Wednesday, July 14, 2010
1106 Restaurants Open Around Town
It's Bastille Day! Eat French Food!
Today is Bastille Day, the French version of the Fourth of July. It commemorates the fall of the notorious prison and the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. Although the monarchy would be replaced by anarchy, then by Napoleon, then the monarchy again before a permanent republic formed, the French still consider it their national day.
Taking that cue, we celebrate in particular French gastronomy, which set the standard for that of the rest of the Western world. It certainly influenced New Orleans. Although our Creole cookery has come so far it's a cuisine of its own now, we can't deny its roots. So eat some French food today. Almost every French restaurant here is mounting a special Bastille Day menu. Some of the best include those at Chateau du Lac, and La Crepe Nanou. A list of all the city's French restaurants is here.
Martinique (both the island and the restaurant on Magazine Street) has a French and Caribbean heritage. The restaurant has come up with the grandest Bastille Day dinner I've heard about, available tonight only. It's six courses long with wines paired all the way through, for $85. Here's the menu:
Sweet Butter Poached Scallop
Wine: Louis Roederer Brut Premier
Oxtail Consomme
Brunoise of spring vegetables
Wine: Domaine de Triennes Rose, Provence
Pan Sauteed Pompano
Blood orange hollandaise, caviar
Wine: Perrin Cotes du Rhone Blanc
Duck Confit
With mache, blueberries, chevre, hazelnuts
Wine: Chateau Thivin Cotes de Brouilly, Beaujolais
Seared Petit Filet Mignon
Summer truffle and foie gras compound butter, armagnac-shallot demi-glace
Wine: Chateau Haut Beausejour, St. Estephe
Sweet Vanilla Bean Crepe
Nectarine mousse, honey-almond ice cream
Mathilde Orange XO Cognac
Martinique. Uptown: 5908 Magazine, 504-891-8495.
All The Summer Menus So Far
NOMenu has a page listing not only all the summer specials we know about, with the menus, too. I'm adding new ones daily.
That list is now online here.
Wednesday, July 7. Frank's Revisited. I don't think I've dined at Frank's on Decatur Street since the days when it called itself Frank's Delicatessen. The year was in 1974, when Frank's had a one-item menu. I worked for an ad agency a block away, and we often picked up muffulettas from Frank's. They were always in a league with those of its neighbors (on the same block, yet) Central Grocery and Progress Grocery. That's saying something, because in the 1970s those two places were considered the apotheoses of muffuletta manufacture.
I've hardly given Frank's a second thought since then. Then last year "Pal" Al Nasser told me that he went to Frank's often and loved the food. Pal is a voice on our FM music stations, and co-hosts WWL Radio's live broadcasts of Mardi Gras and the French Quarter Festival with me. He's been in radio as long as I have. We have lunch once in awhile to talk about old times.
I've registered another recent enhancement of Frank's profile. Ristorante Filippo--the terrific little Italian trattoria near the Galleria, where we've had a couple of Eat Club dinners in the past year--has a blood connection to Frank's. Phil Gagliano is second generation of the eponymous founder of the old Decatur Street stand. His brothers run Frank's now.
The imperative to renew my acquaintance with Frank's floated to the surface of my consciousness today. I made a beeline for the place right after the show. The dining room was nearly empty. That figures. Frank's--like the Central Grocery--survives largely on tourist business, and that's slow this week.
A waiter who later told me he remembered me from some other place stopped his schmoozing with some other folks and sat me down. "What do you feel like eating?" he said.
"I think I'd like some Sicilian Italian food, if you do that sort of thing here," I said.
He looked back at me with a semi-smile, like he was sizing me up as either some kind of wise guy or his kind of customer. I let him know I was the latter by asking him what I should be eating, and taking his advice. If you give a waiter (one who seems to know something, anyway) that kind of leeway, he takes very good care of you.
First came the crabmeat-stuffed mushrooms, made with the familiar Italian stuffing of bread crumbs, garlic, parsley, parmesan cheese, and olive oil. That concoction turns up in a lot of dishes--notably Italian baked oysters and stuffed artichokes. But I never get tired of it. This was an enormous plate of food--certainly enough for two people--and very good.
By this time what little cover I had was blown, and the chef sent out a freebie quartet of fried shrimp. It's a good thing he never read my frequent statements that I find fried shrimp boring, or else I wouldn't have tasted these. They were actually great: big, crisp, hot, not overfried, tails on, really nice. So that seafood platter on the menu is probably pretty good.
I was sold on veal, but I asked the waiter for advice vis-a-vis parmigiana or piccata, both of which he'd touted. "I'll surprise you," he said. This usually means I'm going to be given both candidates. But not this time. It was the parm. It was everything it should have been: tender, panneed just long enough to make it toasty without burning. A mellow cheese layer, but not enough to asphyxiate the dish. The angel hair pasta underneath was tossed with the sauce, the way it always should be. Way too much to finish, of course.
They only have two desserts here: Brocato's cannoli and their own tiramisu. I had the latter. Very light and fluffy, all the flavors in harmony, easy on the sugar. The plate was autographed in chocolate syrup with the restaurant's name, as if this were some kind of fancy bistro. Although nicer inside than it looks from the sidewalk, the downstairs dining room is only lightly adapted from its original purpose: selling hundreds of muffulettas to go.
The upstairs dining room, however, is much more scenic. A mural of Venice dominates the room, and there's a balcony overlooking the river. The stairs are a climb--old French Quarter buildings with their lofty ceilings always make the flights long and steep. This is probably why the most colorful, experienced waiters are downstairs.
Well. Pal Al is right. This place really is better than I thought. And the scene and the people who work there are saturated with genuine New Orleans local color. Gotta love it.
Frank's. French Quarter: 933 Decatur. 504-525-1602. Italian. Sandwiches.
Steak.
Metairie: 3520 18th St.. 504-887-6641. Map.
Lunch and dinner continuously Monday-Saturday. Sunday: dinner only.
Casual.
AE DC DS MC V
Website
WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
Crazy Johnnie's is the best of the low-end steakhouses around New Orleans. It's solidly in the old tradition of maintaining a straightforward menu in unstylish premises for a mainstream budget-minded clientele. Although it counters much what the deluxe steak chains claim, the place really does serve a piece of beef in which only the high-rolling connoisseur will find fault.
WHY IT'S GOOD
The steaks are grilled to order, doused with hot garlic butter, and accompanied by a pile of smashed, skin-on potatoes. Crazy Johnnie's also roasts a good prime rib--a cut of beef not much seen around town. The non-steak specialties, however, may in fact be even better. Here is the best stuffed artichoke in town, and a mysteriously excellent seafood gumbo. Everything is served simply with no ceremony, but at these prices it's hard to complain.
BACKSTORY
Johnnie Schram--a gal with a lot of personality--opened Crazy Johnnie's in 1985 as a bar. But she came up with a good gimmick. One night a week, they set up a grill in the parking lot and sold thick filets mignon at cost--all of $4.95, with potatoes. The only restriction was that you needed to have a drink in your hand to get a steak. Almost immediately the steaks were on the grill every night, and people were waiting an hour or more--always with the drinks in hand--to get them. The novelty wore out and the prices went up (they're still a bargain at $16), but Crazy Johnnie's remained popular. The fact that it looked and smelled like a bar limited the trade until, after the storm, a thorough renovation made the place family-friendly. The menu expanded to encompass a full range of food, most of which is better than you might imagine, given the tout ensemble.
DINING ROOM
Except for the large bar area, the restaurant no longer feels like a bar, and the no-smoking law has improved the literal atmosphere tremendously. The tables are shoved a little too close together in the dining area, which is a bit noisy as a result. The patio around the restaurant offers al fresco dining.
ESSENTIAL DISHES
Shrimp remoulade
Crawfish Johnnie (with mushrooms over croutons or rice)
Filet Mischa (grilled filet tips with garlic cream sauce)
Shrimp Sochi (dill cream sauce)
Seafood gumbo
Stuffed artichoke
Table salad (basic greens for four)
Crabmeat-stuffed mushrooms
Filet mignon
Top sirloin
Prime rib au jus
Grilled chicken breast
Grilled tuna steak
Dippin' shrimp (New Orleans barbecue shrimp)
Shrimp and crawfish etouffee
Red beans and rice with smoked sausage (Monday only)
Filet mignon poor boy
Barbecue prime rib sandwich
Pies
FOR BEST RESULTS
Order appetizers for the whole table to split; they're enormous. On Tuesdays, all the wine in the place is half-price. There's an early-evening special on the filets that knocks off four dollars.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
I'd come here more often if they had a serious sirloin strip steak, even if it were twice the price of the regular steaks.
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 +3
- Attitude +2
- Wine and Bar
- Hipness -1
- Local Color -1
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
- Courtyard or deck dining
- Good for business meetings
- Medium private room
- Early-evening specials
- Open Sunday dinner
- Open Monday lunch and dinner
- Open all afternoon
- Quick, good meal
- No reservations
ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
The steakhouse universe is split cleanly into two halves. There are the cheap ones, for people who are more concerned with keeping the price down than the fine points of beef selection and cookery. And there are the expensive ones, which make their reputation on the pedigree of the beef and the other ingredients on the menu, the excellence of their service and wine lists, and the impressive heights of their prices. Crazy Johnnie's is decidedly in the first category, but it's so much better than other low-end steak specialists that no small number of people claim it serves the best steak in town. It doesn't, but its quality-to-price ratio may well be the highest in the business.
Drawback: you can't impress an important new client or a date by bringing them here.
This review was updated with new information on 7/14/2010.
Creole Red Wine Bordelaise Sauce
In New Orleans, when people say "bordelaise," they probably mean the hot garlic butter that we splash on steaks, pasta, and a few other things. In Bordeaux, for which the sauce is named, it's something completely different. Because the most famous product of Bordeaux is red wine, that's a primary ingredient. This version is my effort to draw from both traditions at once, using garlic as well as the classical shallots. It's great with a steak, chicken, or even oysters.
- 1 stick butter
- 3 French shallots, cut by hand brunoise (tiny cubes)
- 2 tsp. chopped fresh garlic
- 2 tsp. chopped fresh parsley
- 2 Tbs. demi-glace (if available) or 1/2 cup string veal or beef stock
- 1 cup red wine
- 2 cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- Pinch black pepper
- 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1. In a hot skillet, heat 2 Tbs. of the butter. Add shallots, and cook until lightly browned. Remove.
2. Add garlic and parsley and saute until aromatic.
3. Add all other ingredients, including the browned shallots, and cook over medium heat until the wine reduces to about one-half its original volume. Remove the pan from the heat. Remove the bay leaves and cloves.
4. Whisk in the remaining butter, two small pats at a time, off the heat. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper.
5. Spoon the sauce over anything you think might go well with it.
Makes about 1/2 cup.
