Sunday, November 11, 2012.
Top 25%. Rocketfire Grabs Us With Oysters.
Everybody seemed to be in a bad mood today. Mary Ann undertook the very nasty project of spray-washing the house as we begin getting ready for the holidays. There is plenty more to do.
I lifted myself out of the miasma by baking a tray of buttermilk biscuits, timing them so that when Mary Leigh woke up, they'd be hot right out of the oven. But she said she didn't want any. Oh! how the wonderful pleasures of past days have a way of getting tarnished.
Well, I liked the one I had. And now I have fifteen more to eat on fifteen more mornings. Homemade buttermilk biscuits will never lose their appeal to me.
When hungers finally did awaken, nobody had an idea as to where to go or what to do. I suggested that we go to Rocketfire Pizza again. Disappointing on our first time, we have liked it better ever since.
Rocketfire attracts me with its baked oysters. The recipe is so obvious that I wonder why nobody else does it. The cheesy spinach-artichoke dip they serve as an appetizer (as in every chain restaurant in America) goes onto the shell on top of the oysters. A soupçon of parmesan and bread crumbs is on top. The pan goes into the coal-fired pizza oven (on a pizza pan), and they until they bubble. By all that is holy, that should not produce a dish that is half as good as these are. I scarf them right up, and the Marys go after the excess sauce. Baked oysters are among my favorite dishes, and here they are, not only terrific but convenient. (But not cheap. Ten bucks for a half-dozen.)
As evening fell, I could take pride in one achievement this weekend. After trying for months to finish it, I have finally produced a new best-restaurants-in-town list. The last one had 300 restaurants. This one--which I hereby resolve will be the largest I ever do, because it's already by far the biggest collection of detailed reviews ever published in New Orleans--contains 378 restaurants. That's twenty-five percent of the restaurants open in New Orleans now. A nice benchmark. This project is now done for all time. (And I've only worked on it since 1978!)
All I have to do is keep it updated.
RocketFire Pizza Co. Covington: 1950 N Hwy 190. 985-327-7600.
To browse through all of the Dining Diaries since 2008, go here.
