Tuesday, July 20, 2010
1106 Restaurants Open Around Town
Summertime "Flight Bites" At Le Meritage, $21.
A "flight" of wine is a sampling of several wines, usually along a theme. The idea came from formal wine tastings, but it's spread to restaurants. In some of them (not enough), instead of getting a glass of wine you can get a flight of three or four in smaller portions. Chef Michael Farrell's summer special menu is called Flight Bites. You get three small plates and three two-ounce pours.
You pick the varietal: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir or Cabernet Sauvignon. The chef matches the three "bites" to go with them. At $21 per flight, this is either a) an absurdly low price; b) an invitation to two or even three flights; or c) both a and b.
Here are the flights. They're available every night, all night, Tuesday-Saturday. This sounds like a lot of fun, and delicious, too.
Chardonnay: Oak or No Oak?
Five Spice Tuna and Beet Salad
Crab and Corn Bisque
Seared Sea Scallop
Wines: 2006 Heitz Cellars, 2006 Maldonado, 2006 Groth
Pinot Noir
Duck Two Ways
Rabbit Tenderloin
Spicy Pork Potsticker
Wines: 2007 Patz & Hall, 2007 Duckhorn Decoy, 2008 Pali “Huntington”
Cabernet Sauvignon
Braised Beef Short Rib
Savory Lamb Chop
Foie Gras PBJ
Wines: 2007 Robert Foley “The Griffin,” 2006 Ladera, 2007 Shafer One Point Five
Le Meritage. French Quarter: 1001 Toulouse. 504-522-8800. Contemporary Creole.
All The Summer Menus So Far
NOMenu has a page listing not only all the summer specials we know about, but all the menus, too. I'm adding new ones daily.
That list is now online here.
Sunday, July 11. Grilling. The grass needs cutting, but it won't stop raining. Standing water all over the field in front of our house, enough to make the crawfish start digging chimneys again. But the grass has never been lusher. If you tripped and fell on it you couldn't possibly hurt yourself. The two big live oaks are looking healthier than ever, too.
Good news on the oil-spill front. BP is lowering a new cap that they say will fit much better than the current one. It could not possible fit worse. They say that the old one is catching some of the oil, but there's still a ghastly billow emanating from it.
Mary Leigh was across the lake, moving in her society. Mary Ann and I went to a movie, Grownups. It's the first Adam Sandler movie I've seen that wasn't completely dumb. In it, he actually portrays the rational guy. But he's getting older. Nobody gets away with being a goofball his whole life.
I ate no food today worth talking about.
Monday, July 12. Mandina's. The radio station is giving me well-deserved grief about my on-again, off-again vacation. I knew it was a mistake to let Mary Ann plan it. She's waiting on Jude to tell us when he can take off. But Jude never takes off. He no sooner finishes one movie gig as he starts another. Right now, for example, one production is being held up for a few days until he can join the crew.
I swelled up my dewlaps, stood up on my hind legs in a display of alpha male authority, and dictated to the not very submissive females that we would be having dinner at Mandina's in Mandeville tonight. I wanted to eat some seafood meuniere, preferably a couple of big soft-shell crabs. MA was amenable, ML less so. I persuaded her by saying that Mandina's could put out a good plate of pasta with red sauce.
In actual fact, I've never thought much of Mandina's Italian dishes. My daughter and red sauce reference confirmed this after picked at chicken parmigiana with spaghetti, saying it was just okay. Which translates, "I'll never eat that again."
The soft-shell crabs, on the other hand, were everything I had in mind. Big, crisp, hot, greaseless, covered with toasted almonds, awash in Mandina's old-style brown meuniere sauce. I'm glad Mary Ann was in the mood for the half-plate of red beans and rice she had for supper. I hate missing red beans at Mandina's, especially on a Monday.
Dessert: caramel custard, which is as good as any other in town. All this was a very satisfying supper (at least for me), and pure Mandina's. The restaurant was busier than I've seen it since right after it opened in 2006. The word appears to be getting out at last.
Mandina’s. Mandeville: 4240 La. 22. 985-674-9883. Neighborhood Cafe.
Thai.
Uptown: 4938 Prytania. 504-899-8886 . Map.
Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday.
Casual
AE DS MC V
Website
WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
La Thai reversed a trick that hip New Orleans-style restaurants played for years. It incorporated Asian ingredients and techniques into local dishes. Here the base menu is Thai, and the fusion elements are Cajun. While those looking for the Thai standards will find them, the unique and most interesting parts of the menu are the hybrids.
WHY IT'S GOOD
The cooking here has always been marked not only by no-borders creativity, but by first-class ingredients and polished preparations. Particularly in the dishes involving local seafood--oysters, crawfish, and soft-shell crabs--the combination of flavors and the look of the plate are tremendously appealing. The oysters encrusted with pecans, set on a nest of artichokes and leeks, zoomed up with a Thai chili sauce is the perfect example of what they do well here.
BACKSTORY
La Thai is owned by the family that opened the first New Orleans Thai restaurant, back in the early 1980s. Punnee "Mama" Semiesuke--the matriarch and genius of the family--went on to operate a number of traditional Thai restaurants around town, most notably Bangkok Cuisine. The more recent ones also involved her children Merlin and Diana Chauvin, who are literally Thai Cajuns. The first iteration of La Thai Cuisine was on Metairie Road. It moved to its present Uptown location in early 2008.
DINING ROOM
This long-time restaurant space (I can recall over a dozen eateries who came and went at this address) was most recently Felix's, which left a long, wide dining room behind. La Thai performed a substantial renovation, but like its Metairie Road original location, this one is sleek and modern rather than frankly Asian. A little on the loud side when it's full, but otherwise an elegant spot.
ESSENTIAL DISHES
Vegetable spring rolls
Summer rolls (shrimp and noodles in rice paper, served cool)
Shu-mai (chicken and shrimp dumplings)
Skewerless chicken sate
Crispy coconut shrimp or calamari
Fried oysters with pecan crust, artichokes and leeks
Stuffed chicken wings (shrimp and pork)
Mussels with green curry broth and pommes frites
Hot and sour soup
Tom yum goong soup (shrimp and mushrooms, spicy)
Tom kar gai soup (chicken and coconut milk)
Asian chicken salad
Pecan-crusted oyster salad
Tuna tataki salad
Thai-Coon (shrimp, crawfish, spicy garlic basil sauce)
Crispy soft shell crab (with lump crabmeat, lemon basil garlic butter)
Duck delight
Jumbo lump crab cake (with soft shell crab or crabmeat, or both)
Sea scallops with shrimp and asparagus
Seafood curry
Fried soft shell crab with green curry
Filet mignon Diana
*--Available with choice of chicken, pork, shrimp, beef, or vegetarian
*Pad thai
*Paht woon sen (like pad thai, with glass noodles)
*Drunken noodles
*Mee grob (fried noodles)
*Thai fried rice
*Red, green, panang, or musaman curry
*Red hot chili pepper curry with green beans
Fried banana fritters
Sweet sticky coconut rice with mango
FOR BEST RESULTS
The best food here is made with seafood. What they do with soft-shell crabs and crabmeat in the warm months is fantastic. Split an appetizer. The entrees are too large to permit preliminaries heavier than a soup. The restaurant gets busier as the night goes on, with a younger crowd.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
They ought to get rid of the Chilean sea bass in favor of a local fish.
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 +2
- Service +1
- Value +1
- Attitude +2
- Wine and Bar
- Hipness +2
- Local Color +1
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
- Sidewalk tables
- Romantic
- Many private rooms
- Open Sunday lunch and dinner
- Unusually large servings
- Quick, good meal
- Good for children
- Easy, nearby parking
- Reservations accepted
Hard Crabs Southeast Asian Style
You can do this with picked crab or crab claws, but the best way of all is with whole Lake Pontchartrain crabs cut into quarters. It's a mess to eat (although no more than eating boiled crabs), and the flavor is incredible. You see this sort of thing in Vietnamese and Thai restaurants.
- 4 large live Lake Pontchartrain blue crabs
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
- 1 1/2 Tbs. sesame oil
- 2 Tbs. chopped fresh ginger
- 1/4 cup Tabasco soy sauce (or regular soy sauce with 1/2 tsp. Tabasco)
- 1/4 cup pineapple juice
- 2 Tbs. fish sauce (nuoc mam)
- 1/4 cup finely chopped ripe tomato
- 8 sprigs cilantro, leaves only, chopped
- Juice of two limes
1. Cut the claws off the crabs. Cut the crab bodies into quarters, and remove the "dead man fingers."
2. Heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet until it shimmers. Add the garlic cloves and crushed red pepper, and saute until the garlic just begins to brown. Add the crabs and cook until the shells turn red, tossing constantly to let the flavored oil hit all parts of the crab.
3. Remove the crab pieces and set aside. Pour off the excess oil, lower the heat to medium, and add the sesame oil and ginger. Cook until the pan contents are very fragrant, then add the pineapple juice, soy sauce, and fish sauce. Bring to a boil and stir until the liquid is reduced by about a third.
4. Return the crab pieces to the pan and add the tomatoes. Cook for about five minutes, until the crab is heated all the way through. Add the lime juice and cilantro, and serve right away with cold beer.
Serves four.
