Saturday, October 9. Katie's Subs For Mosca's. It couldn't last. The autumn weather has gone away, and we're in the nineties again. For two weeks it felt like the week before Christmas around here.
Mary Ann's scheme du jour is that we'll gather a big group and go to Mosca's for dinner tonight. A number of people we know are in town from the cities where they live. They don't know one another, but Mary Ann sees this is a way to kill a number of social obligations at one time. I can't say this is a good motivation, but I needn't worry about it: such events never come to pass.
But as of five o'clock--after I babbled through a three-hour radio show and hit the Causeway to meet everybody on the South Shore--the plan was still that we would meet up with a gang of people at Mosca's and try to get a table.
Unless you're standing outside the door when the place opens, I don't think it's an especially good idea to go to a popular restaurant on Saturday night. Let alone one with the enormous base of regular customers that Mosca's enjoys. Or one that doesn't take reservations, as Mosca's doesn't on Saturday night. Certainly the prospects are troublesome when everybody in the house is a V.I.P., as is usually the case at Mosca's.
When I arrived at Tulane, Mary Leigh had no idea what was going on, except that she and MA had gotten into it earlier in the day. On the phone, MA was miffed with everybody. None of the people she thought would be overjoyed to drop everything for her plan of the moment could make it tonight. Except two, and they didn't want to go all the way to Mosca's, which is a long drive from anywhere.
My heart sank. First, the difficulties in going there notwithstanding, my appetite had been embracing the idea of a dinner at Mosca's all day long.
Second, I knew that I would have to be the one to decide on a dinner venue, Mary Ann having washed her hands of the job. And that I could rattle off ideas for an hour and never really please her, because what she wanted to do was just forget about dinner entirely and go home. Parents' Weekend at Tulane had failed to deliver what she wanted out of it--whatever that was. The Tulane football team had even let her down, losing its homecoming game this afternoon by a good margin.
We might have ended the night right there in front of ML's dorm. But the two people who were up for dinner with us were now there. The Chamberses are the parents of Mary Leigh's roommate Melinda. Melinda and ML became friends at McGehee, and they have got on famously as roommates.
My third restaurant suggestion seemed to please everyone but you-know-who. Katie's, where I dined just two days ago. I often go to the same restaurant several times in short order when I'm gathering info for a review. A party of six would finish this job. It even worked for Melinda, a vegetarian. Plenty of pasta, pizza, and salad at Katie's.
We were early enough to get a big table easily. The place was full fifteen minutes later. I gave the bar its first test, which it passed with flying colors by serving up a very generous, cold martini. We put in an order for onion rings. These were the thick kind--not my preference--but were so well made that they were thoroughly enjoyable. Especially with a martini.
The table split into three separate conversations: mom with mom, daughter with daughter, dad with dad. Melinda's father has a fascinating job. He's a bio-statistician, working for the big drug companies. He quantifies results of medical tests and studies them to find trends, patterns, or unexpected phenomena. This requires insight and non-linear thinking, I imagined. He confirmed that, and said that he's authored dozens of papers and peer-reviewed articles in his field. The only problem with the gig is that it requires him to spend a lot of time in Philadelphia.
The next batch of food included stuffed potato skins (I haven't seen those in years), salads, and gumbo. The star among the entrees was a striking presentation of lasagna. It's baked individually in a soufflee baking dish. It looked appetizing and delivered that promise in the taste department. Melinda shared a veggie pizza, but it was on the girls' side of the table and I couldn't reach it.
Mary Ann and I both had sandwiches. I followed through on my curiosity about the roast beef poor boy, but was sorry I did. It's not a good one. The beef was too thick and the bread was untoasted. Those two problems made it hard to take a bite out of the thing. And the gravy was all wrong, too thick and lacking the classic roast beef poor boy flavor. (Owner Scot Craig would tell Mary Ann later in the week that he agreed with this, and was reworking that sandwich.)
Mary Ann had the much better Cuban sandwich. Ham, smoky-spicy roast pork, a good if very rich coleslaw. And the bread was toasted on the press in the distinctive Cuban style.
I was the only dessert eater, but I was just doing my job. White chocolate bread pudding. Very rich, garnished with lots of fresh fruit. Twenty years ago, you would only have seen that detail in a very expensive restaurant, and not many of those.
Katie's. Mid-City: 3701 Iberville. 504-484-0580.
