Thursday, September 22, 2011.
Dinner Two, For Two, At Salú.
Mary Leigh was almost too easy to persuade into having our weekly dinner date at Salu. That was very helpful. After the dinner I had there two days ago and this one, I have enough info to build a review for CityBusiness next week. And bring the number of current online reviews up to 455. (This may be approaching a compulsion.)
The Marys both like to dine outside. I don't, but I thought I'd please the young one by putting up with a sidewalk table. But they were all full. Not only in front of Salu, but continuously up the next two blocks past the Bulldog, Nacho Mama's and Reginelli's, and down the block past Rocky's Pizza and Byblos. Everybody's sitting outside today, even though it's a little on the warm side. Maybe it's because the sun has swung down lower and farther south, getting the glare out of diners' eyes.
We went inside and commandeered the same table I used on Tuesday. Mary Leigh found quite a few items on the menu that sounded good to her, as I hopes she would. While figuring the menu out, we asked for an order of "patatas Americanas." These are small boiled red potatoes, cut into quarters, fried, seasoned, and sent out with a sort of aioli. I thought they'd be like French fries, but they weren't.
The next nibbles (everything's an appetizer at Salu) also included potatoes, this time in the form of croquettes stuffed with prosciutto and green onions. ML, who ordered that, liked them less than I did--no surprise. But then she asked for one of the guacamole-topped fried oysters in front of me. To my knowledge, she had never eaten an oyster before (although she has eat a good deal of oyster liquor mixed with garlic butter from many orders of Drago's char-griled oysters). Progress! We both thought this was a good little dish.
Onward to big seared sea scallops set in a pile of Israeli-style couscous with black beans and cilantro. These were good save for one particular matter: particulate matter in the scallops. This is not unusual, since scallops are often dredged up and contain a lot of fine sand that cannot be seen. It can be felt, however, as you chew them up. It's something I've run into in some of the best restaurants in town. A little more aggressive washing takes care of the problem.
These dinners are only half about eating. My daughter continues to explore the complexities of making connections with members of the opposite sex. She finds the responses she gets incomprehensible, and seems to believe there is some magic trick that will make figuring it all out easy.
We moved on to pulled pork mini-tacos. This was quite a load for just seven dollars, with very tender meat and an assortment of variously-flavored sauces. I think there may have been one too many flavors on this. ML is great fan of pulled pork, and found this above average but not a candidate for her all-time pulled-pork list.
And here was the best dish I've had at Salu so far. A mini-pizza was topped with crabmeat, fresh cheese, arugula, and lemon. But I was about full by that point, and had to bring half of it home. This seems a terrific value to me, as almost everything on Salu's menu does. (Only a couple of dishes hit $10.)
One of the reasons I thought ML would like Salú was that it has a chocolate molten cake--one of her favorite desserts. Enough that she often bakes them at home. So she knows what she's talking about when she said this wasn't a very good version of a molten. "It tastes--I don't know, funny." she said. Too rich for me.
I had something better: an order of churros. This is the Latin American equivalent of beignets, made with a batter extruded into the hot oil, so that they come out as sticks instead of pillows. A drift of cinnamon sugar and a little cup of chocolate ganache sweetened it up more than it needed to be. Also, when they came out they were barely warm. Surely they fry these to order. Don't they?
Another happy evening for dad and daughter. I recommended it to other dads and daughters.
Salú. Uptown: 3226 Magazine St. 504-371-5958.
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.
