Wednesday, March 28, 2012.
Degassing Menus. Eat Club Goes To Impastato's (Again).
I like to have a title for a book or article before I start working on it. Gives me something to shoot for. For the past several months I've ruminated on how to express an idea I have about today's cutting edge restaurants in just a few words.
Here's the idea: I believe that if chefs put as much concentration into making a dish really, really delicious as they do into weaving the story about the dish's ingredients, they would serve people better food.
For example, would a dish including house-made Worcestershire sauce or house-made ketchup be better than one using Lea and Perrin's or Heinz? I don't think a blind tasting would reveal much of a difference. What would be hard to miss is the higher price of the dish with house-made ingredients.
All this was on my mind today as I worked up a review of Sylvain. My online reviews include complete menus--but I don't use the restaurant's own verbiage. Many (perhaps most) dish names either 1) tell nothing at all (i.e., shrimp Debbie), b) are full of hot air inflating the facts, or iii) are misleading.
The second matter is the one that gets me most riled up. Here's an example from Sylvain's menu:
Their way: Crispy Duck Confit. Vidalia creamed blackeye peas, Maras Farms sprouts, Bourbon mustard.
My way: Duck confit (all duck confit should be crispy), blackeye peas (Vidalia what? onions? a special kind of blackeye pea? confusing), sprouts (I like Gerard Maras and his North Shore farm's organic vegetables but, really, how much difference could this make in a garnish of sprouts?), Bourbon mustard (the Bourbon would indeed make an interesting difference, so I let it pass).
I don't have a word for this surgery, but I do have a motto: "Degassing menus since 1972."
The Eat Club made one of its frequent visits today to Impastato's. We had about sixty people there, and took over almost all the seats in the main dining room. Lots of newcomers--more than we've had in a long time. I spent most of the evening with two tables of these. One included a Chicago-born lady with a Greek heritage. She's been to Greece many times and loves it. Also at this table were a couple who have traveled widely in Italy. I didn't want to leave the conversation we were having, so interesting was it.
I tried to create a controversy about the name of one of the menu's dishes. The veal (or fish or soft-shell crab) with a topping of mushrooms, artichokes, crabmeat and shrimp in a sherry butter sauce has always been named according to this formula:
veal (or whatever) [last name of current Saints head coach]
It is currently veal Payton. Used to be veal Hazlett. And veal Ditka. Veal Mora.
Well, now that Sean Payton is suspended for a year, should his namesake dishes reflect this? I asked Joe Impastato, who immediately took me over to a display of medallions he's selling at the restaurant. In letters drawn by his granddaughter, they say "Free Sean Payton." Joe is among the most enthusiastic Saints fans.
The dinner was the usual Impastato's menu, with a few variations. His Italian-style baked oysters and stuffed mushrooms were among the appetizers. (Our usual shrimp scampi moved from the first course to the fourth, as a main). Right before the meal began. Joe's lead captain Billy walked through the room showing off a pan of enormous, crabmeat-stuffed flounders. I knew that I would be sent one of these, no matter what protests I lodged. But a few other Eat Clubbers with the gall to ask for it got it, too. Impastato's is a place where one need never feel shy about asking for something out of the ordinary.
Two interesting wines. Planeta La Segreta Bianco is a Sicily-made blend of a couple of the hundreds of unique grape varieties from that island, with a pair of French grapes. It had a big, sexy, almost impolite aroma and flavor. The Pinot Noir from Alta Luna triggered a discussion as to whether it was better with the fettuccine Alfredo or the spice red sauce of the angel hair. I stood up and said it was best all by itself. But what do I know?
In the lounge, several customers were actually insisting that I get up and sing with Roy Picou's karaoke setup. Three Sinatra classics: "From Here To Eternity," "All Of Me," and "That Old Devil Moon." Then I said good night.
Impastato's. Metairie: 3400 16th St. 504-455-1545.
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.
