Thursday, April 19, 2012.
Café Etienne.
My default impulse every evening when I get off the radio is to head into the French Quarter for dinner. I don't often follow that urge, because I've covered just about every restaurant there well enough. But lately I feel a new imperative: to explore the outlying districts. And after the success of my dinner last week at Tony Mandina's, the West Bank's profile has risen.
Historically, the best restaurants on the West Bank have been hard to find. (Think of LeRuth's, Willy Coln's, Mosca's, Berdou's, and the Bistro Steak Room). An old house on Tenth Street in Old Gretna is of that ilk. A block away from the Red Maple, it's in a neighborhood of large old houses, small businesses of various kinds, and one-block cemeteries. Among the several restaurants that have occupied it, the best known was the Café Cottage. We did an Eat Club dinner there about ten years ago.
A couple of turnovers later, the place is now Café Etienne. It left all the past behind, excepting only the historic structure that charms so many customers. Every time I get a call about Café Etienne, I hear a glowing account of a meal there.
Here's another such report. The guy behind the bar--wearing one of those close-rimmed, Rat Pack-style fedoras that we're seeing on a lot of people lately--could not have been more welcoming. He delivered a good Manhattan, told me about the specials, then sent over the waitress.
Food started with the most modest amuse-bouche I've ever been served: some cole slaw atop sliced apples. Nevertheless, it perked up the palate for three slices of fried green tomato, with a hybrid orange remoulade sauce and a few shrimp. Very good. Not quite as fine was the potato-leek soup, whose minor flaw was that it was too thick.
Then a fillet of catfish--not too big, I was pleased to see--with a light meuniere sauce, some crisp vegetables, and fried, quartered red potatoes. Just the kind of food you'd expect in these antique quarters.
The server enthusiastically recommended an unusual coconut cake. It was chilled, light, and well-riddled with coconut. The cake part had the texture of tres leches--which is to say soaking wet. In the mouth, it did something between dissolving and vaporizing. Wow! Utterly unique, and very good.
Mary Ann jokes that most of the tips I get from radio listeners are worthless. (She may, in fact, be right.) However, this was a good one. Now if only I can explain to East Bankers people how to find the place.
Cafe Etienne. Gretna: 423 10th Street. 504-309-4072.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
