nomenu.com Subscribe FREE to the Menu Daily by e-mail Ask Tom! Interactive Q&A Page. New Orleans EATBASE Our rated database of over 500 restaurants. EatBase Light (FREE) The top 100 restaurants! Food Show Online Tom on WSMB Radio live weekdays, 11 a-1 p! Listen now! New Orleans Eat Club Join Tom for dinner! The chefs knock us out with special menus! Critic's Choice Dinners The ultimate dinners at some of New Orleans' best restaurants, personally planned by Tom Fitzmorris. Available any night--just ask for the Critic's Choice menu. Today's Feature: Christian's It's oyster season, so I thought I'd highlight them for our first Critic's Choice menu at the wonderful Creole-French restaurant in the pink church. --Cold-smoked salmon with peppercorns and olive oil. They smoke this themselves, and it melts in your mouth. --Oysters Roland. A half-dozen oysters baked in a little casserole with a wonderfully aromatic sauce of mushrooms, garlic, parsley, and bread crumbs. Bubbling and buttery. --Christian's salad --Filet mignon farci Bayou la Loutre. This is my favorite dish here, and a combination we don't see nearly often enough: beef and oysters, whose tastes are remarkably complementary. An oyster is stuffed inside the thick filet mignon, and it's all sauced with a spicy demi-glace with some more oysters in the sauce. An incredible taste. --Vegetables and potatoes of the day --Choice of ice creams or sorbets. Christian's makes all its own, and they have some outstanding flavors (my favorites are the honey-Bourbon whiskey ice cream and melon sorbet). --Coffee or tea $57 Order it during any dinner service at Christian's. Please make a reservation, though: 482-4924.

BY TOM FITZMORRIS. . . MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 2001 Today: --King Cake And Me ----Pursuit: Five Best King Cakes ------Link: Buddy Stall's King Cake History --------Recipe: See If You Can Guess ----------Review: Isabella's Pizza King Cakes And Me "Localism alone leads to culture." During my long tenure at the old weekly newspaper Figaro, we ran that line at the top of our masthead. I don't know where it came from, but it's sure an idea I believe in. (Following it was what made Figaro the influential paper it was.) I think we ought to glory in all our local traditions. But there's no reason why traditions have to be cast in bronze, either. King cakes used to have a problem: they were dry. Now they have many problems. They're too sweet, too stuffed with ridiculously rich fillings, too covered with extraneous goo, made with too many up-front ingredients that kill the basic flavor (which is that of slightly sweet yeast bread with a complement of subtle background flavors). And, on top of all that, they're still too dry. A few years ago La Madeleine got a lot of attention be offering the Northern French version of the king cake. It's totally different: a puff pastry that looks like a pizza, stuffed with almond paste. It was cool for awhile, but a little too foreign. So it receded into the realm of curiosity and change of pace. (Although a lot of them are still being sold.) What we need is a recognizable New Orleans king cake that moves beyond the dry-roll or gooey-Danish level into something really great. Here are some ideas I'm looking forward to trying: 1. King cakes with fresh fruit (instead of glop from a can). 2. Savory king cakes. They'd kind of be like pizza. (It's been done widely with bread pudding, so why not this?) 3. Creampuff-style king cakes, filled with flan or chocolate mousse or even ice cream. 4. A cake with a baby made in the likeness of a famous Orleanian. Fats Domino, Bienville, Joe Canizaro, Dutch Morial, Chris Owens, Lee Harvey Oswald, Harry Connick Jr., Paul Prudhomme. . . hey! this could be fun! 5. A plain old king cake with the right amount of sugar, cinnamon, and eggs, with a crusty crust. In other words, the classic, done right.   YOUR THOUGHTS? Tell me and other avid diners how you feel about this or any other eating, cooking, or drinking topic at our interactive message board. Five Best King Cakes My main problem with king cake, as I said up top, is that it tends to be too dry. These are some bakeries that have solved this problem without going the way of stuffing them with oversweet goo. 1. Joe Gambino's. 3609 Toledano, 5242 Elysian Fields, 3240 S. Carrollton, 4821 Veterans, and 300 Lapalco. Last year Gambino's took over my long-time favorite king cake place--Lawrence's--and that moves them into the number one spot. I find Gambino's cakes to be just about perfect in terms of texture, moistness, and cinnamon. They're still a touch sweeter than I like (Lawrence's always had that perfect.) Gambinos pioneered the filled king cake, and does them better than most. There's not so much gunk stuffed inside. 2. Maurice's French Bakery. 3501 Hessmer. Maurice's makes both the New Orleans-style ring-shaped king cake, and the totally different French king cake. The latter is a flaky puff pastry in the shape of a flat pie, filled with almond paste. Otherwise, it's the same idea: you find a little doll (universally known around town as "the baby") somewhere in the cake, thereby condemning you to buy the next king cake. 3. Randazzo's Goodchildren Bakery, 5001 East Judge Perez, Meraux. A very good, light king cake with a good balance, and good fillings if you like. 4. Victoria's Café & Bakery. 5211 W. Napoleon Ave. They do something here that's seems at first glance to be over the top, but it winds up being pretty good. They make their king cakes in a tight ring, such that the hole becomes just a depression. They fill that with the usual fillings. They're less messy than you imagine, and very good--especially when you're serving it as a dessert. (Perhaps less good for walking around at a party.) 5. The New McKenzie's. I've never been a fan of McKenzie's plain old ring king cake--the one that the purists say is the only "real" king cake. But their braided version is along the same lines as their cinnamon buns, which I think are the best things McKenzie's makes. So that's what we get, unfilled. King Cake "Twelfth Night" I'm not trying to say that my version of king cake is better than all or any of those above. But it does taste pretty good to me, without adding all sorts of extras that change the nature of the cake. Don't forget to tell non-Orleanians and other not in the know that there's a foreign object (the baby) in there! 1 1/2 envelopes dry yeast 2/3 cup sugar 4 cups flour 1/2 tsp. salt 2 Tbs. orange zest (grated peel) 1/2 cup buttermilk 2 sticks butter, softened (not melted) 6 large eggs, separated 1 tsp. vanilla 1 oz. nut-flavored liqueur (i.e. Amaretto or Nocello) Cinnamon Decoration: 1/2 cup sugar, divided three ways Blue, red, green, and yellow food coloring. And, of course, the plastic baby 1. In the microwave, heat 1/3 cup of water in a bowl until barely warm to the touch. Stir in the yeast and 1 tsp. of sugar. Set aside until it foams. 2. Mix about a third of the flour into the water until a dough forms. Stir the salt and orange zest into the remaining flour. 3. In the bowl of an electric mixer (preferably one strong enough to knead bread dough, although you can also do it by hand), blend the butter and sugar until creamy. Beat in five egg yolks, one at a time. Scrape down the side of the bowl once or twice during the process. Finally, add the buttermilk, vanilla and the liqueur. 4. Add the dough from step 2, and then slowly add the remaining flour until you have a well-blended but very soft, supple firm dough. Add a little more water if necessary if the dough is too dry. (You can do this either with a mixer or by hand.) 5. Make the dough into a ball and place it in a greased bowl. Cover with a damp cloth and allow to rise for two hours. 6. Punch the dough down on a board, and divide into three pieces. Roll them into tubes about 2 feet long each. Braid the three tubes loosely, staggering the ends. Form into a circle or oval, and braid the ends. (You can wet the ends with a little water to tie them end to end.) 7. Dust the ring lightly with cinnamon, and hide the baby or other gewgah inside the cake somewhere. Place on a greased cookie sheet, cover with a damp cloth. and allow to rise in a warm place for about 30 more minutes. 8. Beat one whole egg with a tablespoon of milk, and brush the top of the cake with the mixture. Bake in a preheated 375-degree oven for about 30 minutes, until golden brown. Brush the top with more nut liqueur, if you like, and allow to cool. 9. To make colored sugar, put the sugar into a small jar (baby food jars are perfect) and add three drops of food coloring. (One blue and two red for the purple.) Shake until all the sugar is colored. Decorate the cake with the colored sugars, alternating colors in broad stripes. Makes one round king cake, about 9 inches in diameter. Interesting, delicious, amusing or outrageous food sites I've found In Case You Don't Know The King Cake Story Local historian Buddy Stall has researched it rather well. Here's the whole thing, including the ritual associated with it. Buddy' web page is full of other good stuff, too. http://www.buddystall.com/history/CAKE.html Isabella's Pizza Ratings: 74, 1$ Covington: 321 N. Columbia 875-7620. Lunch and dinner continuously, seven days. AE DC DS MC V When Fikret Kazan moved his Cucina Med to Covington from Mandeville, it looked like a step up. The food was even better and there was a lot more room. Unfortunately, it didn't work out, so Kazan returned to his restaurant roots: he flipped the place into the ever-popular pizza and pasta joint. The ingredients are fresh and the environment (in the middle of the old town) is pleasant. But there's no soul here. The conveyor-belt-baked pizzas come out fast, but they're just okay. The pasta dishes appeal to those with the palate of a child. Nothing horrible, but nothing very interesting, either. I'll admit that some of my disappointment may relate to not being able to get Fikret's old Turkish food. Oh, well. That's the marketplace. MENU RECOMMENDATIONS Pizzas, especially the white versions. Pastas with red sauce. Lasagna. Quote Of The Day "Life is too short for cuisine minceur and for diets. Dietetic meals are like opera without the orchestra."--Paul Bocuse. Volume Eight, Number Two Restaurant Review Archives: http://www.insideneworleans.com/restaurants/food/reviews/ Recipe Archives: http://www.insideneworleans.com/restaurants/food/recipes/ Ask questions, give reports at: http://www.insideneworleans.com/restaurants/food/asktom.html Eat Club reservations and other e-mail for Tom Fitzmorris: menu@nomenu.com Subscribe to the e-mail edition, unsubscribe, change address: http://www.insideneworleans.com/services/eat_page.html Share the taste of New Orleans with friends! Forward the Menu Daily to them and recommend that they ask for their own free subscriptions! Have a great New Orleans meal today! Tastefully yours, Tom Fitzmorris © 2001 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved.