Wednesday, April 4, 2012.
A Trek To River House.
After the tremendous storms yesterday, another line of meteorological violence came through last night. They say that the Gulf of Mexico didn't cool down during the winter as it usually does, and the warm, moist air from there gets roiled up when the cool air from the west comes in. Last night's was the same system that triggered a bunch of tornadoes in Dallas Tuesday. All this fits predictions from the science of global warming. And does not bode well for this year's hurricane season.
Mary Ann had lunch with Danny Millan, who runs Le Foret and the newer Tamarind restaurant. They have this meeting every two months. It's Mary Ann's method of giving service to her advertising accounts. They went to Borgne, John Besh's newest restaurant,in the reopened Hyatt Regency by the Superdome. She didn't like it the first time she went, but she now says it was terrific. I'm still four or five months away from the place.
While waiting, I've decided that I must go to Kenner at least once a week to catch up on the restaurant scene there. Most of it is about ethnic dining, as I discovered when I went there yesterday to have dinner at the Little Chinatown. But today's visit to Louisiana's sixth-largest city (doesn't sound right, but that's true) took me to an unambiguously local eatery.
The River House opened about a year and a half ago, taking over the charming cottage which for sixteen years housed the excellent Le Parvenu. In one of the most mysterious declines I've ever seen, that restaurant suddenly ground to a halt, and its talented owner-chef Dennis Hutley left to take a job at the Chateau Country Club.
The River House came in shortly after Le Parvenu's demise. From what I could tell and remember, the new owner made only cosmetic changes to the building. (Although he told me tonight that he just had to make a major one, when a tree fell during a storm and wiped out the restaurant's office.)
I get asked about River House often. Mary Ann brought it up just this morning. (She wants to sell them an ad, of course.) The reason I haven't been in all this time is that the reports I hear from e-mails and phone calls remain inconsistent. Most either love or dislike it. The few opinions that land in between makes me even more cautious.
It was a cool, sunny moment in the pre-gloaming, and I took a table out on the porch. I'm not big on outdoor dining, but this is a special place for me. I live and went to school within two blocks of here in the late 1950s, and it feels like home, still. The cats that always wandered around in the Le Parvenu years were still there. Two of them visited my table. I like cats. I think they figured that out.
I started with a well-made Manhattan in a frozen martini glass and too much French bread and butter. (I have learned my lesson about having a cocktail on an empty stomach, which mine was tonight.) The waitress waxed most enthusiastic about the fish of the day: Louisiana speckled trout. She already hooked me with that, so what for an appetizer? The list included cliches from both the past (escargots, fried calamari) and present (spinach-artichoke dip, crab cakes with a cheese sauce).
I asked whether an appetizer size crabmeat au gratin could be had. It could. Except for the easily-ignored melted Cheddar on top, the gratin was good, and came with more French bread for getting up the creamy sauce. Next, a spring mix salad with a dressing not offered to me in a long time: creamy Italian. Served on the side. Twice in one week, I find myself complaining about a salad's not being tossed in the kitchen. I'm fighting a losing battle on this matter, I'm afraid.
In the gap between courses, I was visited by Piero Cenni, the chef-owner of the good but neglected-by-the-public Ristorante da Piero, a door away from the River House. Usual story from Piero. Business is slow, for all the usual reasons except the one most obvious to me: he does very little promotion of his restaurant. Its fans love it, but the other 95 percent have never heard of it.
The trout was pretty. I asked for it amandine style, with some of the creamed spinach offered in the Florentine version underneath. That combination has become one of my favorite old-style fish dishes. It needs a name. First place I ever saw it was at a wine dinner at Galatoire's last year. But I'll bet others have been getting it for awhile. What's French for "trout over and under"?
This particular version of truite sur et sous spent too much time in the pan with the butter, and had lost its firmness. The flavor was all right. The potatoes were like a cross between mashed and au gratin, and good enough that I ate too much of them. Also on the side were some green beans. It seems to me I'm seeing a lot of green beans as a complimentary side in restaurants these days. Just in the last ten days, they turned up at Mandina's, Zea, Keith Young's Steak House, and here.
For dessert, a thick cylinder of bread pudding, a bit on the heavy side but tasty with a lot of cinnamon.
I think the River House has an image problem. The memory of Le Parvenu marks it as a gourmet restaurant, and so does the menu there now. In fact, it's much more like Mandina's than Le Parvenu. All three restaurants do (or did) trout amandine, but at Mandina's you don't have to dress up, and you can get out for under $20. The trout dish I had at the River House was $17, including a salad and two sides. Expectations must be lowered at prices like that, and at that level the place succeeds.
Unfortunately, a lot of people think that a top-class dinner can be had for $17. It can't, and it isn't.
River House. Kenner: 509 Williams Blvd. 504-471-0534.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
