Tuesday, July 10, 2012.
A Loud Party On The Radio. College Inn's House-Made Cow Burger.
Our roundtable radio shows are usually off balance at the start. The guests--most of whom don't know one another, and have never been on the radio before--need to get comfortable. We had no such problem today. In the studio was Chef Greg Picolo, for twenty years the chef at the now-closed (but maybe not permanently, he says) Bistro at the Maison de Ville. Greg is a talker. Better still, he's a storyteller and is always looking for a laugh. The perfect person for radio.
All that is also true of Cindy Lanaux Johnson. She has long worked in the wholesale wine business. Before the hurricane, she had her own thriving firm in that endeavor, and was a regular visitor when we had weekly wine tastings on the air. She brought great wines and had much to say about them. And was a fun broad, if I may use that word.
Between the two of them, I had to work to make sure that Tony Cartozzo was included in the colloquy. Tony is the owner of Frances's Bakery, and the current generation of a family of bakers that has been making bread in the Italian style (mostly) for a century.
Tony didn't really need to say a lot. He brought crawfish bread. Two kinds: one flat like a pizza, the other folded over. He makes a thick crawfish filling (like a very stiff etouffee) and folds it inside the bread dough with some ricotta. Then he bakes them, all day long, every day. Also in his crawfish lineup (he makes everything else, including lots of sweet pastries and cakes) is crawfish cheesecake--a rich wedge with a thin crust made of Italian bread crumbs. Chef Greg loved these creations, and Cindy thought her wines were perfect with them.
Greg is the chef at Redemption now, and has been for the past nine months. He's still in the process of establishing his style at the restaurant, but his presence has improved Redemption. (It's in the distinctive building that once housed Christian's.) He reminded us of his target: "food for your mom an' dem gone upscale." It's certainly thoroughly New Orleans, as Greg himself is.
Cindy's wines were from Laetitia, in the Arroyo Grande Valley about a third of the way from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We started with a blush brut sparkler with low alcohol. Seems like all the wine people show up these days with pink wine. Very hip. This one was ideal with the crawfish bread and it impolite component of cayenne pepper.
The wine of the day, however, was the Laetitia Chardonnay, a wonderfully complex wine that didn't get it all from oak. Greg and I were in complete agreement about that. Cindy saved her strongest recommendations for the Laetitia Pinot Noir, which had a lot of body but less finesse than the Chardonnay.
We were still in the first hour when I had to start trying to keep a lid on the show. This was one happy bunch. But that's the way I like these shows.
My thought for dinner was to try Dijon, a new restaurant in the old firehouse on Annunciation Street across from all those new apartments. Nobody was there when I arrived at about seven. The waitress was pleasant. And then a man identifying himself as the owner came out and started giving me the lowdown on all the farm-to-market, nose-to-tail food he is bringing in.
"What's this 'flap' steak here?" I asked, pointing to the menu. He gave me another couple of minutes on how he and the original chef had parted ways, and how he was looking for a new directions for his beef program.
"What's a flap steak?" I asked again. I had to ask it yet a third time, still not getting a straight answer. Reading between the boss's lines, I gathered that it's some variation on a hanger steak. He finally left the table. As soon as he did, I made for the door. I hate it when a restaurateur thinks he can talk me into enjoying his food.
I drove the length of Magazine Street, looking for another option. I wasn't hungry enough (too much crawfish bread and wine during the show) to do anything major. I ultimately wound up at Ye Olde College Inn. They have a hamburger made from cattle the restaurant raises itself--grass fed, local beef. In fact, they have a nascent operation in the parking lot called "Straight Stick Hamburgers." A hamburger sounded good.
The waitress wasn't sanguine about the burger, but she did say good things about the stuffed crab appetizer special. I got that. Like everything else I've had at the College Inn lately, this was extraordinarily well made, stuffed into a real crab shell, and abetted with an aioli sauce and some fresh beets from the College Inn's garden across the street.
The hamburger was better than I expected. For starters, it was thick and bigger in circumference than the bun. Almost all hamburger buns are too big for the burger, which in this instance hung out all the way around. The bun had a pedigree, too: it came from the Maple Street Patisserie. On top of all that, it was juicy and well dressed. I ate two-thirds of it--more than I planned. But I had to save some for the dog Susie, who I left inside all afternoon to allay her fear of the thunderstorms that I knew would be coming through again.
The fries were from the old days here, which is to say frozen and terrible. Are fresh-cut fries coming?
Ye Olde College Inn. Carrollton: 3016 S Carrollton Ave. 504-866-3683.
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.
