Wednesday, March 20, 2013.
Chalmette Penetrated, At Last.
Restaurateurs don't like Daylight Saving Time. It began a couple of weeks ago, and I'm hearing the complaints already. Diners don't start thinking about heading out to a restaurant until it gets dark, the restaurant guys say. And then a lot of the would-be customers realize that it's seven-thirty or eight, and decide it's too late to go to a full-menu kind of place.
I try to be as much like a normal diner as I can. But I like DST. There are certain restaurants I don't feel comfortable visiting after dark. This may be entirely irrational, but given the number of times I dine solo and the crime rate these days, I think it's reasonable.
I took advantage of the extended daylight hours today to head to St. Bernard Parish, where I have not dinged in a long time. In particular I have heard good things about MeMe's, a year-old bistro in Chalmette. I'm not worried about being mugged in Chalmette, but finding restaurants isn't easy. MeMe's was not obvious. Since it's on Judge Perez Drive, the main thoroughfare, I couldn't slow down and look for it without having the cars behind me pull a little too close or flash their hi-beans at me.
Complicating matters is that a lot of street signs are still missing from their posts, one of many persistent Katrina problems in Da Parish. Even using the map function on my iPhone (what a great toy!), it was easy to blow past MeMe's, as I did three times before I made the right turn.
I parked on the side street, which gave a misleading idea of the restaurant. It was a little shabby along that side. To match the crowd this suggested, I took off my jacket and tie. Inside, though, I found a nice-looking space, smaller than I expected. The man at the door gave me a good table, the waitress came over to offer a glass of wine. And suddenly I felt entirely at home.
That improved once I read through the menu. Here were many of my favorite local dishes. Four kinds of baked oysters, for example. Barbecue shrimp. Veal, chicken, and pork, done all the usual ways. Gulf fish with the usual sauces. Most encouraging of all was that I saw nothing gross. No cheese or bacon added to make a dish seem more appealing while actually degrading the flavor. Somebody here has very good taste.
The oysters were a no-brainer, but which ones? Three of the four varieties came out on the half-shell; oysters MeMe was in a gratin dish. Would that be Italian style? Yes, said the waitress. Well, I'll have that. She then told of a special involving panneed veal and pasta Alfredo. That dish was incredibly popular in the best restaurants in the early 1980s (all the way up to Commander's Palace), but we don't see it much anymore. Let's have that, too. With a salad in between.
The oysters tasted as good as they smelled, and since they came out bubbling under the bread crumbs they smelled wonderful. This was already too much to eat--for an appetizer, anyway. The salad added to the fullness. By then I had been identified, and the MeMe of the evening (there are two of them; the restaurant is owned and managed by two couples) brought me small cups of all three soups. All rich, all good.
The panneed veal--toasty, almost sizzling, very tender-- was raised a click by a little brown sauce made with wine and wild mushrooms. The Alfredo component remained in charge, though. Doing my best, I could only finish half of this very large platter. I understand the reason for it. In St. Bernard, for a restaurant to even hint at small portions is the kiss of death, what with the standards of weights and measures set by Rocky & Carlo's.
I got dessert anyway, mainly because I wanted to see what a Neapolitan creme brulee looked like. Answer: pink. Very, very sweet, beyond my threshold. This was the only dubious dish of the evening.
But. . . here is a restaurant with food at a level that would (and does) pass in much more expensive restaurants in much more auspicious circumstances. I tried to think back on all the other meals I've had in St. Bernard, and couldn't think of one that was even close to this good.
It occurred to me that in the thirty-three years I've written a weekly column for CityBusiness newspaper, I have written exactly one about a St. Bernard restaurant. (Barrister's, where we also did an Eat Club dinner once. But it was gone even before Katrina.) I have a feeling that Da Parish has finally begun supporting serious restaurants. Now that I can get there before the sun goes down, I will do some more checking of some other good ones I've heard rumors of.
MeMe's Bar & Grille. St. Bernard: 712 W. Judge Perez Dr. 504-644-4992.
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