Sunday, December 9, 2012.
Garden District Holiday Home Tour. Phil's Grill.
For the past five years or so, the Preservation Resource Center's holiday tour of homes in the Garden District has brought me in for atmosphere. The Garden District is among the most historic and affluent parts of the city, and the tour permits those who buy tickets to see how the other two percent lives during Yuletide.
Trinity Episcopal Church on Jackson Avenue is the starting point for the tours, a marketplace of seasonal gifts sets up there. One of the merchants is Britton Trice, owner of the Garden District Book Shop. He has sold hundreds of my books over the years. Britton wants me to come in on a weekend and sign books? I'm there. It's now a holiday tradition for me, but to keep it up next year I will have to write a new book.
My plan was to autograph and schmooze for an hour or so, then go to Sunday brunch. That meal is not one I take often, because I'm hardly ever in town on Sunday.
But right next to where I was doing that, a catering company called Palate New Orleans had a spread of food. Chicken-andouille gumbo, shrimp and grits, and fried chicken "poor-waffles." I recognized the latter as having been at the Po-Boy Festival. The chef handed one of these to me. Very tasty, although the waffle wouldn't exactly wrap around the chicken.
I had enough of this and Palate's other food to kill my appetite for a full-fledged brunch. I just headed for home, with a hunger for something smaller or later. While pumping gas at Veterans at Causeway, it occurred to me that I have not eaten at Phil's Grill since shortly after it opened.
Here's why that crossed my mind. On Friday, Benny "Grunch" Antin visited the radio show to drop off the new edition of The Twelve Yats Of Christmas, his now-famous, crawfish-flavored holiday CD. He adds one or two songs every year, and then one is motivated to buy the new one. Good business plan.
One of the new songs this year is a paean to Hubig's Pies. It has a sing-along part, where one takes roll call of all the Hubig's flavors. Hubig's had another of its close brushes with Benny's "ain't dere no mo'" category, because of a bad fire in the Hubig's plant this year. But they'll be back.
On the way out, Benny told me that he would be playing New Year's Eve at Andrea's again, after a long hiatus. He added that he wasn't what you'd call a gourmet, and that he liked hamburgers a lot. Specifically, he was impressed by the filet mignon burger at Phil's Grill.
Which was five blocks from the gas station. Parking was impossible (it usually is; no part of the New Orleans area has the parking issues that Fat City does), but I found a disallowed spot that wouldn't result in an arrest or a tow job.
At Phil's, you sit down and fill in a form describing the hamburger you want. You have control over every element. I picked a) Angus beef patty, 2) sourdough bun, iii) no cheese, d) lettuce and tomatoes, V) Creole aioli, 6) fried onion rings, and g) mustard. The price for all that is $9.69.
This is a better burger than the ones I grew up with, but I can't get excited about it. The meat patty is too thick, and so is the bun. Hard to get one's jaws around it. The heat of the grill isn't high enough to give it the kind of crustiness I would make for myself at home. (How about a blackened option, Phil?) The bun was soft and spongy, resembling sourdough more in looks than in texture or flavor. This could have been solved with a more intense toasting. The other parts of the sandwich were beyond reproach. The onion rings were thinly sliced cut, the way I like 'em. But greasy, the way I hate them. Again, not enough heat is being applied to the food.
My body can afford only 1.2 hamburgers a month. This one wasn't good enough for me to use the December allotment. But a lot of people love Phil's Grill, and it's usually packed.
Back to the grind when I got home. I turned on the Christmas music stream for the first time this year, and it made the work easier. I'm always afraid that I will start listening to Christmas music too soon, and will be sick of it by the time the actual day arrives. But in the radio business nationwide--including our Magic 101.9--the holiday tunes start coming well before Thanksgiving. Just like in the stores.
Phil's Grill. Metairie: 3020 Severn Ave. 504-324-9080 .
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