From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published October 17, 2006 Bank Cafe 3$ Marigny: 2001 Burgundy Reservations: 371-5260 Dinner Tues.-Sat. AE, DC, DS, MC, V. The most spacious little restaurant in town, The Bank Café gains your approval before you so much as set foot in the place. The building is a former bank, of the kind built in the first half of the last century: twenty-foot ceilings, big windows, and a general feeling of solidity and permanence (although the bank that built the place went bust in the Depression). You've got to love this adaptive re-use in the historic Marigny neighborhood. As imposing as the building is, The Bank's dining room has only about fifty seats, plus a couple of tables under umbrellas on the sidewalk outside. The front door is wide open this time of year; the high ceiling keeps any hot air that may come in from making the place uncomfortable, and makes the sidewalk tables more inviting. The menu style is that combination of contemporary French, Creole, and American food that seems to be taking over the world these days (not just here; I've seen menus like this everywhere I've traveled lately). A new edition of the Bank's food collection just came out, and it's as appealing as the premises are. A welcome addition to the card is oysters, served both freshly shucked on the half shell and grilled with the garlic-butter-parmesan topping that Drago's made into an essential dish for any restaurant with raw oysters. They serve seven of the latter for nine bucks, and not only are they very good, but they introduce a welcome quality to the dish: moisture. The oysters spend much less time on the grill than in most places. So the oyster water has not boiled away and the oyster is still plump and fat. It's just warm instead of mouth-searing hot, which some may find offputting (but not me). The first time I came here, however, I had to try a different bivalve for a first course. They offer a large bowl of some two dozen mussels, steamed with herbs and a touch of tomato, and topped with more fresh-cut French fries than you should really eat, complimented by a ramekin of rouille. You can use the latter to spice up the broth, as a dip for the fries, or a spread of the excellent rustic bread they serve here. If you do all that, this $8.50 appetizer may come close to filling you up for the evening. Since it seems that there's an order of these luscious mussels on every table in the place, I'd like to analyze them further. The chef cooks the mussels very lightly, such that they don't shrink as much as they usually do. However, they're not cooked enough so that all of them gape, and that creates a problem for people who know too much about food. A mussel that opens only a crack may have been dead going into the pan. (As with crawfish, a batch of mussels often includes a dead one or two.) I'm leery about eating non-gaping mussels. My rational mind tells me that these were fine, the brief cooking time being the likely explanation for the non-gaping. But my paranoia made me leave four or five of these delicious things behind, and I wished the chef had hit them with a little more heat so they would have opened all the way. Also, the French fries look great on top of the shells, but half of them wind up in the broth, where they lose all appeal. They need to move these to another dish, where they'd stay crisp. They're too good for the kitchen not to do this. Other appetizers include some very tasty potato gnocchi in a pesto and cream sauce with olives and arugula--a nice lighter starter with a good flavor. The shrimp and grits (another dish required by current vogue to be on every hip restaurant's menu) are big, fresh, and sharp with jalapenos in a butter sauce. Two soups: a creamy oyster stew (impossible for such a thing to be less than wonderful) and a mini-bouillabaisse with tuna, shrimp, mussels, and squid rings. The broth is reminiscent of that underneath the steamed mussels, but spicier. After all those preliminary courses (and I didn't even mention them all), it's surprising that only five entrees appear on the printed menu. (Although that's probably enough for a restaurant this size.) The big lack is of seafood; the only fish on the printed menu is grilled tuna, which is fine but so much like meat that it almost doesn't count as seafood. The most appealing of the main courses is the double-cut pork chop. It's cold-smoked, they say. That is not something I'd try, myself, but the smoky flavor is indeed pervasive. They finish it on the grill, and send it out with a loose pancake of celery root and potatoes. And it's undercooked, to a point barely above which I would have sent it back. There's no food-safety issue (pork can be medium-rare and still be fine). And I have no reluctance to eat even raw meats and fish, when appropriate. But a pork chop just tastes better when grilled to just the faintest blush of pink. I will ask for it that way next time. (And there will certainly be a next time.) I will also ask to have the hanger steak cooked another ten degrees hotter; the undercooking there really lessened the famous flavor of that cut of meat. I will ask to have the chicken (with fennel and lemon) cooked a little harder, too. In fact, I'll just come out and tell the chef right here and now that, while it's true that a lot of food out there would be better if cooked a little less, he has gone too far in the opposite direction, and that he should maybe reconsider that approach. Of course, that's an easy problem for a diner to repair, either at the time of ordering or (less ideally) at the time of delivery. Just ask to have the stuff cooked a little more than the chef likes, and you will have some very good eats. The dishes themselves are very well conceived. Throughout the menu, the portions are bigger than they need to be. The mussels set the pace in that regard, but the panneed rabbit with orange-flavored pan gravy comes out in two very large, rather thick paillards--one more than I could eat. (It should be noted that I had the mussels before that.) They make their own ice cream, a delicious panna cotta with bruleed bananas, and a fine, generous chocolate mousse for dessert. The wine list carries about fifty wines, including enough offbeat bottles to keep a wine explorer happy. You're served by lovely young women who are very polite and helpful. The Bank is probably not on a route you travel often, and a couple blocks away from the main Marigny strip. So you have to intentionally look for it, at the corner of Burgundy and Touro. Very much worth the search. 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