Wednesday, April 3, 2013.
Pardo's Fifth Star Looms.
Lunch with the Marys at Pardo's. As terrific as we've found the food there, we have not dined there much lately. But chef-owner Osman Rodas has not been sitting on his hands in the meantime. The lunch he served us today was extraordinarily fine. So good that MA and I discussed whether a five-star rating is in order. She's all for it. She loves the place and Osman too. She even likes most of the food. (A lot of it is too adventuresome for her palate.)
We started with the soup du jour: carrot, coconut and curry, with a triangle of shrimp toast floating on top. No restaurant in this area would have to think twice about serving this. In texture, aroma and flavor, it was incredibly fine. Mary Ann said it may have been the best soup she ever ate. The chef was proud of it, too, and sent all three of us a serving of it. Which meant that I had two of them. (ML hasn't grokked curry yet.)
Next a misshapen pizza (I can't make mine come out round, either) from the wood-burning oven, topped with exotic mushrooms, cheese, and arugula. Too much food, even when we split it three ways. I would have the rest of this for a snack in the next couple of days, and enjoyed it nearly as much.
The most unusual of the entrees was a highly eccentric wedge salad, made into a roulade and topped with a little mortarboard of frico (made by semi-melting slivers of Parmesan cheese in a bowl, then letting it solidify again). This was a little offbeat for Mary Leigh, who thought that the standard blue cheese salad would have been better. But her eye for design appreciated the effort.
Over MA's way to make her still more ecstatic about this lunch was a thick slab of overcooked (her order) salmon, resting on sweet potatoes with pecans and sauteed green beans. I had fish, too: lemonfish, seared nicely, meaty and moist inside, an island in the center of a rather rich parsnip puree with the texture of cheese grits, with sticks of parsnips and carrots around back for textural contrast. Far, far too much to eat.
If Osman has known we were coming, and had he made up all this original food to make an impression, he couldn't have done better. But all of this was straight off the day's menu. That's when we started talking about the fifth star.
We were too full for dessert. A pair of small ones came anyway: balls of vanilla and lavender ice cream, and a very custardy bread pudding.
So what's missing? Nothing at all in the food department, that's for certain. The service staff is on top of the table at all times, but is less than deeply knowledgeable about what they're serving. A persistent problem on the North Shore, where very few career servers live.
But I can and will put up with those shortcomings for food like this.
Pardo's. Covington: 69305 Hwy 21. 985-893-3603.
To browse through all of the Dining Diaries since 2008, go here.
