Thursday, June 10, 2010
1097 Restaurants Open Around Town
Three Appetizers And A Wine, $28
The summer promotion at Ralph's on the Park is one of the best around, and it just began. You get three appetizers and a glass of wine for $28. The selection is remarkable. Here's the list (the items marked with an * incur a $4 upcharge):
Turtle soup
Vinegar fries with béarnaise
Local Creole tomato tart with baby arugula
*Worcestershire & citrus glazed lamb spare ribs
Cauliflower soup with mini blue crab cake
Pan fried serrano-wrapped chicken livers with cream cheese grits
*Tuna two ways (tartare and cold-smoked with avocado)
City Park salad
Oysters Rockefeller reprise
*Tempura Maine lobster tail with a butter-poached claw
*House cured blueberry Atlantic salmon
Asparagus salad, roasted pecans, feta
Wild mushroom ravioli
Cajun scotch egg
Pork belly, fried green tomato, poblano-red onion slaw, Creole mustard butter
*Crabmeat ravigote napoleon
The wine choice is a little more restricted, but more than decent: Sauvignon Blanc Ladoucette “Les Deux Tours” 2007, and Pinot Noir Macmurray Ranch 2007. This deal is available all night, every night, through August 31.
Ralph's On The Park. Mid-City: 900 City Park Ave. 504-488-1000. Contemporary Creole.
Oil Spill Closes Too Many Oyster Beds
P&J Oyster Quits Shucking Today
The best-known New Orleans processor of oysters announced that it would end shucking operations at its French Quarter facility today, according to a story in the Associated Press.
The AP is reporting that Al and Sal Sunseri, who with their family manages the century-old oyster company, are so uncertain about the supply of Louisiana oysters that they aren't sure whether the company would survive. The article is here.
This is very bad news. Sal Sunseri has been one of the most positive and active people in the seafood business in New Orleans. His product has been good enough that many restaurants around town specify on their menus that they serve P&J oysters. For him to lay off his staff and shut his doors indefinitely does not bode well for our favorite local seafood. It is not an act designed to just get attention, that's for sure.
The oil spill, even though it's come under partial control during the past ten days, is still putting fresh oil into the water. It's meeting with what's there already to create a really abysmal glop that is flowing into all the best areas for oystering. And there's not going to be an easy fix for this. Some are saying (although I don't believe this myself) that it will be many years before we have oysters again from the prime beds in Barataria Bay and on the East Bank of the river.
Unlike many inside and outside of the media, I don't pretend to know the solution. That's really the worst part of this: questions are everywhere, answers are nowhere. It's scary when even the best people don't know what to do. (There's a difference between saying you know and actually knowing.) Nor do I think the orgy of blame assignment, lawsuits, and shoulda woulda coulda scenarios is adding anything to this horrible turn of events.
I just want to cry. And then I want to wait and see, with crossed fingers. They said it would be years before we'd have oysters again after Katrina. It proved to be only weeks. I know this is different, but. . . .well, I'm waiting and watching. What else can one do? Other than help those affected directly?
Wednesday, June 2. Eat Club At Ristorante Filippo. I sometimes have wondered in the past couple of years, whether we Orleanians are becoming jaded with eating. I'm not feeling the old excitement from people about great dishes old or new. With a few exceptions, restaurants that once were full are full no longer. If you talk to adventuresome eaters in their twenties, you hear about things like Vietnamese food, spoken about more with reverence than with lust. Meanwhile, a lot of really great places are sparsely occupied.
Searching for explanations, I find a few:
1. We have many more restaurants than ever before, and it could be that we have too many for the population, which is about the same size as it was five years ago.
2. The Food Network and its ilk are shifting our focus away from our unique local deliciousness to Anywhere USA, carnival-like spectacles that masquerade as actual cooking and eating. From judging a lot of cooking competitions over the years I am certain of this: the best food is emphatically not to be found at such events.
3. Maybe I'm the one who's jaded, and everybody else is fine. (I don't think this is true, but I must consider it.) Or maybe I am too old for my tastes to appeal to younger diners. (This a real possibility.)
What brings all this to my mind today is a sudden downturn of interest in our Eat Club dinners. We have four dinners going off this month, and the reservations are coming in very slowly. The first of the June events was tonight at Ristorante Filippo. It was a five-course repast with four wines at $65--ten bucks less than we usually charge. We wound up with about thirty-five people, which is not bad. But forty to fifty used to be our benchmark as recently as a year ago, and we sold out every week. Now we don't. What's happened?
The dinner could not be faulted. Everybody raved about it. In fact, the entree was so superb that I think Chef Phil Gagliano ought to make a bigger fuss about it. Chicken spedini is simple enough: a flattened chicken breast rolled up around a stuffing of bread crumbs, prosciutto, pine nuts, garlic, herbs and olive oil. It's crusted with more bread crumbs, baked, and sliced. It's kind of a cross between Italian oysters and braciolone. The chicken idea (most of the few restaurant that make spedini do so with either veal or pork) is a great one, because it results in a lightness that the dish has always needed. Except in the flavor. That is huge. It smells fabulous when it lands.
We began with prosciutto and melon with an underlayer of eggplant caponata. The two elements didn't really go well together. Separately, they were delicious. Next came oysters areganata (photo below), a signature dish that a large percentage of the clientele orders without a second thought. The only complaint I heard about these were that the oysters were so large that only two of them would fit in the little ramekin. But in a five-course dinner, portions must be scaled down.
After a Caesar salad came the spedini. Almost all the women in the room were incapable of finishing the three slices, but all of those took the excess to go. I really should have quit after the second one, but I didn't. Tiramisu was the right light dessert.
If the dinner had a flaw, it was in the wine department. We began with Korbel Rose. Korbel is not terrible, but it's not good, either. It should be reserved only for budget wedding receptions. The Bonterra Chardonnay we had with the oysters was excellent, I thought. Then we had a Sauvignon Blanch with the delightful label "Little Black Dress." It was not that elegant, but good enough. With the chicken spedini we had Jekel Pinot Noir, which I haven't had in at least twenty years. It was light and a shade acidic, but it was a good match with the chicken and all its herbs and olive oil.
The people who showed up were the usual mix of regulars, occasionals, and first-timers. But it was a lively, laughing group, and decorated nicely by a greater number than usual of unattached, well-dressed women. (Come to think of it, we had more single guys, too--but they tended to the paunchy, balding side.)
I can't help thinking that anyone who thought about coming to this dinner but didn't missed a great evening, both of food and company. So why can't I persuade them to dine with us?
Mary Ann says I shouldn't give any of this a second thought, because I make no money whatsoever from Eat Club dinners. But money isn't everything.
Ristorante Filippo. Metairie: 1917 Ridgelake. 504-835-4008. Italian. Creole Italian.
Steak. Latin American.
Warehouse District: 857 Fulton. 504-525-8205. Map.
Dinner Monday-Saturday.
Casual.
AE DC DS MC V
Website
WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
The people of Argentina are even more enthusiastic about eating steak than Americans are. This grill recreates the style of the Argentine steakhouse, with unusual cuts of excellent beef, grilled with excitement, served with the unique chimichurri sauces. Thursdays through Saturdays, La Boca is open until midnight--a rare, welcome resource.
WHY IT'S GOOD
The concept is simple. Beef of good, fresh quality, a very hot grill, fresh-cut fries and grilled asparagus, and the distinctive South American sauce for beef, chimichurri. (It's a slurry of chopped herbs in olive oil, a sort of Hispanic pesto.) Some of the steaks are from seldom-seen cuts, and those are the most interesting. Side dishes are unusual; this is the first place I've ever encountered grilled sweetbreads, for example.
BACKSTORY
This is the carnivorous brother of RioMar, the terrific Spanish-style seafood cafe of Chef Adolfo Garcia and Nick Bazan. Adolfo had at least one superlative steak in all his past restaurants; Nick is himself from Argentina, and knows all about the Argentine steakhouse culture. The restaurant opened in 2006, taking over the space formerly that of Taqueria Corona. The dining room is managed by Orestes Rodriguez, one of the best service guys in town. (He was the long-time maitre d' at La Riviera.)
DINING ROOM
Not many changes were made in this old Warehouse District space when Chef Adolfo took over. But they weren't needed. It already looked like a steakhouse from the Pampas, with a lot of old, unpainted wooden surfaces, a concrete floor, and a generally rustic feeling.
ESSENTIAL DISHES
Empanadas criollas (meat pies) or de pollo (chicken pies)
Morcillas (blood sausage)
Grilled chorizo
Grilled Argentine cheese
Bruschetta with grilled black drumfish
Grilled veal sweetbreads
Gaucho plate (chorizo, beef skewers, sweetbreads, and empanadas)
Noqui (potato pasta dumplings with pancetta and peas)
Hearts of palm salad
Skirt steak
Bistro tenderloin (chuck filet)
Flank steak
New York strip
Hanger steak
Cowboy ribeye (bone-in)
Bife de lomo (beef tenderloin)
T-bone steak
French fries
Grilled asparagus
Dulce de leche crepes
Flourless chocolate cake
Coconut-amaretto ice cream cake
FOR BEST RESULTS
Make a reservation. The restaurant is small and usually busy. Try a cut of beef you've never had before. Get the "gaucho plate" as an appetizer for the table.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
Parking is a little sketchy, although they have a deal for $6 at the Embassy Suites, two blocks away.
FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD
Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter.
- Dining Environment
- Consistency +2
- Service +1
- Value +1
- Attitude +1
- Wine and Bar +2
- Hipness +2
- Local Color +2
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
- Good for business meetings
- Open Monday dinner
- Open after 10 p.m. (till midnight Thursday-Saturday)
- Unusually large servings
- Reservations accepted
Filet Mignon With
Scotch And Peppercorns
It's common to add wine or brandy to a sauce, but only in recent years are we learning what can be done with other aged spirits like Bourbon and Scotch. This is a great example of that, with the smoky flavor of the Scotch blending extraordinarily well with the beef. The dish was dreamed up by Tim Eihausen, the original chef at Nuvolari's. Neither he nor this dish are still there, but he showed me how to do it. I've cooked it many times since and added a few flavors I like.
- 4 medallions of beef tenderloin, 8 oz. each, butterflied
- Salt and pepper
- 1 Tbs. Worcestershire
- 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
- 1/3 cup Scotch whisky
- 2 Tbs. butter
- 1 tsp. chopped French shallots
- 1/2 tsp. dried tarragon
- 1/2 cup demi-glace or highly-reduced beef stock (optional)
- 1/2 cup whipping cream
- 8 sliced mushrooms
- 2 tsp. canned green peppercorns (not dried)
1. Salt and pepper the steaks. Heat a tablespoon of butter in a skillet over medium-high heat and pan-broil the steaks in it, about two minutes per side for medium rare. Remove and keep warm.
2. Lower the heat and add the Worcestershire, mustard, and Scotch to the skillet. Stir the bottom to release the little pieces of beef crust. If you know what you're doing, you can flame it. However, I recommend that you just bring it to a light boil and reduce it down to just about two tablespoons of liquid.
3. Add the shallots and tarragon. Saute until the shallots are tender.
4. Add demi-glace, cream, mushrooms, and peppercorns. Bring to a boil and reduce until appropriately thick. Nap the sauce over the steaks and serve immediately.
Serves four.
