Tuesday, October 19. Kitchen Store Of The Air. Tarka. My wife has a theory I think is entirely valid. She says that when some important matter falls through the cracks, it never does so just once, but again and again, embarrassment increasing by an order of magnitude each succeeding time. To pick a petty example, a couple of years ago someone sent me a check for an autographed cookbook. The envelope got stuck in the back of a desk drawer. The person, after I told him I hadn't received the order, sent another check. But for some reason the order info didn't make it into my system. After the orderer wrote again wondering where the book was, I sent it. It came back a few weeks later. I'd transposed two numbers in the address. The book got impossibly beat up in transit, so I sent a new one. Which I autographed to the wrong person. I sent another book, and this time everything was right. But then the original check turned up, I deposited it, and sent another book to the same person. When he responded with mild outrage, I sent him a double refund. I send out thousands of books without problems. Why did this one guy have to be victimized by every imaginable blunder?
Today we broadcast the radio show from Marchand's Creative Kitchens in Metairie, a consistent advertiser on the show and great people to deal with. I bought everything in my kitchen from them about twelve years ago. The reason we were there today was to make up for a disastrous remote several months ago. That day, I arrived to find that the radio's engineering department--which orchestrates many remotes every week flawlessly--hadn't been informed of this one. I had to go on the air with my cellphone until the tech guy came out with the remote equipment. Which, we discovered, couldn't function properly from that location. We'd drop off the air every five minutes. The show was so terrible that I was almost relieved when I learned that the last forty-five minutes of the show would be pre-empted by a baseball game.
What a disaster! We owed Marchand's one, and here we were today. It was an interesting show, with lots of calls and interviews with some manufacturers of very spiffy indoor and outdoor appliances. I thought everything was going great and then--wait, where's Chef Duke? He was supposed to do a cooking demo. Turns out that he'd told his contact with the station a few weeks ago that he wouldn't be able to do this. Among other things, he has an Eat Club dinner for us tomorrow. But he's a trouper: he showed up anyway with a big pan of food, even though he couldn't stay for the demo.
Well, that was only a little crack. But throughout the rest of the show I was jumpy about what might happen next.
After it was over and I calmed down, I drove out to Kenner to sample another of its new restaurants. This time I had a specific place in mind: Tarka, a Pakistani restaurant on Williams Boulevard. It's next door to the Harbor Seafood restaurant.
Tarka has a pretty dining room, decorated with showy flowers, and attended by a pleasant young woman. I asked her whether she had Indian beer. She said no, no alcohol at all. I should have known that. Pakistani food is almost identical to Indian food, but Pakistan is an Islamic country, and most Islamic restaurateurs refrain from selling alcohol. If I needed another clue, I noticed that Tarka's meats are halal (the Islamic parallel of kosher). She did offer me lassi, the yogurt-based drink that coats your stomach before you eat spicy food. I often get lassi, in both its sweet and salty versions, but I was thirsty for something colder and sloshier.
I began with lentil soup. It was good enough but needed a lot of salt to bring it up to my palate's preference. Next, a standard America salad with what I think was a yogurt-based dressing. Good enough for something that came free with the meal.
Entree: lamb palak, with a creamed spinach curry. This is one of my favorite Indian dishes. I made the mistake of asking the server--just out of curiosity--whether the goat option for this dish were served on the bone. It is, she said, and she asked me whether I said wanted lamb or goat. I confirmed lamb. I think. Well, it was fall-through-the-cracks time again, and what came to the table was goat. Even the check said so. No big deal. I love goat meat, and this serving of it was better and tenderer than usual.
I can't say I liked the sauce. It was an unappealing dark brown, and like the soup it was much undersalted for me. It was very spicy, though, as I requested.
While I was there a family had dinner in one corner of the room. Then a yuppie-looking couple entered. Their conversation (I wasn't intently listening, but in a very quiet restaurant you hear everything) led me to believe that they were between flights at the nearby airport, and needed a vegetarian meal. About a third of Tarka's menu is vegetarian, so it was a good choice. As long as they didn't get the cheese with the spinach curry.
Tarka. Kenner: 3207 Williams Blvd. 504-471-6141.
