Wednesday, August 4, 2010
1107 Restaurants Open Around Town
Coolinary And Other Special Summer Menus Now In Play
Mike's Back With Summer Specials, $20 and $34.
Vicki Bayley and Chef Mike Fennelly are back at the place where they both made their first impressions on New Orleans diners almost twenty years ago. It's Mike's on the Avenue all over again, but with the stylish duo still surfing the currents of cuisine and coolness. Mike's penchant for mixing flavors and ingredients from disparate parts of the world continues. Even in the restaurant's Coolinary menus, which offer three courses' worth of lunch for $20, and three different ones at dinner for $34. It runs through September.
Lunch: $20
Edamame
Sesame oil and grey sea salt
~or~
Redfish Paté
Red onion confit and housemaid sesame crackers
~or~
Romaine Hearts
Creamy citrus-soy vinaigrette and manchego cheese
Pork Debris Wrap
Okinawa barbecue sauce, Asian slaw and French fries
~or~
Braised Brisket Panni French Dip
Jack cheese, pepper jelly and Asian slaw
~or~
Grilled Fish Tacos
Guacamole, salsa and Creole aioli
Lemon ice and Ketel Oranje cocktail
~or~
Lilikoi cheesecake
~or~
Chocolate pot-de-crème
Dinner: $34
Crispy Box Sushi
Ahi tuna, cajun crab and sweet sake-soy glaze
~or~
Louisiana Barbeque Oysters
Crispy pancetta
~or~
Creole Tomato and Red Onion Salad
Sake-sherry vinaigrette, bleu cheese and fire-dried pecans
Paneed Pork Chop
Smoked tomato sauce and orzo herb salad
~or~
Louisiana Seafood Paella
Shrimp, crawfish, smoked sausage and saffron orzo
~or~
Herb-Crusted Gulf Fish
Shrimp sauce, tomato salad and stir-fried green beans
Lemon ice and Ketel Oranje cocktail
~or~
Lilikoi cheesecake
~or~
Chocolate pot-de-crème
Mike's On The Avenue. CBD: 628 St. Charles Ave. 504-523-7600.
Coolinary Menus, Lunch And Dinner, 7 On Fulton
The restaurant in the little-known Wyndham Hotel Riverfront--part of the Harrah's collection of hostelries--has a spiffy restaurant inside, cool and quiet. Chef Matthew Fultz has been there enough years now to have developed a cuisine of his own, and the food is better than the typical hotel fare. He presents two Coolinary menus, running through September. Both are three courses, and both come with a complimentary glass of wine.
Lunch: $21
Andouille and Seafood Gumbo
~or~
Mixed Green Salad
Creole mustard vinaigrette
~or~
Fried Redfish
Smoked cole slaw
Buttermilk Fried Chicken
Sauteed southern greens, new potato salad
~or~
Cochon du Lait
On wheat ciabatta, with fried green beans
~or~
Gulf Fish Amandine
Bacon lardons and sauteed green beans
Lavender Crème Brulee
~or~
Traditional Bread Pudding
Dinner: $32
Endive and Watercress Salad
Pears and blue cheese, candied pecans
~or~
Chicken and Vegetable Soup
Pulled chicken with fresh summer vegetables
~or~
Alligator Ravioli
Sauce piquant
Sauteed Red Grouper
Pickled vegetables, jambalaya couscous
~or~
Buttermilk Fried Chicken
Baby mache, wax bean salad
~or~
Grilled Ribeye
Pomme frites, sauteed haricot verts
Traditional Crème Brulee
~or~
Chef’s Choice Sorbet
7 On Fulton. Warehouse District: 700 Fulton 504-681-1034.
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.
Architect Of Brennan's Fabulous Wine Cellar
Jimmy Brennan, 1940-2010
Last Wednesday, while caught in traffic in middle of a rainstorm in East Texas, I got a call from Ted Brennan. His news was grave. Ted's brother Jimmy was dead. When are the services? I asked. They were for family only and had already happened, Ted told me. In fact, Jimmy had died ten days before. Few knew about it. It wasn't in the newspaper until yesterday.
But that seemed right. Jimmy was a very private man. Particularly by the standards of restaurateurs. He left the day-to-day operation of Brennan's on Royal Street to Ted and his other brother Pip. After Pip left the management of the restaurant a couple of years ago, Jimmy became more visible. Indeed, when I went there for dinner one night, I did a double-take when I saw him standing at the corner of the bar, greeting the arriving diners. It was the first time I'd ever seen him at that station.
Not that he was uninvolved. After the break in the Brennan family in 1973, Jimmy came home from Houston (he was managing the Brennan's there) and embarked upon a program that would bring Brennan's a tremendous amount of business and fame. Over a period of years, he filled Brennan's wine cellar with a collection of wine of such distinction that it won the Wine Spectator's top honors every year for a couple of decades.
And those bottles didn't just represent an enormous variety of labels. Brennan's cellar was amazingly wealthy in old vintages from the great wine regions of the world, but especially France. And we're not just talking about the great vintages of the great wines, but oddity vintages of some second- and third-growth Bordeaux.
For example, I recall vividly a 1967 Chateau Cos d'Estournel I had there in the early 1990s. That wine was all of $55. It's incredible then and now that a twenty-year-old claret could go for a price like that. But Jimmy left the prices more or less where they were when he first bought the wines. In the 1980s and 1990s, there was no better wine cellar in New Orleans--and no better bargain. Brennan's wine cellar was Jimmy Brennan's creation and his claim to fame.
I knew Jimmy only well enough to know that he liked to joke around with people, even those he didn't know very well. I hear this is something he picked up from his father Owen, who put the Brennan family in the restaurant business in the first place.
Coincidentally, I was in Houston a few days after hearing the news, and had dinner at Brennan's there. A waiter whose career at Brennan's overlaps Jimmy's tenure in Houston told me, "Customers still ask me about Jimmy all the time, even though he left in 1973," he said. "Everybody liked him. I thought he was a good man."
He died of complications from stomach cancer, a problem he fought for the past decade or more. Jimmy Brennan was seventy when he left us on July 18. The impact of his departure will certainly be felt at the restaurant, where the next generation of Brennans is moving in. I hope the wine cellar will continue its excellence, as a legacy of the man who not only built it in the first place but had to dump it all after Katrina ruined it and rebuild from scratch. The man had both taste and tenacity.
Friday, July 23. Brennan's. The weathermen say that Bonnie may become a minimal hurricane, and that it will strike New Orleans head-on as a tropical storm tomorrow. Everyone seems to be yawning. After Katrina, storms like this seem like nothing--although Diane Newman at the radio station says that my show may be canceled tomorrow for heavy hurricane coverage. I can't figure out why she wouldn't just leave me there. I've covered hurricanes on the air since 1978, and I was on the air anchoring the reportage the night before Katrina and a few other storms. I hate being pigeonholed as Johnny One-Note.
Mary Ann offered herself as a dinner date. I suggested Brennan's, and she went along gladly. The restaurant was busy with a party upstairs, and the VIP room was nearly full. Meanwhile, Tales Of The Cocktail was swirling around the French Quarter, and the streets were full. It was not the usual dull summer night.
The chef started us off with a demi-soft-shell crab for an amuse. I thought I saw a new appetizer at the top of the list, but it proved to be a new name for what used to be called crepes Barbara. Obviously, a political problem had been raised by the old name. Barbara is Pip Brennan's wife, and Pip is now out of the restaurant's management. I stuck with the seafood crepes after I learned this, because I haven't had them in a long time. Some people are crazy about the dish; I am not one of those.
The next course, however, kept me the thrall of Brennan's turtle soup, which remains the best anywhere. I think I could eat this stuff every day for a year and never get tired of it.
I don't remember seeing a dish called veal pecan before. The waiter assured me not only that this was indeed a relatively new dish, but a very good one, topped with crabmeat. It was the big local lump crabmeat, too, not the out-of-season kind I've seen here now and then. Medallions of veal were encrusted with ground pecans and sauteed with what looked and tasted like a meuniere sauce. It was an oversize portion and a shade heavy. I think the main culprit was the sauce; they ought to think about altering this with a cream sauce. But good enough.
Mary Ann's order at Brennan's is always predictable. She gets a salad, then a piece of trout, topped either with crabmeat or (as today) almonds. That's always a great dish at Brennan's, and was again today.
MA is not a dessert eater, and I feel silly getting a flamed dessert for one. In lieu of bananas Foster, I sampled the bread pudding--which, oddly, is not something they've served here in a long time, if ever. The sauce was unnaturally colored a bright yellow, but this had no effect on the good, custardy flavor.
I spoke at length with the waiters and the new maitre d'. He knew I was somebody, but not exactly what I did. In none of these conversations was it mentioned that, five days ago, Jimmy Brennan had died. That would be the most important possible news in this restaurant. I would not learn about it for five more days, when Jimmy's brother Ted called to tell me. Jimmy and Ted each own a third of Brennan's (Pip still owns the other third). If anyone here knew about Jimmy's demise, they were keeping it a secret, one that would remain from the public until I announced it on the air on July 28. But Jimmy always was a very private man.
Brennan's. French Quarter: 417 Royal, 504-525-9711.
Click here for the Dining Diary entry before the one above.
Click here for an index to the last five years of entries.
Vietnamese.
Harahan: 6624 Jefferson Hwy. 504-739-9995. Map.
Lunch and dinner continuously 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Friday.
Casual.
MC V
WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
Kim Anh is the city's best maker of pho--the famous Vietnamese beef and noodle soup. And given all the pho shops that have opened around the New Orleans area in recent years, that's saying something. The key is the broth, which is purer and better-tasting than any other I've tried.
WHY IT'S GOOD
The menu consists almost entirely of variations on just three dishes, all of which involve noodles in various forms. Leading the list is the pho, made here with either beef or pork broth. You can have it with beef, pork, shrimp, chicken, or the distinctive, firm pork or beef meatballs. A big bowl or a bigger bowl. The broth is beautiful to all the senses, clear and full of subtlety. The flavor keeps getting better the more of it you eat. Then there are the grilled meats or shrimp atop of steamed noodles or rice, filling and good, with the grilled pork or shrimp being the best versions. Finally, you may be interested in the stir-fried meats and vegetables with noodles ranging from soft to crisp, suggestive of Chinese cooking. All of this is very well made, as are the handful of appetizers.
BACKSTORY
The history of this restaurant is tragic and inspiring. In 1995, two members of Kim Anh's owning Vu family were gunned down at their New Orleans East restaurant by a rogue policewoman. They later reopened in the old neighborhood, only to be destroyed by the Katrina. The Vus persevered, moved the restaurant to Harahan, and press on with faith and terrific cooking.
DINING ROOM
It's a minuscule restaurant, with just a dozen tables, in an unexpected location: Harahan, never known for high adventure in its few restaurants. Nevertheless, Kim Anh is always busy, enough so that you'd think they'd keep the place open later than eight in the evening, or on weekends.
ESSENTIAL DISHES
Vietnamese egg rolls (fried)
Spring rolls (fresh)
Veggie spring rolls
Wonton soup
Pho (beef noodle soup, served with choices of beef, meatballs chicken, or a combination)
Pork noodle soup
Bun (soft, cool vermicelli topped with grilled pork, beef, shrimp, meatballs, shrimp on sugar cane, or small fried eggrolls, with fresh and pickled vegetables)
Stir-fried noodles with choice of meat
Rice platters (like the bun and stir-fried dishes above, but with rice instead of noodles)
Chinese dishes:
Fried boneless chicken with vegetables
Beef with broccoli
Chicken with cashew nut
Pepper steak
Shrimp in lobster sauce
Pork with vegetables
Tofu with assorted vegetables
Beef in curry and coconut sauce
Sweet and sour chicken
Tapioca pearl smoothies (bubble teas)
FOR BEST RESULTS
They sometimes get so busy at lunch that you might have to wait for a place to sit down. It's less congested earlier in the morning (like many Vietnamese places, they open rather early, at 10 a.m.)
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
What could these people do with a restaurant bigger than a walk-in closet?
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
- Value +3
- Attitude +2
- Wine and Bar
- Hipness +1
- Local Color
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
- Open Monday lunch and dinner
- Dinner ends early (8 p.m.)
- Open all afternoon
- Unusually large servings
- Quick, good meal
- Good for children
- Easy, nearby parking
- No reservations
Red Beans and Rice
Red beans and rice is the official Monday dish in New Orleans, found on that day in restaurants of almost every kind all over town. Although most people agree on the recipe, the trend in recent years--especially in restaurants--has been to make the sauce matrix much thicker than I remember growing up with.
This version is the old (and, I think, better) style, with a looser sauce. I have, however, added two wrinkles. One came from a radio listener, who advised that beans improve greatly when you add much more celery than the standard recipe calls for. That proved to be correct.
Also, the herb summer savory (sometimes just called "savory" in the spice rack) adds a nice flavor complement. If you can't find savory, use oregano, or just leave it out. Red beans are classically served with smoked sausage, but they're also great with fried chicken, oysters en brochette, or grilled ham. But the ultimate is chaurice--Creole hot sausage--grilled to order and transferred, along with all the dripping fat, atop the beans.
- 1 lb. dried red beans
- 1/4 lb. bacon or fatty ham
- 1/2 green bell pepper, seeded chopped
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 3 ribs celery, chopped
- 12 sprigs parsley, chopped
- 4 cloves minced garlic
- 2 tsp. salt
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp. savory
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
- 1 tsp. Tabasco
- 1/4 cup chopped green onion tops
- 2 Tbs. chopped parsley
1. Sort through the beans and pick out any bad or misshapen ones. Soak the beans in cold water overnight. When ready to cook, pour off the soaking water.
2. In a large, heavy pot or Dutch oven, fry the bacon or ham fat till crisp. Remove the bacon or ham fat and set aside for garnish (or as a snack while you cook).
3. In the hot fat, sauté the bell pepper, onion, celery, parsley and garlic until it just begins to brown. Add the beans and three quarts of water. Bring to a light boil, then lower to a simmer. Add the salt, bay leaf, savory, black pepper, and Tabasco.
4. Simmer the beans, uncovered, for two hours, stirring two or three times per hour. Add a little water if the sauce gets too thick.
5. Mash about a half-cup of the beans (more if you like them extra creamy) and stir them in into the remainder. Add salt and more Tabasco to taste. Serve the beans over rice cooked firm. Garnish with chopped green onions and parsley.
The Ultimate: Grill some patties of Creole hot sausage and deposit it, along with as much of the fat as you can permit yourself, atop the beans. Red beans seem to have a limitless tolerance for added fat.
Meatless Alternative: Leave the pork and ham out of the recipe completely, and begin by sauteing the vegetables other than the beans in 1/4 cup of olive oil. At the table, pour extra-virgin olive oil over the beans. This may sound and look a bit odd, but the taste is terrific and everything in the plate--beans, rice, and olive-oil--is a proven cholesterol-lowerer.
Serves six to eight.
