing it more and more on menus now, almost always as a special. I had to get it this day, if for no other reason than to talk about it on The Food Show.

And the other thing I never expected to see here was Buster Crabs. I adore Buster Crabs. Tom introduced them to me when we first started dating, because they were a hip menu item around town in the heyday of the “Contemporary Creole Revolution” as he dubbed a period of the mid 1980s into the 1990s. There was a small group of eclectic restaurants (Grill Room, Upperline, Flagon’s, Gautreau’s, Mr. B’s, Brigtsen’s, Clancy’s, and later Pelican Club) doing eclectic upscale food that was a thrilling interpretation of the classics. Buster Crabs were a ubiquitous menu item in these places, and always in the same presentation. They were served as Amandine: brown butter with mounds of toasted almond slivers. These were sublime, everywhere we went.

It shocked me to imagine Mandina’s doing something so delicate, so fancy, so gourmet. But here, the Buster Crabs were downscale, and equally delicious. Here they were served as the usual duo, but this time napped with a fantastic Remoulade sauce. They were served over shredded lettuce and accompanied by boiled shrimp. My apologies to Mandina’s. These were every bit as sensational as any I remember from the old days. I have thought about this dish as often as I have the old preparations of these delicate little wonders. Fantastic. 

The crabs were deep-fried and totally greaseless, golden brown and meaty. The cold crisp and fresh shreds of iceberg lettuce were wonderful with the Remoulade sauce, and the boiled shrimp were the perfect size (not too small or too large) and plentiful enough to add another whole dimension to this dish. I would go back just for this. But now my interest about the rest of Mandina's is piqued…

What was notable about this was that my companions had the seafood platter which was a pile of deep-fried things, and I thought that some of that fried seafood was not totally greaseless. Some were and some weren’t, proving that it’s not all dropped in the same tub. Nevertheless, this was still an ample and decent seafood platter.

My Daube and spaghetti was enough for four people. I couldn’t tell what the meat was, but just talking about Daube meat sparked an entire show’s worth of discussion. This Daube was sliced, which is something I've never seen. It was tender but much more integrated into the spaghetti than usual. And the Mandina's red sauce is gravy. Red gravy was what it was called before the new-fangled term sauce made it sound fancy. It is cooked all day, thick, sweet, and tomatoey, just like all the Sicilian mamas made.

I remember Daube as a moderate slab of Chuck roast. I have seen it in places as a large chunk of brisket, but it is always beef as a chunk rather than ground as for meatballs or Bolognese sauce, though all the other elements are the same. Just the mention of Chuck roast as Daube forced an old-timer listener to call The Food Show and take me to task. He sounded like something out of The Sopranos, and his gravelly voice chided me that real Sicilians make Daube only with veal calf. He was disturbed that he couldn’t find this at the store any more, so his Daube could no longer be the official New Orleans Daube. We got a few calls about where to get it, including from Nicole Dorignac, who assured him it would be there. The Food Show turned noble.

And no visit to Mandina’s is authentic without devouring old fashioned garlic bread, which still comes to the table complimentary. Free bread is as antique as Mandina’s itself. I think restaurants stopped serving it because they threw away so much of it when people started cutting down on carbs. But that bread was not as good as the Mandina’s garlic bread. It’s an institution in itself.

I am scheduled to do a Réveillon with these same folks from Indianapolis. The last visit was so enjoyable I look forward to it. And if they ever ask to return to Mandina’s, I may actually look forward to that too. Our first visit there together made me rethink the place entirely.