After six months of staying close to home we are making ourselves venture out more. The south shore restaurant COOLinary dinners are an enticement. We already went to The Pelican Club, whose COOLinary sets the standard for all others, but we need to explore more. A search of the COOLinary website got us interested in Apolline. We have always loved the food at Apolline, one of the many Uptown cottage turned hip-then-reliable temples of Contemporary Creole Cuisine. We had an Eat Club there at least once, and a few other visits for me, but Tom has been many times, and is a bigger fan than I.
We were also not informed that the reservation was outside. Normally this is a plus for me, but the service was slow enough that we took dessert to go because the mosquitos had been feasting on my ankles for too long.
We started with oysters for Tom and some house cut fries. I remember the fries being really great here, but they weren’t so this night. An oddity for house-cut fries, these were served with ketchup rather than a housemade aioli. I asked for mayo and got it. Tom’s oysters were chargrilled, or broiled, with a light dusting of parmesan cheese, and more unusual herbs and a strange onion marmalade. He loved them.
Tom rarely sticks with a COOLinary on these adventures, but I do. This was an attractive menu. I was torn between all three appetizer choices, but settled on Panzanella salad, which I love. Except this one. I’ve had this bread salad with vinaigrette a few times, and all were better than this one, which was made with lettuce too exotic for a salad whose main feature is croutons, and had wet burrata as a base. I longed for the sweet potato bisque, or the shrimp with okra over rice that I passed up.
The entrees were impossibly delicious. I didn’t hear Tom order the gulf fish or I would have switched to the chicken, but if I had I would have missed a plate of spiralized squash topped with a slab of flaky white drum seared to perfection. Perfection, I tell you. It had crawfish here and there in a creamy sauce, but only the crawfish had the sauce. This dish was all about the fish. If my arm was twisted until I had a complaint, I would say the pepper and salt level was right at the threshold, but it was a very pleasing threshold. Across from me, Tom had another perfectly seared gulf fish - all flakiness, perched atop a bed of gorgeous grits with a solid mouthfeel, cooked exactly right with the starch to absorb the spice from the fish. Perfect harmony flanked here and there by haricot verts. I’m not a fan of currants on savory items, (or currants at all really) but coupled with the pecans this was another killer dish. These two entrees were so delicious and the pleasure they delivered so strong, it made up for the annoyances of the evening. For dessert we got the cobbler cheesecake which came out as we asked, in a take-out container. I took a bite before driving just to taste it, but I definitely wanted more. This was in keeping with almost everything else at the table. Delicious.
Discovering something great is always fun, but even more so when it is unexpected. Our IG specialist has been keen to try a place at the Mandeville Trailhead called Riegers at the Trace. This is a very modern and fun looking building across from the entrance to the Trailhead. It’s a tiny place with few tables and most of the seating at counters lining the front windows looking onto the Trailhead. It’s a fast casual concept with ordering at the counter. This takes a little while because the menu is very appealing and pretty widely varied. I was surprised to see a shrimp remoulade bowl on the menu. Before I knew it I had ordered it instead of my first choice, the ubiquitous hot chicken sandwich. There was also a muffaletta on the menu, which seemed odd in a hip place like this. There was a hot sausage sandwich on the menu that I ordered for Tom until he changed it to his beloved blackened catfish.
ML got a hamburger which looked like grass fed beef dressed the traditional way with shredded lettuce and a nice red tomato slice. It was topped with a hearty amount of shredded cheddar cheese. A classic American burger. She got some fried potatoes. These weren’t french fries, or tater tots. They were called brabant potatoes, but were just chunky pieces of fried potatoes. Golden brown and crispy, these were served with an ordinary aioli. These had a nice crunch and were piping hot. Very good. Tom got a beautiful piece of fish on an odd type of bread, dressed with a great coleslaw. The coleslaw was thin sliced with a light dressing. This was a nice plate of food. After ordering my shrimp remoulade bowl I was filled with remorse. Why didn’t I stick with my fried chicken sandwich? That’s the kind of food you get at a place like this. And then my bowl came to the table. It was a beautiful plate of food. A fluffy white mound of basmati rice surrounded by boiled shrimp with an unusually chunky remoulade sauce that was quite spicy. I didn’t really think it looked as appealing as I’d hoped, but the flavor was great.
There were green beans and green slices of jalapeno which I mistakenly took a bite from. There were thin slices of radish and a small pile of sliced pickled okra. The shrimp were cooked just right, they were the right size, and the entire plate worked beautifully together. This was really delicious, and I was delighted to get it. I’ll have to do the chicken sandwich the next time, which will be soon.
