Sunday, February 20, 2011.
When Palates Collide. Gordon Biersch.
Mary Leigh returned from a few days in Memphis, where her cousin Hillary goes to school. ML hung around the unique campus of Rhodes College, pictures of which make it look like a gothic town. All the buildings look the same. It's a much smaller college than Tulane, which ML was not expecting. "There are more people walking around Tulane at midnight than around Rhodes at noon," she said, as she went into a report of her boredom there. Still, she said it was a worthwhile trip. She and Hillary are lucky cousins in having been best friends since they were little girls.
We went from that debriefing to the much more complex matter of where we will have a midday meal. Mary Ann has an idee fixe: Sunday brunch buffet. She says she doesn't want to do this for her own gratification, but to help me build my knowledge base. Indeed, I almost never have Sunday brunch on the south shore, and when I do buffets are low on my list. But I know that trying to dovetail needs like that with the tastes of the Marys is doomed. ML said she didn't want to eat a lot, and noted that in a T-shirt and gym shorts she wouldn't be comfortable in any fancy place.
Besides that, we had no reservations. Downtown was clogged with cars and pedestrians. We were turned away by several restaurants as we made our slow way through the clog on Canal Street, parking and reparking to check this place and that. Tensions reached the point where it was clear we would have nothing to eat at all, as Mary Ann stuck tenaciously to the brunch buffet concept.
Then, an unlikely stroke of luck. We passed Gordon Biersch. It serves the kind of chainfood the Marys like. Dress is not an issue. It's not my kind of place, but I suggested it. The argument stopped right then and there. It took another three blocks for the Marys to warm up to the idea. (They were coming from very chilly moods.) MA turned the car around. More luck: a parking space on the street a block away. The negative ions were further discharged when MA remembered that Gordon Biersch has outdoor seating--her favorite dining environment. We landed at a table on the good-looking Fulton Street mall, with its rows of flowers.
Gordon Biersch makes its own beer in house. Here came a light one and a semi-dark one. Mary Leigh is trying to understand the appeal of beer. She took a sip and made a face. I took a picture of her. "My little girl's first taste of beer," I said. "What makes you think that?" she replied. Well, sure. Many of her friends indulge, and how do you avoid beer in college?
A pile of allegedly freshly-fried potato chips (top photo)covered with blue cheese dressing came out. That's a favorite of ML. I believe that the chips were fried in house but not to order. Mary Ann thought they were stale, in fact.
Next, an assortment of four dips (just above). Hummus, tapenade, roasted garlic, and the chopped tomatoes you'd find on a bruschetta. To scoop up all that was pizza-dough flatbread cut into squares. This wasn't bad, but my mind kept slipping to comparisons with other, better versions of all these things.
Now a salad with fried chicken on top. A slab of grilled salmon with half a grilled onion, all atop spinach with a sauce the put me in the mind of teriyaki. And two tacos, the better one made with steak (flank, I think--maybe skirt) and the other with fantastically overcooked fresh tuna.
The Marys asked why crunchy blue corn tortillas were set inside soft flour tortillas for these. The answer was clear: the minute you took a bite, the crisp tortilla split along its bottom, and its contents were only prevented from falling into your lap by the flour tortilla wrapped under it. This made, however, for too much tortilla content.
Mary Leigh was lured into ordering a dense brownie with ice cream. That allowed me to get bread pudding. It proved the best dish of the meal. Lots of cinnamon, which pushes my button.
I can't say I like Gordon Biersch. But in this instance it turned a rancorous morning into a nice afternoon, for which I am thankful.
Gordon Biersch Brewery. CBD: 200 Poydras. 504-552-2739.
