Wednesday, June 27, 2012.
Orleans Grapevine.
When Richard Collin published the first of his three restaurant guides in 1970, it included almost every restaurant in the New Orleans area above the fast-food level. Among the 300 or so entries even mediocre restaurants in obscure locations were written about. It was (to use one of his favorite phrases) a tour de force.
Inspired by Collin's work, I started writing a weekly restaurant column two years later. One of my competitive strategies was to find restaurants Collin had missed. There weren't many, and few worth writing about. The best scoop I had was Eddie's, the legendary soul food restaurant on Law Street in Gentilly. I aired my excited review on the radio two days before Collin's glowing report came out in the Saturday States-Item. I didn't score many like that.
Today, with a thousand more restaurants than in Collin's time, it is not possible for one person to cover the whole New Orleans dining scene the way he did. I have come to accept this. However, it still irks me that a fair number of good, important restaurants I have not tried yet are ever out there, waiting.
One of those is Orleans Grapevine. It opened in 2001. Almost immediately, people reported that they found the place charming and good. I never managed to get there until today. Looking for a parking spot near the center of the Quarter, one turned up on the corner of Royal and Orleans, a half-clock from the restaurant. It was meant to be.
The name suggests that the wine part of the operation is strong or even dominant. Indeed, the first thing you see upon entering either of the two doors from the sidewalk is the bar between them. The waiter brings a book that starts with four pages of menu items, but then goes on to offer many times that in wine resources.
Maybe that lowered Orleans Grapevine's priority on my list. I don't subscribe to the idea that wine is equally important in a meal as food. That will seem obvious to most readers, but more than a few people think wine comes first. When a restaurant leans that way, it's almost inevitable that the kitchen is less successful.
A quick scan of the menu showed this not to be the case. The menu covered all the important bases, seafood to steaks, all with respectable portfolios. I turned the page to look for wines by the glass, and found instead a full page of bar dishes, all small enough to allow sampling several, but substantial enough to make a meal without an entree.
I was happy with the waiter's suggestion of a white Burgundy not on the list. He started the eats with vichyssoise. Perfect on this scorcher of a day. (It went over 100 at several points along my route to the radio station this afternoon.) The soup was large, thick, and in need of being run through a food mill to smooth out the potato component. Otherwise it was good. The crisp slivers of onion on top was a nice touch.
Now a dozen mussels in a creamy, light-orange sauce tinged with saffron. A few of the mussels were overcooked, but this venial sin was forgiven by the presence of lump crabmeat tossed about in the mussels shells. Also in there was crumbled bacon: Instance #637532 of bacon where it doesn't belong. I brushed it aside and enjoyed, the wine holding up its end nicely.
Then two crab cakes. At $13 the order, I didn't expect jumbo lump, but what I hoped for was indeed here. All white crabmeat, very little filler. The crust was made of bread crumbs, and appeared to have been pan-fried. Nice and crisp. Maybe a little too dense in the middle, but that sure beats bread crumbs through and through. Squirts of a zippy remoulade completed a good dish.
Then three scallops, each wrapped with Nueske's bacon. Sometimes naming all the ingredients makes sense (Chisesi ham and P&J oysters come to mind). But the advantage of Nueske's product moves me less than it does some friends. Nevertheless, this was even better than the two previous dishes, mostly because the scallops themselves bulged with deliciousness.
This was already too much food. But I was making up for all the years I didn't come here. So, creme brulee, with blueberries and strawberries. First-rate. Good coffee, even though it was made my least-favorite way (a French press pot).
I left the restaurant thinking that few people eat five courses at the Grapevine. And that it's a more substantial, more spacious eatery than I expected. One or two more meals, and the review may be the one that achieves my goal of having 500 detailed, up-to-date reviews before the summer is out.
Richard Collin--who taught a number of history courses I took with him in the years when I was trying to move in on his gig--would be proud of me.
Orleans Grapevine. French Quarter: 720 Orleans Avenue. 504-523-1930.
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.
