Sunday, May 1, 2011.
The Last Day For Asian Oysters.
Lent takes a lot of restaurants by surprise. One of them was Zea. In one of its early years it saw such a decline in traffic after Ash Wednesday that it quickly assembled a seafood menu. Most of its contents were dishes from the regular menu that for some reason nobody noticed before. But they came up with some new dishes, too, of which the best was Asian sesame oysters. These were basic cornmeal-coated fried oysters, put on a bed of shredded raw cabbage, topped with sesame seeds, and wet down with two big-flavor sauces. One was a soy-sauce variant flavor ted with ginger. The other was--I think--the same sauce they use on their Thai ribs. This concoction is so good that I look forward to its arrival every year.
And lament its departure. The Taste Buds (the three chefs that own Zea) say they need big, meaty oysters for the dish to come out, and those have a way of disappearing as the weather gets warmer. The big, meaty oysters (and cool weather) have lingered longer than usual this year, but nevertheless, today is the last day for this year's Lenten menu. And, because of my incapacity, I have been unable to get the oysters even once. I remedied that today with a double order. They were everything I hoped for. I can now scratch that off my list.
Ginger and oysters? It's such a good idea that I wonder why not many restaurants have played with that. Chef Duke's signature oysters Giovanni has a sauce with a ginger flavor. That's the only other one I know. Hmm. How about oysters wrapped with pickled ginger (a la sushi bar), skewered, rolled in seasoned flour, and fried, a la Galatoire's oysters en brochette? With or without bacon? Sauce? The two dishes above both have a sweet-heat aspect. Pepper jelly, maybe?
Those oysters were the bright spot of my day. It's perfectly beautiful outside--balmy, even. And that really got to me for once. The only thing I wanted to do and could do was take a long nap. The work I would ordinarily have turned to was an unusual drudgery: updating subscriber lists, fixing a nagging software issue, and (worst of all) finishing my tax return. Well, at least I got all of that done.
Also eating up a lot of my time and giving very little pleasure: Facebook. I have been persuaded by several hundred people who want to be my friend that this is something I ought to be part of. I thought I'd give it a try. It seems to be a source of an infinite barrage of minutiae from people I don't know. I like writing such stuff (as I'm doing now), but reading it is another matter. I gave myself eyestrain trying to get my head around Facebook this evening.
But one interesting item came though. Facebook was where I learned of the demise of Osama bin Laden. I immediately went to mainstream media (the Wall Street Journal, for which I pay a hundred dollars a year, so I feel I'd better use it for all it's worth). Sure enough, he's history. I went to bed and turned on the CBS Radio web feed and listened to the extended coverage, anchored by extreme right-winger Harley Carnes. The 9/11 incident produced a dark disturbance in me that took six months to abate. Not even Katrina caused me as much angst. That reaction puzzles me to this day. But I must be over it now, because no emotion other than curiosity took over my mind.
Zea. Covington: 110 Lake Dr. 985-327-0520.
It has been over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
