Thursday, December 15, 2011.
Christopher's Is On Carey, After All.
I operated from home, to make the recovery from last night's Eat Club dinner at Galvez even easier than it already was. Mary Ann, who did not attend and so had no need to reduce her eating today, suggested that we go to Christopher's on Carey. I think she has the place in her crosshairs as an advertising client, but we don't discuss such things.
This time, I pulled the place up on Mapquest before I left. A week ago, I failed to find the place. My mental image of Old Town Slidell makes it out to be smaller than it actually is. Since the street grid is oriented at an diagonal to the railroad tracks from which the town grew, making the turns onto the right street is challenging. Mary Ann was already there, though, and she talked me in.
I have a vague recollection of having dined here before. Was this the old Chateau Bleu? For almost a century, the building hosted various kinds of small retail stores, with a drugstore--complete with soda fountain and an apartment for the pharmacist's family----having been there longest. The dining rooms form an ell, with a level split between them. The premises were well bedecked for the season.
The force that most often reveals my identity in restaurants is the wait staff. In this case, two of the servers remember having taken care of me at other restaurants. So here came a complimentary amuse-bouche of the house's chicken spring rolls, sent out with ponzu sauce. We thought they were very good, if a little heavy for an appetizer. The serving would have been enough for four. I took two of the cleft-in-twain rolls. Mary Ann tried to shove a third off on me. I said what she says: there's no reason to eat more just to get rid of the food. But she cannot leave food on the table, and will bring one piece of spring roll home, where it will rot in the refrigerator for a few weeks.
The soup of the day sounded good: tomato and fennel, with crabmeat. Good flavor, and appealing for those eating light. The soup amounted to a puree of the two named vegetables, with no detectable cream or stock holding it together. Maybe I'm too accustomed to that for my own good.
Mary Ann's first official courses was a pillow of crabmeat mixed with baby spinach leaves, all moistened with a cold sauce somewhere between a vinaigrette and a remoulade. This was very good, and loaded with enough crabmeat for this to pass as an entree. If I hadn't gone for a few forkfuls, this too would have been headed for the refrigerator.
I had a salad coming, composed primarily of arugula and beets--two things I love. But these beets were very close to raw. Beets are a bit too tough to be served that way, and need either to be a) sliced paper-thin; 2) poached or steamed to take a little of the stiffness out; or iii) marinated in olive oil for a few days. I don't think any of these steps were taken, so the salad wasn't what it could have been.
I think I may have encountered why that happened in the next course, on which some very rustic, small parsnips and carrots showed up. I'll bet these guys are buying vegetables from a local farm. While the idea of that is marvelous and surely makes for good menu copy, it's not always a guarantee of better quality than might be coming in from places where such vegetables are more routinely harvested.
Those smallish (and better than the beets) roots came with was a pair of venison chops, napped with a bit of reduced-wine demi-glace. This was everything I was hoping for: tender, with a nice background gaminess that you order venison for. (Otherwise, why not just eat beef?)
Mary Ann had grilled salmon again, a dish you'd think she was crazy about for all the times she eats it. But it boils down to a health matter, not a gustatory one. As long as she's happy for some reason.
The waitress recommended the pumpkin bread pudding. It was very light in texture and had the ideal flavor of the season. I would have used a little less pumpkin, or layered it. But what do I know? The kitchen also sent out a caramel custard that was deliciously silky, but was a shade undercooked. The sauce really was not quite a caramel.
Two separate tables of customers hailed me down and asked what I thought of the place. They all loved it and noted--accurately--that Christopher's fills a gap in the Slidell restaurant scene, which has never had enough ambitious white-tablecloth eateries. This one opened about a year ago and is very welcome.
Christopher's On Carey. Slidell: 2228 Carey St. 985-641-4501.
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.
