Wednesday, May 1, 2013.
Eat Club At Rene Bistrot.
Intense thunderstorms continued to blow up all around the area, but my fifty-mile path from the Cool Water Ranch to downtown New Orleans remained almost dry. That prevented a white-knuckle Causeway crossing, and also assured me that all 40 reservations for our Eat Club dinner at Rene Bistrot would show up later.
This is the second Rene Bistrot. The first was where MiLa is now, before Katrina. This one is the fourth restaurant overseen by Chef Rene Bajeux (the Windsor Court Grill Room and the Rib Room were the others). With the credential of French Master Chef--the classical equivalent of an Iron Chef, I guess--Rene draws attention to everything he does. He has not yet transformed the business in his current restaurant, in the Renaissance Arts Hotel in the Emeril's-Tommy's restaurant row.
A new menu that came out a few weeks ago might well do the trick. If it's as fine as the food we were served tonight, and if people can get over their aversion to dining in hotel restaurants, this place could really take off.
Rene visited the radio show a couple of times during our broadcast from his dining room. In the conversation he said something I found quotable. Asking him about the duck and smoked mushroom soup we would have tonight, I wondered whether it was in any way gumbo-like.
He smiled and said something I've never heard the likes of from a chef--let alone one with his lofty credentials. "I don't know how to make gumbo," he said. "I leave it to people who do." Every other chef in my experience claimed omnipotence in his kitchen.
We began our evening of dining in an interesting way. The Eat Clubbers gathered in front of the counter separating the otherwise open kitchen from the dining room. The chefs put pans of appetizers in front of us while the waiters opened bottles of a South African Champagne-style wine from Graham Beck. Here were cool rabbit rillettes on herbed focaccia. The French answer to pizza, the misshapen, very thin, crunchy pissaladiere, topped with white anchovies and olives, screaming its Provencal origins. And some great beignets of chickpeas and shrimp, so hot that I burned my lip on one that had just come out of the fryer a few feet from where I was standing.
More intense stove heat would come to the tables when we sat down. A crock of the aforementioned duck and smoked mushrooms in a hot broth, all covered with a crust topped with hazelnuts and bitter. Come to think of it, maybe that's why I still have a little swelling on my lip. I ate this near-boiling soup too fast. I couldn't help myself.
Next came a dish which, for all its French authenticity and the goodness of the plump oysters inside, was really just a big oyster patty. I never did like those. Not the patty shells from McKenzie's or the thick, tan filling. Chef Rene made his own, of course, something we could tell from the fact that the vol-au-vents (that's French for "patty shells") were square, not round. But still it just sat there for me.
Things picked up again in the next course, a stew of lamb and vegetables in a thick sauce with a ruddy color. Even those who claimed not to be fans of lamb loved it. Here was a classic navarin, a word I will have to add to my Edible Dictionary.
The dessert was a slab of chocolate that the Marys would have liked, with a mint sorbet melting over its top. The most interesting part of this courses was a Domaine Soulanes sweet red wine, which caught everybody by surprise.
This was one of our liveliest parties. I semi-apologized for the noise we created, but the restaurant manager said that it was the sound of a lot of happy people, something she loves to listen to.
Rene Bistrot. Warehouse District & Center City: 700 Tchoupitoulas. 504-613-2350.
To browse through all of the Dining Diaries since 2008, go here.
