Wednesday, August 25, 2010. Restaurant August. The Marys met me at Restaurant August for a kind of going-away dinner. Mary Ann is leaving for Washington tomorrow, and expects to be there for two months. (I don't expect that, but I'll just go with the program.) Mary Leigh is already gone, avoiding contact with parents in her dorm at Tulane. She is finding out that an old line about college life is true. "You can study, socialize, or sleep. Pick two." Her socializing has been a particular surprise for her. Her room has apparently become the center for hanging out on her floor of the dorm. Which includes both boys and girls. (Officially, men and women, but that's what she calls them, and I like that better.) She hardly has time to call--although I know Mary Ann is calling her plenty often enough.
I wanted us to dine together at August because a) it would be August, 2) Mary Leigh has never been there, III) this is the eponymous month, and d) I need to update my impressions of the restaurant. It's been quite awhile since my last visit.
Today is National Martini Day, and upon arriving I observed it. The Marys had iced tea. Mary Leigh looked over the menu and wondered aloud what she could possibly find to order. That's what Mary Ann said the first time we came here. "I love this place!" she said. "But I can't find any food in this menu that I can eat!" Or, as she also put it, "It's too gourmet for me."
It's not too gourmet for me. In fact, it may not be gourmet enough for me. Too many trends are being followed, not enough led. Here's the requisite pork belly dish, the essential ravioli dish, the trendy beef short ribs dish, and the newly-hot beef coulette dish.
The coulette is the cap of the ribeye roast. It was on the menu for an Eat Club dinner at August two years ago, and at Galatoire's in another Eat Club dinner one year ago. The coulette is very tender and soft, and since it's on the outside of the roast the contrast between that softness and the exterior crust is interesting. However, I'd call it a curiosity piece, not a dish for the ages. We ought to see it now and then, but not frequently.
Now, here's the punchline: the coulette was wrapped around the short ribs! Two trendy things in one dish! But I'm glad it was being offered tonight, because I knew Mary Ann would love it. She didn't think so, but I talked her into it. She rarely allows me to dictate her meals, but she orders so many dishes she regrets that she really ought to. Tonight, she's still in that mellow pre-departure mindset.
A thin slice of plum became the roof of a sweetly sauced amuse bouche. The waiter described it in two sentences. Too long for me to catch it all, and too long for something that provides but two bites. That was followed by a much better first bite: August's celebrated gnocchi with crabmeat (below). It's about the only dish here that's been a fixture since the place opened, and has become one of the signatures.
Shrimp pot-stickers in a broth with a sort of mild Thai flavor came for Mary Ann's starter. Cheesy-vegetal ravioli (below) for me, wrapped in black pasta, set on a lusty stew of tomatoes and herbs, spewed with a basil foam. Foam is well past its peak of vogue, but it worked in this context from more than just a visual perspective.
I ordered two entrees, to accelerate my information-gathering program. The first was a roulade of redfish, with a seafood stuffing pulverized into almost a puree and rolled up into a cylinder. The redfish formed a thin skin. It came out with crabmeat on top and a single grilled shrimp on the side, all in a soup plate. A waiter poured into the bowl a rich, intense, brothy sauce. In aroma, flavor, color, and consistency it reminded me of the old classic French dish lobster Americaine.
Now guess the name of that dish. Did you guess redfish courtbouillon? No, it wasn't like anything I've had under that name, either. But John Besh is into the current dish-naming convention. He puts quotation marks around words to make the point that he's being suggestive, not definitive. I forgive all that if the result is a dish this good. And this redfish "courtbouillon" was really good. Especially with the Meursault. (By the glass, $22.)
The kitchen was smart enough to know that the Marys would not take kindly to watching me eat the "courtbouillon" with nothing in front of either of them except the miniature "baguettes" they bake here. (Which, by the way, are and always have been terrible. Baking bread in house doesn't always result in an improvement on Leidenheimer's.)
So, as I got to work on the fish, the waiter brought the girls' beeves. Mary Ann's reaction to the coulette-wrapped short ribs was exactly what I predicted: she loved it. Although it was covered with lots of camouflage, it could have been called roast beef and gravy. Roast beef and gravy is not too gourmet for my wife. Mary Leigh was also happy, but that was easy: filet mignon is her default dish. I would have been upset if I were her boyfriend and saw her eat only half of it at these prices. But as her dad I'm proud of her restraint in eating, and her success at maintaining her healthy, slender frame.
My second entree was a roulade (third one on our table tonight, counting the coulette thing) of rabbit, stuffed with rabbit sausage. Wait! Didn't I have something very much like this at La Provence, John Besh's other classic dining room? I think so! And I liked that one better. But I was probably hungrier there, too, so we'll call it a draw.
Style alert! Baby corn on two dishes currently on the table! An ultrafine point of dining at this level broken! Later in the dinner, the thin slice of plum that had appeared on the amuse-bouche covered one of the cheeses on the cheese plate. Reruns do not become a five-star restaurant.
Despite the auspiciousness of the moment, the Marys had had quite enough of my company by now. My "dates" left me to have dessert alone. A cheese plate, nicely presented, everything properly ripe, all at the right temperature. An espresso to end things was intense and good. Total with tip: a shade of $300. About what I expected, but I'm glad MA wasn't around to see that.
As I lingered, I took inventory of the dining room. Of the two dozen or so men, four wore jackets. Two wore ties. Of the unjacketed guys, only about half wore buttoned shirts. Of those who wore golf shirts, four were in jeans. I saw one guy in shorts.
""We have no official dress code, sir," I would suggest that reservationists say. "But most of the gentlemen who dine here wear jackets and slacks, and some even wear ties. I'm just telling you that in case it would make you feel out of place if you dress down." Yes. Let's plant that seed.
Problem: a lot of people make reservations online with that infernal Open Table outfit. Leaving the question of dressed unasked and unanswered.
One of the men wearing jacket and tie was Frank Stewart, chairman of Stewart Enterprises. That's the second-largest provider of funeral services in America, and it's headquartered here in New Orleans. I met Frank for the first time in 1968, when he gave the year-end speech for Junior Achievement, of which I was a student member. (Or "Achiever," as they called us.) He was thirty-two at the time, but he seemed like an eternal pillar of the community to me at seventeen. He always tells me nice things about my work when I see him. And he does quite a good job, himself.
Restaurant August. CBD: 301 Tchoupitoulas. 504-299-9777. French. Contemporary Creole.
