Thursday, July 15, 2010
1106 Restaurants Open Around Town
Today is a great day to go to a restaurant. Not only will you have the great food for which New Orleans restaurants are celebrated, but without spending a nickel more than normal you will raise funds for the NO/AIDS Task Force. That long-running organization (twenty-five years old this year) exists to help those who are afflicted with AIDS or HIV, not only medically but in getting the essentials for life when they're too sick to do so for themselves. Remember, this disease affects the entire spectrum of people, including no small number of children. This year, seventy restaurants are participating, and giving twenty-five percent of their day's take to the NO/AIDS Task Force. Let's pack every one of those restaurants with celebrations of life and cuisine. Click here for the entire list of participating restaurants.
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.
Thursday, July 8. Eat Club At American Sector. The World War II Museum is among the best non-linear ideas ever to burst forth in New Orleans. The connection between The Big One and our city seems gaseous at first thought. But it solidifies in the light of an important but little-heralded fact: most of the boats in which the D-Day invasion took place were built here in New Orleans, at the Higgins boat works. General Eisenhower himself said that Andrew Higgins had done as much to win the war as anyone. And there was no major museum devoted entirely to the war. There's so much WWII memorabilia out there that, far from having to scramble for artifacts, the museum finds itself turning down excellent helmets, uniforms, medals and guns because it already has seven of those.
The idea of placing a major restaurant inside the Word War II Museum is another leap of ingenuity. The American Sector is no standard museum snack bar, but a full-fledged restaurant, operated by John Besh, no less. The theme is brilliant. The menu is retro to the 1940s, filled with the dishes that were popular back then. The difference is that Besh and his chef Todd Pulsinelli are using first-class ingredients and current cooking techniques to brush up what was really Depression cuisine. But it takes none of the fun out of a bologna sandwich (a popular item on the menu) when the bologna in is made in-house.
John's people wanted me to host an Eat Club dinner at The American Sector. The menu they offered was so attractive in both edibility and price that I didn't hesitate for a second to agree. And then the menu grew unexpectedly. We were originally going to be served a bunch of appetizers, family style, then each pick an entree. What happened was that almost the entire menu came to the tables, encompassing so much food that the quantity alone was an entertainment for the attendees.
And not only were we comprehensively overfed, but the drinks were overserved, too. Each new round of food was accompanied by four or five cocktails, many of them ancient concoctions we haven't even heard about in decades. (When's the last time you had a Pink Squirrel?) A lot of the cocktails were from the Trader Vic's/Bali Ha'i playbook. Tiki drinks galore.
So much food came that I couldn't keep up either photographing or eating it. I don't think any of the sixty people who joined us sampled everything that came out. But these were generally agreed to be the high points:
1. The watermelon sodas, served from old-style seltzer bottles into soda-fountain glasses (photo above).
2. Garlic-glazed fried chicken wings, served with pickled watermelon, zucchini, and okra.
3. Crabmeat pies. Like little empanadas.
4. Beef short rib sloppy joes, served on slider-size buns. (They serve these for seventy-five cents with half-price drinks all afternoon, every day.)
5. Shrimp in a jar. These were boiled shrimp marinating in a pickling liquid with pickled vegetables, and served with remoulade sauce.
6. Lamb ribs. These came out under a glass dome filled with wood smoke. When the bell was lifted, the smoke wafted around the table, smelling delicious. Lamb ribs are a great, little-seen idea.
7. Vietnamese poor boys. Besh's version of banh mi, without the mystery meat (although that might have been both better and true to the 1940s, when megatons of unidentifiable cold cuts were eaten.)
8. The hot dog. It was made in house and alarmingly large. When it landed I got a laugh with, "Aagh! My worst nightmare!" To which one of the women at the table said, "And my most wonderful dream!" Let me put this another way. It was double the size of any hot dog you've ever seen, not only in length but girth, with a proportionally expanded , baked-in-house bun. Otherwise, it was normal, and very good.
9. Pork cheeks with blackeye peas. Tender and wonderful.
10. Blueberry milk shake, an amazing shade of purple, absolutely delicious. (That's what chef Todd is drinking in the first photo above.)
And: Fresh-cut fries and potato chips. An ultra-thick hamburger on a slider bun (not so good). Heirloom tomato soup (served from a tin can). Trout with potato chip crust (just what it sounds like). And on and on. In the sixteen years of Eat Club dinners, I've never seen such a sophisticated crowd get so excited over a dinner, or have more fun that we had this night.
The wines were good, too: Cambria's Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, both of which I find consistently excellent over the years.
My favorite moment came during the radio show. A lady called up to ask a question about the restaurant to which I didn't know the answer. But longtime public relations person and friend Clem Goldberger was standing by, and did. The lady on the phone said, "Oh, good, I was hoping that's how it was."
"Wonderful," I said.
"Marvelous," Clem said.
"You should care for me," I sang, picking up the lyrics of the Gershwin song "S'Wonderful."
"S' awful nice, s' paradise," sang Clem, a sho-biz girl from way back. We sang a few more verses of the song as a duet.
The next day, one of the radio sales people said, "You really had your straw hat and cane yesterday!" Yes, I did. I love shows where stuff like that happens, even when I know ninety-eight percent of the audience doesn't get it.
American Sector. Warehouse District: 945 Magazine. 504-528-1940.
Seafood.
French Quarter: 144 Bourbon. 504-522-0111. Map.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days
Casual.
AE DC DS MC V
Website
WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
Despite the fact that seafood houses are among the most popular restaurants in New Orleans, there aren't many of them in the French Quarter. Dickie Brennan's Bourbon House answers that call, with fried platters, gumbo, and an oyster bar. It goes one step further by cooking some classic Brennan family dishes, including a number of items from days gone by at Commander's Palace. They've adopted bourbon (the spirit) as a specialty, and not only make great cocktails, but also mount major dinners around the great small-batch bourbons.
WHY IT'S GOOD
Everything's fresh, everything's distinctly Creole in flavor. Although fried seafood is here in all the usual forms, the kitchen is at least as adept at grilling, sauteeing, and broiling. Here are one of the best version of barbecue shrimp in town, and a great example of that recent hit dish, redfish on the half shell (grilled on the skin and scales with garlic butter). The oyster bar is one of the best around, as are the baked oysters.
BACKSTORY
The Bourbon House opened in 2002 as the main restaurant of the new Astor Hotel. After creating a runaway success with his steakhouse a half-block away, Dickie Brennan and Steve Pettus thought they'd have good luck with an upscale seafood place. They were right. Although the excellent oyster bar hasn't shortened the line at the Acme very much, this is as fine an oyster bar as any, in the densest concentration of oyster bars in the city. The name Bourbon House has a historic precedent: through the 1960s, it was the name of a restaurant on the corner of Bourbon and St. Peter (now the Embers steakhouse).
DINING ROOM
An expansive room with large windows and interior balconies, the Bourbon House stands just close enough to the Bourbon Street strip to have a strong sense of place, but enough separated from its louder aspects to make dining here pleasant. The lighting fixtures look like gigantic peeled satsumas.
ESSENTIAL DISHES
Assortment of oysters and chilled seafood
Raw oysters, especially with granita and caviar
Baked oysters Rockefeller, Bienville, Fonseca, or all three
Crab spring roll with crab and shrimp dumpling
Crab fingers bordelaise
Fried calamari, chipotle aioli
Cajun gator pie
Shrimp cocktail, pickled vegetables
Crystal fried alligator, blue cheese dressing
Red bean hummus with tomato and feta
Steamed mussels
Shrimp remoulade, fried green tomatoes, fresh mozzarella
Seafood gumbo
Corn and crab soup
Gulf fish Iberville (with shrimp and oysters)
Fried seafood platters
Deviled crab stuffed fish with browned butter
Redfish on the half-shell
Grilled yellowfin tuna
Creole bouillabaisse
New Orleans barbecue shrimp
Honey glazed chicken, with andouille hash
Filet mignon or rib-eye steak
PB&J ice cream sandwich
Bread pudding
FOR BEST RESULTS
Make a reservation and let them know you're a local. If you'd like raw oysters, get them at the bar. I've been served oysters at the tables here that were obviously shucked long in advance.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The food at the Bourbon House has been a shade inconsistent during the past few years, for no apparent reason. Same chef, more or less the same menu, same management. What gives?
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 +1
- Value
- Attitude +2
- Wine and Bar +1
- Hipness +1
- Local Color +2
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
- Good view
- Good for business meetings
- Many private rooms
- Open Sunday lunch and dinner
- Open Monday lunch and dinner
- Open most holidays
- Open all afternoon
- Oyster bar
- Good for children
- Reservations recommended
Avocado Ranch Salad Dressing
Every time I look at this recipe, the image of an avocado ranch comes to mind. Rounding them up. . . branding them. . . okay, enough. As is the case with any dish using avocados, the challenge here is to make this during the half-hour when the avocados on hand are perfectly ripe. Aside from being a great dressing for a green salad, this is also exceptional tossed with jumbo lump crabmeat.
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup buttermilk
- 1/4 cup cider vinegar
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. tarragon
- 1/2 tsp. dill
- 1 tsp. celery seed
- 1/4 tsp. granulated garlic
- 2 Tbs. Tabasco jalapeno pepper sauce
- 1 dash Worcestershire sauce
- 2 medium-size ripe California Hass avocados
1. Mix all the ingredients except the avocados in a bowl with a wire whisk. Let this sit for about an hour before moving on.
2. Slice the avocados in half, remove the pits, then scrape out the contents with a spoon. Avoid any stringy parts at the stem end. Add the avocado to the other ingredients and mash it in with the whisk. Add 1/4 cup cold water, and whisk until smooth. Add a little more water to thin the texture as desired.
3. Right before serving, toss greens (red and green leaf, romaine, Boston, or Bibb lettuces recommended; watercress makes a nice accent) with the dressing. Garnish individual salads with thin slices of avocado and tomato.
Makes enough dressing for about eight side salads.
