Wednesday, September 14, 2011.
Eat Club At Vincent's Goes Over The Top.
In the early days of the radio show, few restaurants were talked about more than Vincent's was. Vincent Catalanotto--who I knew from my month-long career as a waiter at the long-gone Romanoff's--opened his little Metairie restaurant a few months after the show hit the air in 1988. Our friendship made me notice the place, but the calls from listeners made me pay attention. From the beginning, the food was very much in the New Orleans-Italian style, but unusually good at that.
Over the years, we've done a couple of Eat Club dinners at Vincent's. The last one was before the hurricane. After the storm, satellite locations of Vincent's opened from Mandeville to Baton Rouge. I thought the food slipped a little during that period. Even the Eat Club before the storm was poorly attended and unmemorable.
But Vincent is clearly pushing his restaurants uphill now. The Metairie original underwent a major renovation last year, adding more comfortable and better-looking chairs and refurbishing the paint and wall decor. He will renovate the exterior soon, too.
Meanwhile, Vincent's son (also Vincent) has moved into management. And while Vincent still comes in to cook certain dishes (his matchless crawfish bisque and the baked oyster casserole), for the most part his kitchen crew takes care of business.
And well, too, judging by this dinner. We started with a small masterpiece: a round of panneed eggplant topped with crabmeat and shrimp "au gratin." It was a good, rich sauce without an up-front cheese flavor. Everybody I spoke with thought this was just terrific, and so did I.
After a well made but unexceptional Caesar salad came the only dish tonight that we might have had twenty years ago. The cannelloni at Vincent's has ruled since it first appeared. Every Italian restaurant in town serves this, but none do it this way. First, the filling of ground (almost pureed, really) veal, spinach, and cheese is rolled up not in a pasta sheet, but in a thin crepe. The typical New Orleans cannelloni is covered with red sauce. In recent times, a bit of cream sauce has gone over the top, to add richness. Vincent's version turns that around, with the white sauce as the main theme and the red as an accent. Whatever: it's still the best around.
A pork shank done in the style of osso buco came next. Good choice. The standard veal shank is too big for a dinner like this. But the pork equivalent only verges on overload. The meat was falling off the bone and the sauce--a reddish brown job, scattered with gremolata--was just right.
The wines were good all night, but what we had with that was outstanding. Terra d'Oro--a California maker of Italian-style wines--has a Zinfandel made with 100-year-old vines. Deep,rich, and powerfully alcoholic (15.5%!), this wine needed some big, somewhat fatty and gelatinous flavors to stand up.
If I had any doubts about the menu, it was the dessert of panna cotta. Panna cotta--a custard without egg yolks--is so light that it seems right only for meals that need the smallest taste of sweetness at the end. Otherwise, it's boring. But not this one. Whoever made it put a fruit gel flavored with fresh mango across the top. Bingo! That one little addition made this a great dessert.
The slow bubbles of Prosecco entered flutes around the room. The three chefs, Jodi the manager, and Vincents Sr. and Jr. came out for a round of applause. A happy evening for about fifty people puts a smile on my face.
Vincent's. Metairie: 4411 Chastant St. 504-885-2984.
