Thursday, May 6. Domenica. Mary Leigh took her last final exam yesterday. Today, she went in for her last official day of high school. The tradition at McGehee is for the seniors to play pranks on the underclasses and even the teachers. One of the sessions involved the cutting to ribbons their plaid uniform skirts, never to be needed again. Some seniors have been wearing that tartan since pre-kindergarten. It must have been cathartic. More such moments of closure are yet to come, but no more classes.
After the final bell rang, the seniors went out on another tradition--one that doesn't carry the sanction of the school--that seems peculiar. They drive around the city going to bars. Most of them don't drink. They just hang around, listening to music, talk about boys, get approached by boys, and heaven knows what else. This is the sort of thing that would have got me in trouble with the school when I was this age, but it's apparently common. Mary Leigh will not share many details, but when she came home she said there wasn't much to it. Why wouldn't they go to some good, swinging restaurant? Instead of these semi-sleazy bars. Is it just all a joke to get parents worked up?
MA ordered ML to call her when she landed at her friend's house of the night. (The friend's parents, who have allowed ML to spend the night dozens of times this year, are overdue for us to take them to dinner.) The call came in well before midnight. ML said she and her friend abandoned the bus that drove the girls around, and went home. She said the whole night was really pretty boring, but that it was something she had to do. The power of peer pressure!
Meanwhile, I made one more pass through the food at Domenica. I've covered the main specialties, so this time I burrowed through the menu looking for oddities. I began with a fried squid salad. I like the idea of a little fried something atop a salad--it takes the place of croutons, and in a much more interesting way. But the fritters must be light. Oysters and shrimp are too heavy. Squid, with their thin limbs and circles, are perfect. And so was this salad.
I learned a new pasta word tonight: trofie. It's made by rolling little balls of pasta dough with one's hands on a board. They take on the shape of teeny loaves of French bread, tapered at the ends. This had a very interesting texture, and tossed with pesto and artichoke hearts it was the ideal preliminary pasta dish. (I like that most of the menu at Domenica can be had in either small or large portions.)
The entree was the best dish I've had here in all my visits. Capretto--baby goat--also figured in the best meal I ever had in Italy. So the claim Domenica makes to serve food just like in Italy rings true. This was a loin of goat stuffed with the long-cooked, falling-apart shoulder. It came in what looked like a casserole dish with fresh porcini mushrooms. There was no mistaking the latter, with their distinctive fat stems. Some morels and other wild mushrooms contributed to a very good cause. If I were looking for something to complain about, it's that this dish looks out of place without either a tablecloth or an underliner plate beneath it.
The dessert also gets my ribbon for the best I've had at Domenica. It was a half-dozen beignet-like fritters, studded with cherries and mellowed with sweetened ricotta cheese. What sent these into orbit was a foamy, light, warm chocolate zabaglione. I don't think I've encountered that before, but I hope I do again. Great idea.
Now the bad news. The restaurant was two-thirds empty. This is a restaurant you couldn't get into with a shoehorn, a crowbar, and a jar of Vaseline when it first opened. That's when its food was spotty and the service worse--both typical of new restaurants. Now the cooking and dining room staff have their game sharpened. But where are all those novelty-seeking customers? This is why I wait many months before reviewing a new restaurant. After nine months, Domenica is solidly good. And the restaurant obviously needs the boost a good review will give. It didn't when all the other writers were rolling their eyes about it last summer, writing about dishes that are no longer on the menu, not knowing about their better replacements.
Domenica. CBD: 123 Baronne (Roosevelt Hotel). 504-648-6020. Italian. Pizza.
