Wednesday, July 27, 2011.
More Pie, More Sausage.
Another visit to the Crescent Pie & Sausage Company. As it was last time I was here, the place wasn't very busy. Maybe they get a later crowd (the place seems targeted at younger diners) or at lunch. The same waitress with the beaming blue eyes took care of my table.
I asked for a beer. I am not much of a beer drinker, but the long lists of craft brews that some restaurants are featuring these days have piqued my interest. This one was Racer 5, an India Pale Ale from the Bear Republic Brewing Company in Healdsburg, California. That's in the center of Sonoma winemaking territory. It was a sharply-flavored, hoppy beer--one of two kinds that I favor. (The other is big, dark, malty beer.)
First course was a duck meat pie. It was one of three savory fried pies available, in the style of the ones they make in Natchitoches. It's odd to me that they don't have the classic spicy meat pie, but apparently they rotate the contents. This was less greasy than a meat pie would be (both a good and a bad thing), and served with onion marmalade, tomato and cucumber slices, and pickled okra.
Next, a plate featuring merguez, the lamb and (sometimes) veal sausage from Northern Africa. This one was much spicier and fattier than any I've had in the past (from four different sources, none of them in the sausage's homeland). It was colored reddish orange by paprika and cayenne. One its own merits, it was enjoyable enough. One had to be careful cutting into the sausage that the excess oil didn't squirt onto one's shirt, as it did mine. (They need steak knives here.) The plate was fleshed out with taro chips (like potato chips, but much less starchy), arugula, and a version of harissa--the Moroccan answer to hot sauce--that had been reduced to the texture of tomato pasta. I managed to allow a blob of that to hit my shirt, too.
Co-chef-proprieter Bart Bell figured out who I was around this time and came over to say hello and put out some news. The other restaurant he and partner Jeff Baron opened before this one--Huevos, a breakfast hangout--will close temporarily, in wait for a new location. "People are always coming in asking to buy the sausages at retail," he told me. "So we thought it would be a good idea to expand that part of the business. We're going to use the Huevos building for that."
Everybody likes their sausages, and the copy line on the menu that says all their sausages are made on the premises. But I am becoming suspicious that this may not always be a good thing. The primary difference I see between restaurant-made sausages and the best of what's available from sausage specialists is that the restaurant sausages are more expensive. The ones I've had here are quite good, but I can't say I've been so blown away by them that my sausage-buying habits will change.
Start with pie, end with pie. Peach pie, dense, heavy, a bit tart, and bigger than I should be eating (so I left a fourth of it behind).
Despite what I said a minute ago about the price of restaurant-made sausages, this place is inexpensive. All this food and beer (too much) was $38. I think a normal person could get out for $25. I also join the people who love this place in saying that it's unique in its menu and style, and a great addition to the dining scene. It's emphatically the kind of place that could not and could not have existed before Katrina.
Crescent Pie & Sausage Company. Mid-City: 4408 Banks St. 504-482-6264.
