One of the trademarks of Tom in his career was his very firm stand on things he considered beneath him: hamburgers, sports bars, fast food, and spinach and artichoke dip. The others he mostly ignored, but he was continuously faced with the offending appetizer because his family loved it. The girls in his family love it so much we bring it to any extended family affair, where the guests gather at a trough.
We, the family, first got hooked on spin dip back in the early 90’s, when we ordered it at the late great Steve Stonebreaker’s BBQ place in the old Red Onion in Metairie. I loved it so much that I asked for the recipe, and Steve happily obliged. I have since tweaked it a few times over the years, and you can find it in recipes on this website, starting with MaryAnn's.....
Tom got a hold of it and tried to gourmetize it by swapping out the frozen blocks of chopped spinach with fresh, but I have my own rules, and Rule Number One is…don’t try to gourmetize things that should not be gourmetized.
It seems to me that the phenomenon of Spinach and Artichoke Dip started with the venerable Houston’s, and it may be the most copied dish in culinary history. At one time Tom grumbled that spin dip came into all the restaurants through a secret pipeline. Few things have annoyed him as much as the very idea of this.
Despite his protestations, Mary Leigh and I order spin dip whenever we see it. I still contend that the one I serve is the best to my taste, but there are a few of them out there that we also like. Oddly, not many.
For starters, I have never been that big a fan of the original. Some of the copies of it are too close to that one to warrant approval. Zea has a carbon copy, and of course, Boulevard, whose entire menu is a carbon copy of the fabled Houston’s.
The dippers for the spin dip play a significant role in the overall dish. The original is tortilla chips as everyone knows, but there are crostini, pita chips, flour tortilla chips, and fried pasta which all accompany spinach dip and figure enough in the overall package to sometimes change a diner’s view.
For example, the very best spinach and artichoke dip in town to us right now, and for a long time, is the one at the lowly Chimes in Covington. It comes in a small ramekin and is baked, with a lot of cheese and a heavy Parmesan flavor. It is accompanied by a pile of sturdy and crisp fried farfalle pasta.
The other one we like a lot is also in Covington at Mattina Bella. These folks are part of the Riccobono clan who for more than half a century have delighted New Orleanians with their skill in making delicious Italian-inspired comfort food.
Mattina Bella is primarily a breakfast place (that has no peer) but they also serve a very good lunch. The spin dip here is served with fried flour tortillas, which tend to absorb grease but I still prefer fried flour tortillas for this.
A great example of fried flour tortillas that get soaked with grease can be found at Fat Spoon Cafe in Covington, home of the overall worst version of this dish we have ever encountered.
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Chimes and Fat Spoon bookend the spin dip universe to us, but in between is a wide spectrum of perfectly fine but unspecial versions of the phenom.
A nice spin dip middle ground can be found at The Cheesecake Factory, encompassing the other two mysterious components of the commonly recognized dish: sour cream and salsa. What is that about?
All we can say is if there is such a magical pipeline as Tom has disdainfully suggested, I want to route it to our house.
