Thursday, September 6, 2012.
The Restaurant Of The Future.
When I first started writing restaurant reviews, the essays would reel out in my brain while I was sitting there in the subject restaurant, eating. It was just a matter of typing it on my old manual Underwood, edit the results using all the now-extinct proofreading marks, and turn it in.
That doesn't happen to me much anymore, and hasn't for a long time. The novelty of writing has been replaced by the craft of writing--not that I'm claiming to be a master craftsman or anything.
Tonight, however, the old magic was back. By the time I was two courses in to a dinner that would go through six, I knew how the review I'd write tomorrow morning would start. I would call Root the Restaurant Of The Future in New Orleans. That would be a take on the first review I wrote about Mr. B's, which in 1979 I predicted (rightly, for a change) would be the Restaurant For The Eighties.
When I had dined at Root couple of weeks ago, I liked it far more than I dared hope. What with my traditionalist palate, a menu full of offbeat ingredients cooked (or otherwise prepared) in eccentric ways made me wary.
But Tom's Deft Dining Rule #1 showed its eminent force: "If it tastes good, it is good." And all of this did. Looked good, too. And had a story behind it that made the dish sparkle to think about it.
When I arrived at six-thirty, nobody was there but the staff. It meant nothing other than that you can get a table easier early than late. I engaged the waiter in a lengthy conversation as to what might suit my appetites best. Once again, he showed a total knowledge of the food and a sensitivity toward what might be the best dishes and wines for me. That is more difficult at Root than in most restaurants, because almost everything on this menu is thoroughly unconventional.
I settled on an appetizer of a ballottine made of chicken, duck, and beef. A ballottine is one meat (usually a bird) stuffed inside another; a turducken is a giant ballottine. The chef took liberties with the concept, of course, and came up with a big sausage, seared on the outside, light in the middle. It was full of interesting flavors and textures. Fine piece of charcuterie. But the board on which the four slices (two would have been enough) held little piles of various condiments, most of them pickled (in different marinades), all of them fine offsets to the ballottine. A small toothpaste-like tube of raspberry mustard was there to sharpen things in another way. Great dish, in every way.
Next, a surprisingly large plate of beef tendon, sharp greens, and fried cubes of tofu--among other things. Tendon is what it says it is; we most often encounter it in Vietnamese restaurants, where the gelatin dissolves into the pho broth and gives it a wonderful mouthfeel. The approach here was to slice the tendon as thin as paper and marinate it. The flavors of all the components were as enjoyable as they were unusual, but what I liked most about this is that all the major ingredients were crunchy, but in different ways. Unforgettable food.
They send a good little amuse bouche at the outset of dinner here, and an intermezzo between the starters and the mains. I never quite catch all the ingredients of either. There are more of them than seems logical. This was the second time I've had this particular intermezzo, and aside of the blueberries turned into pasta (I'm not kidding), I have no good idea of what all the other six items in that bowl were. I couldn't concentrate: the fruity, lightly sweet, just-tart-enough flavors had my whole attention. This might be the best flavor I've had here.
The most interesting insight I took away from this meal is that the entrees are the most conventional food at Root. It's what the conventioneers eat, I imagine. This takes nothing from the goodness of, for example, what I had tonight. A long slice of the meaty fillet of lemonfish, coated with ground coriander and seared. Crabmeat and shrimp on top. A highly-reduced, dark brown drizzle added umami, but the main flavor other than that of the pristine fish was the coriander.
Dessert focused on peaches, which the chef says are of such excellence right now that they demand to be used in many ways. Which he does. I remember a mention of liquid nitrogen (explaining the hardness of one chunk of the fruit) and peach leather (I have no idea, but it was intensely peachy).
When I finished at eight-thirty, every table and every seat at the bar was full. People were waiting inside and outside. Hip and good. Love it.
Root. Warehouse District: 200 Julia. 504-252-9480.
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.
