Thursday, July 12, 2012.
More Beef Room History. Another Classy Dinner At Canal Street Bistro.
The vantage afforded by the Causeway can at times be striking, even for one who has driven the twenty-four-mile span so many times that I know where every crack and smudge in its roadway is. Today, intense thunderstorms flanked the bridge on each side, but a clear route extended all the way across. This allowed rare sidelong views of the storms. One observation: it takes the raindrops five to ten minutes to travel from its mother cloud to sea level.
The radio show was unusually lively. As usual, it wasn't because of what I brought to it. My question, "What period in your life had the best dining experiences?" was ignored except by one guy. And even he really answered a different question.
In the newsletter today, I published a piece about The Beef Room in the Extinct Restaurants department. A man who read that called to say that the place had a longer history than I gave. It was originally on South Claiborne Avenue, he said. When I pressed him for details he found himself thinking about addresses on South Carrollton. I wrote it off as a faulty memory--something I understand better every day.
But several other people called to confirm his report. As one person's memory jogged those of others, we managed to stick a pushpin into the map. Apparently the original Beef Room was on the uptown, lake corner of Claiborne and Louisiana Avenue Parkway. (Strange name for a street, that. And there's another like it: State Street Drive.)
Also emerging from this recollection were that a) the Beef Room opened in the late 1940s but moved to Metairie in the 1960s; 2) the old place was owned by different people than those of the new; and iii) that the new place bought all the old place's kitchen equipment.
Maybe someone who reads this will know even more, and will write me (tom@nomenu.com). This is one of the ways I gather hard-to-find information: I publish an educated guess, and then everybody who knows otherwise contacts me. (The urge to tell someone he is wrong is, of course, irresistible.)
In fact, that dynamic worked on another matter in the same article. I said that the airplane that used to sit on the roof of the Beef Room's third address was a DC-3--the only big propeller airliner I know. As of now, eight plane buffs have e-mailed to straighten me out on that. It was a Lockheed Constellation, they say, in triumphant voice.
My three dinner ideas as I left the radio station were:
The Chophouse. But I'd better wait until the Marys get back. They don't like missing a good steakhouse.
Manning's. It's six months open now. I want to check on a rumor that Chef Anthony Spizale is gone. The restaurant's website still shows him as chef. More rumors: Harrah's, which really owns the place, plans to rethink the menu. It has not exactly wowed the public. If the rumors are true, I might be able to avoid going to the sports-oriented eatery until after the Super Bowl next year.
Canal Street Bistro. I needed another meal or two here to gather enough material for a full review. So that's where I wound up. The restaurant was much busier than it was on my first look two weeks ago, and in fact filled completely while I was dining.
Canal Street Bistro is turning out to be a much better restaurant than I was expecting. There's no question that Chef Guillermo Peters is the best Mexican chef in town and good at other cuisines, too. But his past restaurants have always had. . . let's say, irritating irregularities, mostly in the service end. Not so here. The dining room staff could not be more accommodating or personable.
And the food is solid. I began with something offbeat: a pile of fresh corn kernels cooked with peppers, onions and an invisible sauce that made it tangy. (Below, left.) Everything, including the onions, was still crisp. All that was piled atop some homemade tortilla chips. Great with a glass of made-to-order sangria.
The entree was thoroughly delicious. A grilled filet mignon sat atop a quesadilla (below, right)--not the kind you get in the Tex-Mex places, but a soft tortilla with white cheese either over, under, or through it (I never could quite figure that out). Atop all that was a chunky tomato sauce with chipotle peppers. Sauteed spinach--also vividly fresh, having barely lost it crunch--was on the side. That's the best dish I've had here. Since one of the others was molé poblano--for which I have a passion--that's saying something.
The steak was an appetizer version at $22, which was quite enough for an entree. The big one is $32 or thereabouts, and a full meat.
Two desserts came out after I refused Guillermo's offer to pick up the check. One was coconut flan: a great idea, well executed. The other was mango Foster, something I tried last time from someone else's plate. As good today as then.
Now I guess I'll have to get over to the Canal Street Bistro for breakfast and lunch. Even absent that, this is one of the best new restaurants of the year so far, I'd say. The competition for the top spot will be heavy this year.
Canal Street Bistro. Mid-City: 3903 Canal St. 504-482-1225.
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.
