Wednesday, September 8. Mike's, Book Two. Dinner at Mike's on the Avenue, for the second time in six days. The menu is so abbreviated that I will get enough information for a full review with just one more large dinner there.
The scene was much more appealing than it was last week. The restaurant was about two-thirds full. And Vicky Bayley was standing at the bar, talking on the phone and looking like she was running everything (as she is). She hung up, turned into a hostess, and walked me over to a bright table in the corner.
Vicky returned a few minutes later and sat down with me. Even with three children in their young teens, she continues to present a stunning aspect. She has the kind of beauty that makes people (not just men, but women, too) feel good just by her presence.
I didn't have to ask a question to get her to open up about the reborn Mike's on the Avenue, even though the story is mildly embarrassing. "We opened in January with a really unique new kind of menu," she said. "We called it Mike's East/West. Mike came up with all these beautiful, great Asian-inspired small plates. We thought it would get people talking like they did when we opened the first Mike's in 1990.
"But people kept telling me that they missed the dishes we used to have back then. I couldn't believe it! How could they even remember that stuff? And when we told them that we were doing a new concept now, they just kept asking for the old dishes. And then they stopped coming.
"Well, around March, I told Mike, 'Look, if we don't do something, we're not going to make it. Let's give them what they want.' So, one night in April, we changed the name back to Mike's on the Avenue. We changed the sign. We changed the whole menu back to what we used to have in the '90s. Overnight. That is a lot of work! It drove Mike crazy! But we did it, and when people came in the next day, they didn't say, 'Hey, what happened to the menu?' They said, 'Oh boy, the dumplings and Mike's crispy duck again! I love all that!' And business picked up a lot. We had a great summer!"
It was only then I realized that the menu I had now ordered from twice was filled with twenty-year-old dishes. I remember thinking Mikes was as good as it was original back then. (At least until Mike left the restaurant for new horizons.) But no specific dish stuck in my memory--even though it obviously did for a lot of people.
That was a time when a rapid evolution in upscale restaurants was happening. Instead of trying to create a few classic dishes while cooking the existing classics as well as they could, chefs in the 1990s started emphasizing the quality of the ingredients and building free-floating dishes around them. Mike's whole menu seemed like that to me back then.
Tonight's dinner was as impressive as last week's. I started with the steamed shrimp and spinach dumplings--like gyoza--with tahine sauce. I loved it, but I had to think hard to recall having had it twenty years ago. (I checked my reviews from then, and I sure did.)
I went straight from that light beginning to a heavy entree. Pork chop, not a double cut but about a cut and a half, seared on the outside and juicy within, topped with a sort of ragu with mushrooms and a nice admixture of pepper. Completely satisfying.
What made a bell ring, however, was the mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes had a major revival in the late 1980s through the 1990s. They're still around more than they were before then, but they're overused on local menus and not often well made. I am a hard target for mashed potatoes; I rarely encounter better than what I make at home. But Mike's mashed potatoes--well, these are superior. The right percentage of lumps and flecks of chives, creamy, rich, just thick enough. Perfect. I think I'll say they're the best in any local restaurant.
The waiter touted the chocolate pot de creme--like a custard, but richer and not quite set--for dessert. This is not my sort of thing, but I followed his advice. It was terrific: velvety, intensely chocolatey (a bit much for me, but the Marys would love it), served with some nice strawberries to add contrast.
Vicky Bayley is right. Mike's on the Avenue is back. And the timing is perfect. When it first hit town, it was really too hip for all but a small percentage of diners. The same food two decades later is now amenable to the mainstream. This could work.
If Vicky and Mike stay with it. But they probably won't--not for a long time, anyway. They both approach the restaurant business like theatre producers. Open a brilliant new show, get everybody talking. Then, when it becomes a matter of doing the same thing over and over again every night, they move on. I will enjoy this Mike's while it's here. If it still is ten years from now, I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Mike's On The Avenue. CBD: 628 St. Charles Ave. 504-523-7600. Eclectic. Fusion.
