Tuesday, June 14, 2011.
Chicken Man. Del Porto.
Mary Ann--a big fan of the upper echelon of chain restaurants--is ecstatic. She scored Todd Graves as a guest on today's round table radio show. Todd is the founder of Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers, a Baton Rouge-based outfit that opened its 100th "store" last week in Laurel, Mississippi.
MA thought I should be in the studio for this important guest. Since the accident, I have done all my radio shows from home, even the ones with a roomful of guests. I thought I should be there, too. Today is the perfect moment to snap my life back to the way it was.
"Why do we have to leave at one-thirty to get there by three?" asked Mary Ann. The answer: buffers. I don't know how long it will take me to hobble from the car to the elevator through the radio offices. Even parking as close as possible to the entrance, this is about a block and a half walk--far longer than I've attempted with just the cane.
The usefulness of buffers was proven--then shown to be inadequate--when weirdness happened. Just as we were leaving. the cat Twinnery strutted onto the deck carrying a three-foot king snake in his mouth. It was harmless. (Beneficial, really). But snakes freak out Mary Ann, and she went on a tear of trying to keep the snake from getting into the house (it wouldn't have, anyway) while keeping as far away from it as possible. My cane and I were immobilized halfway down the steps.
The snake escaped under the deck. Crisis ends. New crisis begins. Now MA couldn't find her keys. She thought she had them in her hand when the serpent appeared, but couldn't remember where she dropped them. She became frantic. I headed back to the kitchen to calm her down, getting a bit frantic myself as the minutes fell away.
And then it hit me that I was standing in the middle of the kitchen, with nothing in range to hold onto. My cane was on the other side of the deck, and I was walking around with no support. Walking!
"It's because you had to," Mary threw at me, then got back to the search.
We would not find either her keys or mine in time to cross the lake for the show. I headed for my office and got ready once again to be a disembodied host.
The show was good. Todd Graves's story of Raising Cane's debunked a few myths. Yes, the idea was first expressed in a paper he wrote in a business course at LSU. No, he didn't get an F for the paper. "I had the lowest grade in the class, but it was a B-minus," he said. Where is that teacher now? He didn't know.
The menu at Cane's is intentionally limited to, really, just three items: fried chicken tenderloin fingers, crinkle-cut fries, and drinks. There's also that special sauce, but that's just mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup, like every other special sauce in every chain restaurant in America. Todd said that his secret was in using good ingredients and gathering a superbly spirited and well-trained staff. You hear this stuff all the time, but Cane's really seems to do it. In its short history it has excited customers, investors, and even competitors.
I think it's just okay. But I'm not their target customer.
Also on the show was another guy whose restaurant is known best for one dish: Middendorf's, whose name is synonymous with thin-cut catfish. Before he bought that in 2006, however, Horst Pfeifer became famous hereabouts for his superb and glorious Bella Luna. But that died in the hurricane.
Middendorf's almost met the same fate, when Hurricane Gustav put a few feet of water in the place in 2008. It wasn't the first time that happened, but Horst is determined that it will be the last--at least in his lifetime. He built a brand-new restaurant (now there are three buildings with "Middendorf's" on their facades) about six feet above ground level. And a new kitchen at the same level. The original building is still in harm's way, but he intends to jack it up as soon as he finishes paying for the other developments.
"We can't change anything," Horst said. "If you do anything even a little different, customers who have been coming in for fifty years tell you what it was. But they keep coming back!"
Ray Gruezke represented the gourmet end of the spectrum. He's the chef-owners of Rue 127, a teeny restaurant in Mid-City that has kicked up a substantial buzz. He's a young guy but has a persuasive track record, having been part of the opening team at Le Foret. He's on top of things, I know that. He was aware that I am going to his restaurant for the first time this Friday, with the reservation made by a friend of mine.
Romney Richard, the boss lady of Louisiana Cookin', stopped by to announce this year's quintet of Chef's To Watch. I always give her grief with my thought that I don't want to watch chefs--I want to eat what they cook. What would we be looking for, anyway.
While the radio show was on, Mary Ann crawled under the deck and a few other distressing places to look for her keys. She would find them tomorrow in the pocket of a pair of pants she wore yesterday.
When the show ended, we decided that my really walking for the first time since Lundi Gras was worth celebrating. (Finding my own keys was another reason.) We went to Del Porto for dinner. I broke my prohibition against ordering cocktails, but it was a light one: white wine, lime juice, soda, and a little Campari. They call it the Bicicletta. I wonder, how long it will be before I can ride a bicycle again? I am in high spirits, and not from the drink.
Del Porto lived up to my accolade that it's the best Italian restaurant in the New Orleans area. Dinner was brilliant from first taste to last. I started with a dish I'd written about just this morning (which is probably why the place was on my mind). Carpaccio is not served in many restaurants anymore, and nowhere as well as here. Slices of beef so thin they almost seem to have been sprayed on the plate, covered with streaks of creme fraiche, flakes of Parmigiana Reggiano, and a pile of arugula: marvelous.
Mary Ann's bowl was filled with a fresh soup of shrimp and corn so sweet that my first suspicion was that sugar had been added. No, it was the corn, all right.
She followed that with her default entree: sauteed fish (red snapper tonight) with an assortment of crunchy, savory herbs, tomatoes, beans, and potatoes. She put that away quickly enough to tell me she loved it.
I guess I'll never come to the end of the catalog of pasta shapes. Here's one I've never heard of: torchio, which do indeed look like little torches. Tossed with a spicy tomato sauce and calamari, it was just the big flavor I felt like having.
Dessert? Why not? I've been eating lightly. Panna cotta with peaches. Fresh, cool. I'm an easy mark for a dessert sales pitch; mary Ann isn't. But the chocolate torte got her where it hurts good, and there it was.
I was in a good mood and had fun jiving the waitress, who jived me right back. That completed a highly entertaining evening.
Did I mention that I walked without any assistance today? The graph charting my recovery has turned sharply northward.
Ristorante Del Porto. Covington: 501 E Boston St. 985-875-1006.
It has been over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
