Wednesday, November 2, 2011.
A Long Walk To Ste. Marie.
Dinner at Ste. Marie for the second time in as many weeks. I walked the six blocks there from the radio station. That's a distance I don't think twice about anymore, but it would have been unthinkable in May, when I was still hobbling around on a walker. Among the few remaining remnants of that struggle is my fear of crossing streets at intersections where a car might suddenly appear to take a right on red. I'm still not comfortable with the idea of breaking into a run.
We got the same table we had last time, a deuce separated from the front door by a roughly-built wine rack. (At least that's what it looks like; no bottles are in it, although plenty are in another section.) Only one door separates the entryway from the sidewalk. Someone sitting at this table on a windy night when the temperature goes down to the low forties will not be happy about it.
I began with steak tartare. Good: they chop the raw beef by hand, instead of grinding it. Chopping is actually the classic way. Bad: they don't chop it nearly fine enough. Some bits in here were more like chunks than morsels. Good: the puck of beef had a raw quail egg on top, which worked its way into a sauce as one ate. Bad: there was way too much of this matrix, enough to become gooey. I was hoping for another good steak tartare, but this isn't it. I don't think I could name five places that serve the dish at all.
We had a couple of salads. Mine was the market salad, with greens from the Hollygrove Market. I'm all for that effort--it's a neighborhood patch where they're growing and selling all sorts of things. Does it make the salad better? Not today.
Then came a nice-looking, thick slab of salmon for Mary Ann, browned around the edges and cooked through the way she likes it. Additionally, a crust made of nearly-ground bacon was on top. She liked this but not the truffled potatoes. Mary Ann doesn't see (or smell) the appeal of truffles, but that figures: the suggestion of the aroma would appeal more to men.
My entree pushed a phrase into my mind for the review I'd write tomorrow. It was billed as grandmere's chicken, a French bistro classic. The very nature of something called "grandmother's chicken" admits of a lot of variables, but what should come out is a simply roasted whole or half chicken, bones in, with a crisp skin and hints of garlic, onions, and herbs. This is, in fact, one of my favorite entrees. What came out of Ste. Marie's kitchen here was an airline chicken breast--the most boring cut of chicken this side of boneless-skinless. It was surrounded by a buttery sauce with pearl onions, squash, and potato cubes.
It was ordinary in every way, in the same ways it was last time we were here. Hence my review phrase: "the most disappointing new restaurant of the year." Not the worst. In fact, Ste. Marie is reasonably good. But what its menu and its advance publicity promised (and those were worthy goals) are not being delivered yet. This may be a restaurant that needs more time to reach its peak. It has happened before in some now-great places. Mr. B's, for example, took two and a half years.
I wanted to try the creme brulee, but it was out. My palate set for a dessert, I had the same honey custard (like a panna cotta) as last time. Pretty.
Mary Ann offered me a ride to the radio station, but I need to walk some more if I am to take my annual Manresa hikes two weeks from now.
Ste. Marie. CBD: 930 Poydras St. 504-304-6988.
