Wednesday, January 9, 2013.
Cornish Hen Redemption.
For the third time in the past couple of weeks, I failed to find a place to park acceptably close (given that it has been raining off and on for what now seems like weeks) to the Italian Barrel. Clearly my opinion of that little place on Barracks off Decatur needs revisiting. Everybody who mentions going there seems to love it, including some people with discriminating palates and ardor for delicious eats. I was unimpressed, but it's been awhile.
I worked my way over to Canal Street with nothing stirring in that huge taste bud I call my brain. Redemption--known to all and sundry as "That Place The Used To Be Christian's"--loomed in my peripheral vision. Why not? It's been a few months.
The restaurant was sparse. That's how most places are in the first half of January, always a slow time for restaurant due to effects of New Year's resolutions. Which I welcomed. A quiet evening of reading. That was not to be. Brenda Maitland was camped at a banquette with some other wine lovers. Brenda is a food and wine writer, as is her husband Tim McNally. Tim--who hosts a radio show about wine right before mine on Fridays--was away in California judging a wine competition. Out of the six times I've dined at Redemption, Brenda and Tim have been there three. They must eat here a lot. (Or maybe it's me.)
Not that I minded. Also here was a man who says he has been reading my stuff and listening to the radio show for many years. And a sales guy from Wines Unlimited who I haven't seen in years. I don't hang around with wine and liquor salesmen enough. Nobody hears more restaurant industry scuttlebutt than those guys. (Although I've heard it said that the people who really know everything are the garbagemen.)
Chef Greg Picolo sent out two orders of a new dish on his menu, a confit of duck leg with Fontina cheese and what I think was a duck demi-glace. This was much better than I expected; the idea of duck and cheese together didn't sound right to me, but it's all in the tasting, isn't it?
I asked for fried eggplant before that came, so we could have something to eat with all the wine samples on the table. Greg's eggplant sticks are terrific, brought out stacked up in a tic-tac-toe pattern. He dusts them with a light sprinkle (not a coating) of powdered sugar, the way they do at Galatoire's. That idea, I understand, is to balance off the bitterness of the eggplants. I believe that today's eggplants are much less bitter than they once were, and the powdered sugar is as unnecessary as the sliver of lemon peel served with espresso in this country. (In Italy, they know better.)
I ordered a Caesar salad, and everybody followed suit. They were glad they did. I think Greg makes the sauce to order. It had the taste of that, anyway, and was among the best Caesars I've had in a long time. (And I eat Caesar salad all the time.)
Maria DeLaune, who owns Redemption with her husband, said that opening the place on Christmas was a big success. But something caught her by surprise. "I thought we'd sell a lot of Cornish hens, so I bought several cases of them," she said. "Chef Greg said that was a mistake, and that we'd sell much more fish than anything else. Fish on Christmas? That didn't sound right. Well, everybody ordered fish, nobody ordered Cornish hens. Now I have all these Cornish hens."
Lucky for her, there's no other way to get Cornish hens than frozen, so they won't be going to waste. Greg is running them on a special: deep-fried. At first he wanted to fry them whole, but decided to quarter them instead. Otherwise, everything about it was fried chicken. With good reason: a Cornish hen really is a chicken. It was good--greaseless, hot, nicely coated and seasoned.
I thought I'd help out by depleting one hen from their stock. If it were me cooking I'd brine these birds, though. The white meat was a little dry. I also told Greg (who hardly is in need of ideas from the likes of me) that he ought to try smoking the birds. I've done that many times to superb result.
A pleasant evening.
Redemption. Mid-City: 3835 Iberville St. 504-309-3570.
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