Thursday, August 25, 2011.
Eat Club Returns To Andrea's.
It looks as if Hurricane Irene will be a big one, and that its eye will cross directly over New York City. People from North Carolina into New England are freaking out the way we usually do. It's strange to watch from the safe side. If they need help, we will return the favor they did for us after Katrina. Everywhere we went after the storm, we were welcomed with open arms.
On the other hand, no small number of politicians spoke publicly after Katrina to the effect that perhaps New Orleans should not be rebuilt. I guess we shut them up. If New York gets hit hard, I wonder whether any of the oversupply of windbags in Congress will say Manhattan should be abandoned.
Eat Club at Andrea's. It happened again. In addition to the fifty of us in the big banquet room, Chef Andrea had another large event taking place elsewhere in the restaurant. That happened the first time we did an Eat Club there, and almost every time since, with predictable effects on the food.
We started off with passed-around pizza. Andrea can make great pizza. Somebody else must have been doing it, though. The crusts were underbaked. The first course at the table was vitello tonnato, a dish I know can be made well here. The veal part was fine, but the sauce was missing something.
Then our pasta course: oyster ravioli. The oysters are chopped and mixed with parmesan cheese and a few other things before being stuffed in the pasta. Cream sauce over all. First time I had this a couple of months ago, I thought it was great. Not tonight. The portion was too big, but that's not the only reason I didn't finish it. A number of people complained it wasn't hot.
Next, some big shrimp fra diavolo--a spicy version of shrimp Creole. I thought this would be the dish of the night, because I had an incredibly good version of it here a couple of months ago. So why not tonight? I don't know. Not even Mary Ann--a shrimp fanatic--liked this.
After a shot of house-made limoncello--which was just perfect--we moved on to veal Michelangelo. We had the whole dinner planned before one of us (I don't remember who; both Andrea and I had a hand in assembling the menu) noticed that veal showed up twice. I thought this was okay, even interesting. The first one was cold, the second one was hot. The sauces were very different.
As it turned out, the veal Michelangelo was visually beautiful, a rolled-up version of veal chop Valdostana, with prosciutto and Fontina cheese in the middle. The demi-glace sauce was applied artistically, with abstract drawings in reduced cream in the sauce. I would have traded all that fanciness for even warm food. This was cool. The veal was cooked in such a way that it wasn't browned at all, removing any excitement from the eating.
Next came a salad from the early days of the restaurant. Arugula with a little pouch of phyllo pastry philled with nine cheeses. The dressing was made with 150-year-old balsamic vinegar. Good copy line. Could that distinction be picked out? Nobody mentioned it to me. Good salad, though. It was followed by peaches poached in red wine with mascarpone cheese. That was reasonably good.
By this time a marvelous pianist who goes by the name Baby Ruth came in and serenaded us. I have been corresponding with her about perhaps singing with her at the restaurant, and both she and Andrea wanted me to. I managed to get out "I Could Write A Book," but I wasn't in the mood, and the room was so loud that I'd been yelling all night to be heard. Some other time.
Most of our attendees were regular customers, predisposed to anything Andrea does. I heard mostly raves as I walked around. But a few people told me that this was much less than they expected, or worse. Chef Andrea wonders why we don't do these dinners more often. One word: inconsistency. It's maddening, because at its best, Andrea's is fantastic. But our Eat Club dinners have only found that happy condition on every third or fourth dinner. At the others I am a little embarrassed.
Andrea's. Metairie: 3100 19th St., 504-834-8583.
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.
