Thursday, January 19, 2012.
Booksellers Enjoy Mr. B's.
There's a a convention of booksellers and librarians in town. The annual meeting--which has taken place in New Orleans as frequently as anywhere else--is where publishers sell their new books one-on-one to retailers.
Part of the entertainment offered the booksellers by the New York-based Harry Abrams publishing group was me. Stewart, Tabori and Chang--an Ambrams imprint--is the publisher of my cookbook and Hungry Town. They ask me to give some kind of food session whenever they're here. This time, it was a dinner for twenty. I thought Mr. B's would be perfect, but when they called to make the reservation they were turned away. Let me do it, I asked, and applied my own peculiar leverage.
The dinner began at eight. I showed up early and had a Manhattan with a couple of local guys who eat at the bar at Mr. B's pretty often. Chef Michelle McRaney saw me and sent over a big cube of braised pork belly for me to try. That was one of the courses in an Abita Beer dinner going on in the private room. The place was really jumping tonight, but that's normal for Mr. B's.
The pork belly was the usual thing. The lean parts have the absurdly rich flavor of, say the best parts of a rack of ribs. But those parts were separated by about twice as much pure fat. I have no problem with this when it's in the form of fried, cured, smoked bacon. (Pork belly and bacon are the same thing, handled differently.) But the mania for the braised version surpasses my understanding. Even when the belly comes from the most carefully bred heirloom pig strains, it's certainly the most overrated dish served by upscale chefs. And all of them serve it.
Cindy Brennan, the managing partner of Mr. B's, paid a visit and caught me up on a few things. One was shocking. R.--a prominent person we both know who must remain nameless--came home a few days ago to find his Uptown house and his children being held hostage by burglars. They taped him to a chair and held him for three and a half hours while they tore the house apart looking for cash. They didn't find any. R. and his family were freaked out (who wouldn't be?), and have moved to a condo with 24-hour security. The crime in our city has truly become intolerable when people like this are at such risk.
The Abrams people and their guests appeared. I played my Eat Club game of moving around with each course change to talk with as many of them as I could. Their swag bags contained copies of my cookbook, as well as Crocodile's Tears by Alex Beard, a New Orleans children's author also published by Abrams.
We had the whole menu at our disposal. I had just begun touting Mr. B's barbecue shrimp when the kitchen sent out big platters of the things. They are the best anywhere, and better than usual tonight. Barbecue shrimp are as fine an introduction to New Orleans food as anything.
But we also went through a lot of gumbo ya-ya, hickory-grilled fish, crab cakes, scallops, and other B's specialties. The waiter touted me on a variation on the trout amandine special with crabmeat. I wish he hadn't. That was surely the least interesting dish being served at Mr. B's that night. Many of the booksellers loved it, but they're not from here.
It was a classic client dinner. Everybody in a jovial, joking mood, lots of wine, and that feeling you get when you're out of town that you might be able to do things that you can't get away with at home.
Mr. B's Bistro. French Quarter: 201 Royal. 504-523-2078.
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.
