Thursday, June 24. M Bistro. Another day of ferocious rain. As Mary Leigh traveled across the Causeway, a waterspout formed on the lake very close to the bridge. They opened the drawbridge to stop traffic, and she was caught in the gridlock. She said she was frightened witless by this, and I don't blame her. I can't say the closing at the drawbridge strikes me as the most brilliant of ideas. If a waterspout were coming right at me, I'd want to move--even though it's known that the attempt to outrun a tornado is not a good idea.
The Marys called me during the radio show requesting the displeasure of my company at a restaurant acceptable to them. Fortunately, one of the places on my mind for tonight was the new Bistro M at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Executive Chef Matt Murphy--who came close to death a year or so ago because of a freak infection--is back at work. The hotel decided to rename and re-invent its fantastically boring main dining room to celebrate his return.
So it's Bistro M now. I saw the menu when it opened and it looked good. I knew it sounded good, because Jeremy Davenport is now playing in the bar adjacent to the restaurant. Jeremy leads a small jazz combo, plays a mean trumpet (in a style reminiscent of Chet Baker), and sings in an upbeat, pop style. He didn't know it, but he received almost unimaginably high praise tonight. Mary Ann said she could spend an evening in the bar listening to Jeremy's music. I could hardly believe my ears. Mary Ann, near as I can tell, doesn't like music of any kind.
Listening was more entertaining than dining. The problems all had to do with the service scheme, which isn't close to matching the sophistication of the food and certainly not the standards (or prices) of the Ritz-Carlton. What is a restaurant like this doing without tablecloths? Why are the chairs so low that you feel like one of those eighty-year-old guys you see looking through their steering wheels as they drive? Why did the hostess bring us, in a nearly empty room, to a dark spot on the verge of a passageway full of staff walking back and forth right next to us all night long?
We started with a charcuterie plate, including pork rillettes, a country pate, and a kind of mousse. Mary Ann wanted that. It was the low point of the meal; none of the elements were interesting at all. (I continue to go through life without a single enjoyable example of rillettes.) My first course was better: a dozen mussels, dramatically topped with the longest crouton I've ever seen--about eighteen inches. But I had to run down the waiter to get a soup spoon for the broth at the bottom of the bowl, and he seemed puzzled as to why I wanted it.
My second course was simple: crabmeat stuffed inside an avocado. Both elements were just right, fresh and ripe respectively. Mary Leigh munched away at a caesar salad she said was unmemorable, which comment she also applied to the hanger steak. (Although I'm thrilled that she has accepted--chosen, in fact--something other than a filet mignon. Twice in one week, yet!)
Veal cheeks! If I ordered that, it would make twice in one week. Maybe the only chance I'd get to compare and contrast for a long time. This version had the tenderness and slight muskiness for which veal cheese are celebrated. And a gelatin-delicious sauce, which almost just happens when you cook veal cheeks down. The meat's dark mahogany color was brightened up by what I think of as "hotel vegetables" (small, carved, barely cooked, largely without flavor).
Mary Ann's main was a sort of sandwich of blackened redfish with a crabmeat risotto in the center, and more crabmeat here and there. Like everything else, it looked better than it tasted, but not bad at that.
The one dessert was a mango cheesecake with chocolate sauce and ice cream--another excellent visual, tasting tropical and cool, perfect for the season.
It could by that my mind is poisoned by the memory of the original restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton, which was much more exacting and interesting than this one. That one died because nobody ever went there. Tonight, the bar was full for the music. But the dining room had us, one lonely guy over there, a group of staff dining over there, and one couple on the undefined line between the music club and the restaurant. I'd come here any night of the week for the music and a drink or two, but I think I'd have dinner elsewhere before or after. The $225 check for three (with tax, tip, one cocktail, and one glass of wine total) reinforces that urge.
I think I may have said that before about this very same restaurant, in its last incarnation before this one.
M Bistro. French Quarter: 921 Canal. 504-524-1331. Contemporary Creole.
