Tuesday, November 15, 2011.
Eat Club At Mandeville Mandina's.
Mandina's on the North Shore is slowly taking hold. It took a few years, for example, before a significant number of people began lining the bar's perimeter and hanging there for hours, as they always have done at Mandina's on Canal Street. The dining room is about twice the size of the original, which is too big for the clientele. The only times I saw it fill up were during the year after it opened, when the Canal Street restaurant was still not yet back from Katrina.
Tommy Mandina ran this one for the first year or so, then sold it to a franchisee who I actually think improved the place a bit. It's always been inconsistent--that's also true of the Canal Street place. But the prices seem like a bargain, and the specialties (fried seafood and chicken, poor boys, some of the daily specials) are reliable.
Really, the biggest problem this Mandina's has is its invisible location in the back of a double strip mall. A restriction on signs on the highway doesn't help.
First the radio show from three until six. Then a martini. The sixty or so people began coming in at around six-fifteen to join me. Sixty? I was expecting 53. A few folks came without bothering to reserve. It could hardly have been otherwise: $55 for six courses with wines paired all the way down is more than a good deal.
We began with crabmeat and shrimp, each forming parentheses around a ridgeline of chopped lettuce and the house's pink remoulade sauce. Generous and tangy, there was no way this Mandina's specialty would fail to please.
The same could not be said about the turtle soup, whose claim to fame is that no turtles were harmed in its making. Everybody knows that, but it's still one of the favorite versions of turtle soup hereabouts. I have never been a big fan of it. A few people who do get it often said this batch wasn't up to snuff.
That was the only off-note of the night. A cube of lasagna was approved by all I talked with. I liked it too. Mandina's red sauce dishes have not appealed to me the past. I made a mental note to return for a big serving.
Now a soft-shell crab amandine, with green beans instead of the fries depicted above (from an earlier dinner). We are at the end of the soft-shell season, but when you have six courses everything needs to be downsized anyway. Mine was perfect: crisp, hot, not too much sauce bogging things down. I heard more or less the same thing from the people I sat with at the time.
Then came veal marsala. As in the previous three courses, this had more polish than I remembered. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever had this here. They served it with mashed potatoes, thereby getting around a common but minor sin in New Orleans Italian restaurants. Typically, this would have come with pasta on the side, making two courses with pasta in this meal. That would be a major no-no in Italy, but even though we're not in Italy, I'm glad somebody was paying attention.
A special dessert. Owner Frank Marcello scored some cheesecake made by Mauthe's Dairy, one of the first dairies to return Creole cream cheese to its product mix. The cheesecake was actually made with Creole cream cheese, and it was terrific. The Monmousseau sparkling wine from the Loire Valley didn't hurt. That was the "champagne" poured at Sunday brunch at Commander's Palace and other bruncheries for many years. It may still be. I haven't had any in awhile.
Mandina's. Mandeville: 4240 La 22. 985-674-9883.
