Thursday, August 20, 2009.
French Quarter Show. Le Meritage.
Mary Leigh officially began her senior year in high school today. What a wonderful time she's having. Lots of friends, a school she loves, interesting classes (one of them is photography, which excites her), and senior privileges. She's talked about the latter for the last year. One of them is a seniors-only room with a small kitchen for preparing lunches. She has discovered the wonders of cleverly-made sandwiches.
Neither I nor Mary Ann were as lucky. I had to work some thirty hours a week to pay my tuition and other expenses (my parents had no money to spare), and I spent my senior year in a new school full of people I didn't know. Mary Ann had a miserable high school life from start to finish. Nevertheless, even as it was going on, I knew that this was an incomparably pleasurable time of life. Whatever was missing from our own high school years has been more than made up for by watching our kids enjoy them in the fullest measure.
The French Quarter Business Association sponsors an hour of my radio show once a month to explain why everybody should take advantage of everything that's going on down there. For perhaps the first time, we had more guests in the studio than I had chairs or microphones--an amazing datum, because my studio is grossly overbuilt with seven microphones. (It's a duplicate of WWL's studio, in case theirs comes up lame.)
First on were the folks from La Divina Gelateria, who have a new location across from the Gumbo Shop. Then a few minutes with Chef Mike Regua, the long-time chef of Antoine's. The lady who runs Pat O'Brien's and its little-known restaurant. Someone from the French Market, talking about a Food Network program that had just been shot there. A guy from Mr. B's, on the subject of their thirtieth anniversary. And that kind of thing. The FQBA pays the station for this hour. I wonder if they would if they knew I talk about these things, and encourage people to eat in the French Quarter, all the time? Or could it be that's why it's on my show?
It rained off and on, as it has all week, but not as violently as on Tuesday. That allowed me to follow-through on the urge that night to explore the menu further at Le Meritage. As happened last time, I had my pick of tables; the number that were occupied could be counted on the fingers of one hand. (New restaurant, off the main French Quarter traffic flow, end of summer.)
Having had a five-course dinner here two weeks ago made it hard to order today. To assemble a meal to my taste without duplicating dishes I had last time, I had to double up on a main ingredient: crabmeat. That's no big deal, and wouldn't be an issue for a normal customer, but it created the illusion of a small menu for me. Which it isn't, really: eighteen dishes, plus a few specials, is a common number in gourmet bistros.
I started with the corn and crab soup, served with a flourish. The server put the marble-lump crabmeat into the bowl, then poured a hot, smooth broth over it. The corn had been pureed, giving the texture of cream--so convincingly that I wouldn't swear there was cream in there. Nor did I miss it, if not.
Next came a salad about which the waitress was enthusiastic. She described it as a cabbage salad, and with its admixture of golden raisins, almonds, and (I think) Parmigiana cheese flakes, it was richer than it looked. But the cabbage aspect was puzzling. It appeared to have been shaved off heads of cabbage the size of marbles. Like Brussels sprouts. Is that what they were? No, said the waitress. I should have asked to see a whole head of the stuff, but the next course was on the way.
That was a small fillet of halibut, set atop a potato cake, and topped with two daggers of bacon and more oversize lumps of crabmeat like the ones in the soup. Like all the other courses in this and my first dinner, it was ordered in the small size. I wish I had ordered the big one on this, because it left me wanting more.
I was surprised that I didn't think this about the duck dish. I wondered how they'd even create an appetizer version of a duck-three-ways. But they did. On the left, a fan of very tender, rare duck breast topped with a fig compote that sweetened the jus, On the right, a pillow of melt-in-the-mouth confit leg, topped with a generous slice of seared foie gras. Roasted potatoes kept the front and back ends of the duck apart, Every bit of this was delicious. The breast completely avoided the toughness I find four times out of five in grilled duck breast.
The dinner wrapped up with a cylinder of custardy, light bread pudding, studded with apples, in a whiskey-laced sauce and a ball of baking-spice-flavored ice cream. That hit me more or less where I live--a lot better than the cheese plate last time.
Chef Michael Farrell figured out who I was this time, and came out to say hello. Pleasant young man. His food doesn't have any problems. Now all he has to do is get some of these empty chairs filled, and he'll have something. The results are not in, but this is certainly one of the two or three best new restaurants of the year.
Le Meritage. French Quarter: 1001 Toulouse 504-522-8800. Contemporary Creole.
