Tuesday, January 25, 2011. The Round Table. Dinner At Restaurant August. The second in our series of round-table-style radio shows brought in Butch Steadman from Dorignac's, Chris Licciardi from Marchand Creative Kitchens, Marianne Addy from the Girl Scouts (it's cookie time), and Byron Swift, a waiter from American Sector.
The formula for these new shows--which I thought would take some fine-tuning over a few weeks--is running better than I dared hope. I ask a few interview-style questions of each of the guests, and nudge the conversation along now and then. But most of the time it's like five people at a dinner table, talking freely.
Today's surprise was how well Byron inserted himself into the proceedings. He's the son of our longtime friends Doug and Karen Swift, and he's interested in getting into radio. I invited him to come in and watch the proceedings. I didn't know he worked in a restaurant, or that he would feel comfortable talking on air. He proved articulate and interesting. He's into food, too. Maybe he's after my job.
Marianne brought the entire variety of Girl Scout Cookies, and we set upon them with appropriate greed. I knew the chocolate mint cookies were the number one seller, but not that the coconut-and-caramel Samoas were second. I think the best cookie they have is called Thank You Berry Munch, made with white chocolate chips and cranberries. It was new last year. You get half as many for the same price of most of the other ones, but that's a good thing, too. Left to my own devices, I can polish off a whole box of Girl Scout Cookies without trying, regardless of the flavor.
Butch Steadman's revelation was that Pinot Noir is now the biggest-selling red wine at Dorignac's. Wow! How far that has come! As for Chris, all he had to do was touch on the matter of outdoor kitchens, and the calls from listeners rolled in. I think an entire radio show could be done on a regular basis exclusively on cooking outdoors.
Mary Ann called me right before this gang went on the air. She said she was remaining in town, and that she was up for going to Restaurant August. I've needed to go there for some time, to update my review. But I can't go there without her. It's one of her favorite restaurants.
She made the reservation. I don't know what she told them, but it must have been good, because we got the best table in the house--right on the corner of Tchoupitoulas at Gravier. When I was thirteen and had to come down here by myself on the bus to buy my Jesuit uniform, this was not an auspicious corner, let alone the home of one of the city's best restaurants. Downtown gets better--in some places, anyway.
The first August staffer to approach our table was Erin White. But I haven't seen her in at least fifteen years! She was the sommelier at the Windsor Court in that restaurant's glorious early years. She's now doing that job for August. I remember she went to work for Emeril, then moved to Denver. She raised a son, and now she's back here. I always thought she was one of the best restaurant wine people in the business.
The menu has evolved a lot since our last visit here about six months ago. At that time, it seemed to me that August was in at least a shallow rut, its progress hampered. But the food tonight was what you go to a guy like John Besh for.
Not that we saw him, or his partner Octavio Mantilla. Didn't see them the two dinners before this one, either. Well, it is a Tuesday night.
One page of the menu caught my imagination. I think this is the first nightly vegetarian chef's tasting menu in town. It bases its contents on the local farmer's markets. The price for four courses is $58; for another $30, they'll pair up wines with all of them. It all sounded so good that I contrived to share the tasting with Mary Ann, and we'd each get our own entrees. She and the waiter thought this was a great plan.
First, a savory-sweet soup with pureed and not-so-so-pureed fruit. I didn't catch the exact ingredients, but it was a nice few spoonsful for an amuse-bouche.
Now something from the vegetarian parade: a non-sweet custard of celery root puree, with little salads of pears and apples, and small foam domes alleged also to have celery essence. The brain had to be brought into the experience for full enjoyment.
Next a warm butternut squash soup, poured into the small bowl from a coffee pitcher. Something about that struck me as mildly inappropriate, until my attention was grabbed by the eating of a single tortelli pasta (tortellini's big brother) filled with local goat's milk cheese and pecans. Drizzles of pumpkin seed oil and strips of the squash itself completed a lovely complement of flavors, each a bullseye on seasonal tastes. (My brain was still working.)
The main course of the vegetarian degustation was a pan-roasted cauliflower "steak." The chef bought extra-dense heads of cauliflower, then sliced thick strata from their centers. These went into a hot pan with butter, there to be seared to a darkish brown. Well, for goodness sake: it really was a steak. (It's at one o'clock in the picture.) Now get this: on the side were other vegetables. My mind--still hard to work--now wondered: Should a vegetable steak have something like meatballs or veal medallions as sides?
The more conventional entrees followed. Mary Ann remained in the safety zone with speckled trout Pontchartrain: crabmeat on top, hollandaise as a break from the classic. But this was an odd hollandaise, with almost the texture of air, although the flavor was lemony hollandaise. (That's it on the other side of the trout pile.) Turns out it had been fluffed up with liquid nitrogen. I'd say that was about 97.523 percent a head game.
Before me were cylinders of venison loin rendered a "crepinette" with a thin layer of bread wrapped around it. It was a little undercooked in the maddening way chefs have of doing that. I'm an eater of rare steak and even raw beef, but things like this are better cooked a shade more, I think. The gamy taste one eats venison for was not fully developed. But I can't say I didn't enjoy this. Or that I had to ponder the matter to decide whether I did or not.
The dessert from the vegetarian tasting was a baked lemon-flavored meringue on top of a shortbread, with a ball of lemon sherbet in the center that delivered a mild shock when it entered the mouth. (I wasn't expecting something that dense or cold, but it was a good surprise.) Mary Ann almost never gets dessert, but the server balanced the table anyway with small beignets with caramel, nougat, and chicory-tinged bittersweet chocolate. She ate the chocolate, I ate the rest.
By this time the dining room--nearly empty for the first half of the meal--filled up. The diners looked like people in town for meetings. They were better dressed than their counterparts were last time we were here. But it was colder tonight, too, and if you have to wear a jacket for warmth, may as well wear a sport coat.http://www.nomenu.com That's my theory, anyway.
Restaurant August. CBD: 301 Tchoupitoulas. 504-299-9777.
