Tuesday, July 6, 2010
1104 Restaurants Open Around Town
Vega Tapas Cafe began its annual Tour Of The Mediterranean today by pretending that it (and you) are in Marrakesh. Every week for the next eight, the Metairie Road restaurant will present a special menu of dishes from a different and culinarily interesting place around the Mediterranean Sea. It's a great idea, since all those places--despite their tremendous cultural and geographical differences--have many flavors things in common. The Moroccan menu is five tapas-size courses long for $27. Here's the menu:
Harrira
Chickpea and fresh herb soup
Prawns Chermoula
Gulf shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce
B'stella
Roasted chicken layered with pine nuts, eggs, onions and cinnamon in phyllo
Tagine of Lamb
Slow roasted leg of lamb with almonds and honey over vegetable couscous
Kaab el Ghzal
Sweetened almond cake with marzipan and orange blossom syrup
You can have wines (from the region, yet), paired with all this for a surprising $15 extra. This has always been a lot of fun and a terrific summer bargain. A new menu on the Tour of the Mediterranean premiers every Monday through August.
Vega Tapas. Old Metairie: 2051 Metairie Rd., 504-836-2007.
The Temperature Is The Price At The Palace Cafe
The Palace Cafe's Temperature Lunch Specials are back again for their fourteenth year. It's a gimmick, but a good one. Multiply yesterday's official Weather Service high temperature at the airport. The total in cents is the price for today's two-course lunch, from 11:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. weekdays. You get a choice of turtle soup or the Werlein salad to start. Then the daily special entree of the day. Examples: Blackened catfish with alligator mashed potatoes and tarragon butter; grilled beef tournedos and jumbo Gulf shrimp over creamy quinoa, finished with a pepper jelly sauce; and chilled cous cous and corn macque choux with blackened sheepshead fish. This is a good deal no matter how high the temperature gets, of course, but the real penny-pinchers will be on the watch for those rare cool fronts.
Palace Cafe. CBD: 605 Canal. 504-523-1661. Classic Creole.
All The Summer Menus So Far
Over the weekend, I built a page on this site listing not only all the summer specials I know about, with the menus, too. That list is now online here.
Sunday, June 27. Hamburger Day. The first tropical storm of the season--Alex--is in the Gulf of Mexico, after crossing the Yucatan during the day. The experts say we will have more hurricanes than average this year. My prediction, based on absolutely nothing, is that we will have one big scare but no damaging storms in the New Orleans area.
If I had the time, I would start a website called something like Pollyanna.com. It would specialize in glowing but realistic reports about everything. A lot of people would characterize it as a vehicle for denial. For example, I had that word denial hurled at me quite a lot in 2005 and 2006, when I said that the restaurant community would shortly return to its former state. That prediction proved to be an underestimate. But like the one above about hurricanes, it was fueled by a certain amount of wishful thinking. One gets beat up for that, but not for gloomy thinking, which usually has no more to back it up. I think it would improve people's moods and make us all more productive if there were a source of information that always took the brighter side. But maybe not. Reader's Digest--which does exactly this job--is watching its circulation sink year after year. Maybe we want to be anxious.
The Marys decided that hamburgers and fresh-cut fries would be the perfect thing to satisfy all our meal needs today. I never say no to that. Besides, if I get a lot of work done today, I may finally catch up with my backlog. I am very distressed that a couple of projects I wanted to work on this summer are as yet not begun.
The burgers were great and the fries brought the family together. Who can resist fresh-cut fried potatoes right out of the pot? Mary Leigh created a photographable specimen of her standard burger, which could be called a Hamburger Napoleon. The layers are meat pattie on the bottom, an insane layer of shredded Cheddar on top of that, slightly melted, and thick tomato slices uppermost. No bun, no dressings.
Mary Ann got back to work on disinfecting the house for Jude's impending visit. But she received a reprieve. She thought he was getting in at half-past midnight tonight, but it's really tomorrow night. Must be a time-zone issue.
Monday, June 28. New Orleans Hamburger. Little Oysters, Big Wedge At Acme. The house sparkles, as the Oedipus dynamic grabs hold of Mary Ann in advance of the arrival of Jude tonight. Like many mothers, Mary Ann worships her son and barely tolerates her husband. Oh, well--no sense fighting that. There clearly is some survival value for the species in it, even though I don't want to think about what it might be.
Mary Ann did deign to have lunch with me, to talk about matters that we didn't talk about. She suggested New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood Company. But wait--we had hamburgers yesterday! But she didn't want a hamburger there, but a salad. I reviewed the place a few months ago, right before they changed the menu a lot. The first thing that caught my eye is that hamburgers can now be said to cost ten dollars in a lot of places. Plenty of other dishes, though, beckoned to be tried for the first time.
For me, those were a cup of gumbo and a catfish platter. You place your order at a counter, put a number on your table, and they bring to food out to you. This creates the illusion that the stuff is cooked to order. And, in the early days of this local chain, they did. They didn't today. The catfish was warm but not hot. And they forgot the gumbo entirely, and even after the server noticed this without my telling him, it was another five minutes until he brought it out. Just as well. It wasn't very good.
Mary Ann was even less pleased by a chicken salad she ordered. The vegetable part of it was riddled with lettuce leaves bearing large stems. She picked the stems out and had enough of them to create another salad, if an unappetizing one. The chicken was even worse, with a sort of cold-cuts kind of texture.
Nevertheless, the place was packed. Making a profit with a restaurant and serving good food in it are not mutually exclusive goals, but each can be achieved without doing the other. It's clear what the main goal is here.
Mary Leigh, who has been across the lake palling around with her buds for the past couple of days, returned home in the middle of the radio show. She wanted to be taken to dinner, specifically at the Acme Oyster House. Although that has been the default restaurant when the two of us sup during the past three years or so, we have not been there in five weeks.
I was eager to see how the oysters were. They had them, and the price had not risen. But they were from west Louisiana and Texas, and were small. The size is normal this time of year. They made up for it with an extra grilled oyster.
Still full from lunch, I had the same wedge salad ML did. The amount of blue cheese on that thing may be worth at retail more than the five dollars they charge for the salad. We agree that it's the finest blue cheese wedge in town.
New Orleans Hamburger & Seafood Co. Mandeville: 3900 LA 22. 985-624-8035. Hamburgers. Seafood. Salads.
Acme Oyster House. Covington: 1202 US 190 (Causeway Blvd.). 985-246-6155. Seafood.
Creole. Chicken.
Mid-City: 2301 Orleans Ave. 504-821-0600. Map.
Lunch Tuesday-Friday. Take-out orders until 7 p.m.
Casual.
AE DC MC V
Website (not currently functioning)
WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
Nobody understands Creole cooking better than Leah Chase, who built her restaurant into one of the country's most famous. For half a century, this has been the Galatoire's of the African American community, and the place where everyone--including Presidents and every other kind of celebrity--goes for the cooking of the Creoles of color. New Orleans cooking crosses racial lines without really acknowledging them, uniting rather than dividing the community.
WHY IT'S GOOD
This is the real deal: Creole cooking in an old style, more influenced by home cooking than what's found in most restaurants. You come here for the cooking, not for the ingredients. And they can indeed cook.
BACKSTORY
Edgar "Dooky" Chase was a musician who opened a bar and cafe in 1940. His son (also called Dooky) expanded it in the late 1940s with the help of his wife Leah. She already had a career as a chef in some French Quarter restaurants, and was determined to at least equal them in her own place. She would do this by sticking to the cuisine she grew up with. Dooky Chase quickly became the leading restaurant in the African-American-Creole community. By the 1980s, it had expanded into two adjacent shotgun cottages with a handsome dining space that drew as many visitors as locals. Leah Chase by then had a national reputation--she speaks as well as she cooks. She wrote three good cookbooks. But Hurricane Katrina broke her restaurant, and it took years to get it back going at all. Leah was in her eighties, but she kept at it. Dooky's is not yet back to what it used to be (in terms of hours, anyway), and it concentrates its efforts on a daily lunch buffet.
DINING ROOM
It's a neat place: a pair of old houses have been turned into an airy dining room with some colored-grass panels that tell interesting tales from the New Orleans neighborhoods. They serve dinner only sporadically, but stay open after lunch service for take-outs until seven.
ESSENTIAL DISHES
Most lunchers indulge in the buffet, which goes for $18. It includes dishes along these lines:
Shrimp Creole.
Creole gumbo.
Shrimp Clemenceau.
Stuffed bell peppers.
Stuffed shrimp.
Fried seafood platter.
Veal grillades with jambalaya.
Fried chicken.
Red beans and rice.
Bread pudding.
FOR BEST RESULTS
The ultimate experience here is coming on on Holy Thursday for gumbo z'herbes, the unique gumbo of greens. It fills the restaurant every year.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
I understand why it hasn't, but it would be great to have Dooky's back every day until late at night, like in the old days.
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 +1
- Consistency +1
- Service
- Value +2
- Attitude +2
- Wine and Bar
- Hipness +1
- Local Color +3
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
- Good for business meetings
- Many private rooms
- Open all afternoon
- Historic
- Unusually large servings
- Quick, good meal
- Good for children
- Easy, nearby parking
Fried Chicken
Confession: I never make fried chicken the same way twice. It's a work in progress that's been going on for over ten years. This recipe is an amalgamation of the ideas that resulted in the most delicious chicken--so far.
The primary challenge in frying chicken is that the various pieces cook at different rates. This is why, I suspect, the Colonel used to cut his chicken differently than the standard breast-wing-thigh-drumstick configuration. I like that idea, if you're up to cutting your own chickens. What you do is pull the breastbone of the chicken out with the two tenders still attached. This removes about a third of the meat from each breast, making it more the size of the other pieces.
The problem is still not entirely solved. Breast meat cooks faster than leg meat of the same size. Consider that as you cook. One more thing. There is no question that the flavor of the chicken gets better after you've fried one chicken. Or that it starts deteriorating after you've fried about five chickens. So refresh the oil--strain it and add fresh--along the way.
Marinade:
- 1 quart buttermilk
- 2 Tbs. salt (I know this seems like a lot, but only a little of it will remain on the chicken)
- 1/4 cup yellow mustard
- 1 Tbs. tarragon
- 1 Tbs. dill
- 1 Tbs. garlic-flavored Tabasco
- 2 whole chickens, cut up into breast tenderloin, two breasts, two thighs, two drumsticks, and two wings
Coating:
- 4 cups self-rising (yes!) flour
- 2 Tbs. black pepper
- 1/2 tsp. white pepper
- 1/4 tsp. cayenne
- 1 tsp. marjoram
- 1 tsp. thyme
- 1 1/2 tsp. turmeric
- 1 Tbs. granulated onion
- 2 cups vegetable oil
1. Combine the marinade ingredients, mixing until the salt is dissolved. Divide the chicken among gallon food storage bags. Add enough marinade to complete soak the chicken. Place the bags in the refrigerator eight hours to overnight.
2. Remove the chicken from the marinade and shake off excess. Place the chicken pieces on a rack over a pan (the racks you use to cool cakes are perfect). Place the chicken out of the way but in the open air, and allow to warm up for about a half hour.
3. When ready to begin cooking, combine the coating ingredients in a bowl. Pour into a large, clean paper bag.
4. Heat the oil in a deep, heavy pot to 375 degrees.
5. Put three or four pieces of chicken into the bag with the seasonings. Shake to coat uniformly. (The bag method will also shake off excess coating.)
6. Using tongs, put four or five pieces of chicken into the hot oil and fry, without turning, for eight to ten minutes. Turn it over and fry on the other side, again for eight to ten minutes. The color you're looking for is a bit darker than the usual golden brown.
7. As you remove the chicken from the pot, drain it in a large sieve over a bowl. Shake it a couple of times and let it remain there for at least one minutes. If nobody grabs it immediately (the recommended way of eating fried chicken), keep it warm in a 150-degree oven until serving.
Serves four to eight.
