Tuesday, August 3. Clancy's. If I keep heading home after the radio show by the very indirect way of Magazine Street, in a year or so I will have tried all the restaurants on it. There certainly are plenty of them, with more just a few blocks off the corridor.
Clancy's came to mind. I haven't been there for at least two years. My sister Lynn, whose taste I trust, goes there every Monday, and keeps me posted. She tells me that a lot of new food has moved onto Clancy's menu. Better have a look.
It's a Tuesday in summer. The rest of the year you have to plan in advance to get a table at Clancy's, but not tonight. They were far from slow, but a couple of tables were open in the back room past the bar. Even a few spaces at the bar.
No sooner had I sat down than a waiter came over with a depleted but still welcome bottle of Puligny Montrachet. A dentist in the main dining room was having dinner with wife, friends, and a number of bottles from his cellar. I would have one of his red Burgundies and a Sauternes before the night was over. The strange thing was that the last time I was here, the same dentist was in the house, also with a few bottles from his cellar, and he was just as generous. He didn't know me personally then, but he does now.
A scan of the menu revealed not so many new dishes as dishes returned from long ago. The old rabbit sausage en croute, for example. Other familiar favorites: the smoked soft-shell crab, which Clancy's proudly admits to having imitated from Christian's. Crabmeat Remick, a signature of the old Caribbean Room. Clancy's owner Brad Hollingsworth used to wait tables at the C-Room, and he knows what it should taste like. Chef Steve Manning hit that nail on the head. Loads of big crabmeat lumps, the strangely rich and piquant (mayonnaise, Creole mustard, and chili sauce) Remick sauce.
The chef sent me a seared scallop in a buttery sauce. The soup of the day--always great here--was red bean. It tasted and looked like juicy, riceless Monday Lunch Special. (A good thing.)
What about this pan-roasted chicken? The waiter said he thought it was fabulous, but that not too many people ordered it. Brad said that all the great old New Orleans chicken dishes--Clemenceau, bonne femme, Pontalba--were basically roast chicken with some kind of hash above or below. So they made up one of their own, with porcini mushrooms and bacon and a little wine. That is my kind of entree. It reminded me of chicken grandee.
I finished with the Sauternes and a "budino"--an Italian approach to bread pudding, with a custardy aspect.
Clancy's is the kind of restaurant I'd dine in once a week if I didn't investigate so many other restaurants for a living. It's exactly to my taste, and those of many other Orleanians. I have an explanation for this. Restaurants owned by former waiters are much more fun and delicious than those run by chefs. After waiting tables in some of the best restaurants in town Galatoire's, LeRuth's, and the Caribbean Room), Brad knows what makes people happy. He gives it to them at Clancy's.
Clancy's. Uptown: 6100 Annunciation. 504-895-1111. Contemporary Creole.
