Tuesday, June 25, 2013.
A Seafood House From Out Of The Past.
Tan Dinh is one of the best-liked Vietnamese restaurants around town, and has a history of pulling people in from across the river to dine in its Gretna restaurant. They're successful enough that they've opened a second location in the restaurant that was for a long time Figaro's Pizzerie. Interesting name for that place: Ba Chi Canteen.
I haven't been to Tan Dinh in awhile, and during the past couple of months I've tried to get there several times. Something always got in the way: needed work at the radio station, traffic accident on the bridge, a last-minute invitation from the Marys. (Who don't do Vietnamese food.) Today, it looked like clear sailing. But when I got there, I found Tan Dinh closed on Tuesdays. Always something!
I couldn't think of another West Bank place in need of my trying, but I headed west through Gretna, Harvey, and Westwego, hoping something would come to mind. Something did, but it was on the other side of the river.
So it was that I took my first drive over the Huey P. Long Bridge since its broad new lanes were opened a week or so ago. What a contrast with the old narrow, no-shoulder span! It's beautiful and a pleasure to drive across. Articles about how this easy new drive would bring a lot of development to the West Bank might be true. (Or might not.)
On the way down, I couldn't help but recall the dumbest thing I ever did. When I was fifteen, I bicycled across the Huey. The speedometer on my Western Flyer three-speed pegged at forty miles per hour on the way down. This is not unheard of among cross-country cyclists, who can reach such speeds coming down steep hills. But it's dangerous, because at that pace your brakes can melt and become useless. But my Flyer was equipped both with caliper brakes and coaster brakes. The latter worked with metal on metal, and by backpedaling I was able to keep my speed down. How I made it past the drainage grates with trucks and cars next to me was a miracle.
But this new bridge. . . well, a cyclist could actually do it without too much danger. There are shoulders now, and the incline is longer and shallower. But I'm sure it's against the law. So I guess I won't do that again.
The restaurant on my mind was Seither's Seafood in Harahan. Another place I haven't been to in years. Seither's looks like a café that arrived by way of space and time warps. It reminds me of the seafood houses you encounter in those end-of-the-world places like Delacroix Island and Cocodrie. The parking lot is surfaced with oyster shells. The front is hand-painted in a happy, good-you-made-it kind of way. The dining room has mixed decor of local and Polynesian touches. Big menu, almost entirely seafood.
I began with a half-dozen raw oysters. They were nice and big and tasted fine, but the inevitable summer decline in their meatiness is beginning at last. Nothing to be done about that. But I'd still prefer to eat oysters in the summer than not to eat them.
Then a fried soft-shell crab of nice size, served with red potatoes from the seafood boiling pot and wedges of garlic bread. At $15, it's the kind of good deal you come to a place like this for. And the happy, joking-around waitress you hope you get to match the local color.
I asked her about dessert, and she apologized that they usually do have something, but that they had just returned from vacation, and had a few gaps in the menu just yet. I'd rather be told that than be served something stale or bad.
Seither's is practically across the street from my parents' final address. It was a Gold Medallion Home: all-electric. It actually had the official gold medallion (from Louisiana Power & Light Company) on the building.
Seither's. Harahan: 279 Hickory. 504-738-1116.
