As everyone who listens to The Food Show these days knows, a great deal of our dining is eaten in the car. In a complete reversal from Tom’s long-held principles that great food should always be eaten in-house, desperate times call for desperate measures.
We do a great deal of driving just to get out of the house these days, and one day recently we left the house after the show with the intent of picking up food at Meril. For some reason, Meril had been on my mind, which is unusual. I don’t think much about Meril. I’ve always been lukewarm at best about the place, and it’s off the radar. When a restaurant has been around as long as Meril, the new places get all the hype. With so many restaurants around, well-established habits become the focus when choosing a restaurant. We have our habits just like anyone else.
But somehow I saw a menu from Meril and wanted to go back. We have had some very pleasing meals at Meril and some I just don’t understand. There are too many places now that I just don’t understand.
We went to Meril because there were things on the menu that I wanted to try. We called to order when we left the house and realized after three calls that went unanswered that I would have to wait until we arrived at Meril to actually place the order. On one of the five or six tries, I let the phone ring uncountable times before it was answered. I was placed on hold for another 15 minutes. I held on just for yucks, hanging up when we arrived. When I walked in I noticed there were several people working on prepping for evening service, so there were humans in the house.
The bartender took my order of dumplings, meatballs, and oven-roasted potatoes. I thought of getting more but didn’t really want anything else on this menu. Always a bad sign.
Since there were only two parties in the restaurant, the food came up quickly. We were right in front of the restaurant so I could keep my eye on Tom from the restaurant, and the bartender from the car. I first opened the dumplings, which were hidden under a pile of onion shavings, accompanied by a beautiful ponzu sauce. The meatballs were blanketed by a lovely red sauce sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. The potatoes shocked me at first sight. There were five little cubes with a small tub of sour cream and another of onion marmalade.
There were only three dumplings under the shavings, and they were a little smallish and pretty, fine but nothing special. I did really like the spicy ponzu.
The potatoes were prepared like the elusive dish Potatoes Anna, sliced very thin and layered with butter, creating a soufflé effect. While I acknowledge that this method of baking potatoes is very labor intensive, I wanted more of these for the price. There were little bits of crumbled bacon and herbs here, and the combination of this with the sour cream made it seem like an extra-rich loaded baked potato. The marmalade was fine.
The meatballs were also fine but nothing special. They were much larger than either of these other apps. Larger than minis and not as large as bigger meatballs. They weren't hard but were harder than I usually prefer.
None of this was anything I needed to get again. And I’m glad I didn’t get more. There’s no reason to believe anything else would radically change my mind.
Meril is a hip place that is actually quite beautiful inside with its Louisiana theme of murals. The place looks as good as the day it opened. The food is always first class and the service is attentive (unless you’re trying to order offsite.) I wish I liked it more. I don’t understand why I don’t. Maybe it’s just “not to my taste,” as they say in the business. And that’s fine for us both.
