Thursday, August 26, 2010
1111 Restaurants Open Around Town
Coolinary And Other Special Summer Menus Now In Play
"We Live To Eat" Dinner At Mr. B's, Tonight.
Tonight (August 26), Mr, B's is offering a wine dinner featuring the California wines of Joel Gott. It's another in the series of "We Live To Eat" dinners, a promotion encouraged by the Louisiana Restaurant Association. This one has everything Mr. B's is known for except the gumbo ya-ya and the barbecue shrimp (which you've eaten often enough, anyway). That crab cake is, I think, the best in the city.
Reception: Passed Hors d'Oeuvres
Duck Spring rolls with ginger dipping sauce
Fried Oysters with horseradish hollandaise
Panko Crusted Shrimp with Crystal beurre blanc
Seared Scallops drizzled with white truffle oil
Wine: Joel Gott Washington State Riesling
Mr. B's Crab Cake
Pan sauteed jumbo lump served with classic ravigote sauce
Wine: Joel Gott Chardonnay
Sauteed Redfish
Butter sauce
Rack of Lamb
Dijon mustard herb bread crumb crust
Wine: Joel Gott "Alakai" Proprietary Red
Chef Michelle's Special Chocolate Creation
Wine: Joel Gott Six Cabernets
The dinner begins at 6:30 with a reception and passed appetizers. The price is $90, inclusive of tax, tip, and wines. To reserve, call Julie at 504-523-6441.
Mr. B's. French Quarter: 201 Royal, 504-523-2078.
All 30 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.
Wednesday, August 18. Eat Club Dinner At Maximo's. The rain came down in tropical torrents today. I wondered how, even with an umbrella, I would get from the nearest parking lot to Maximo's, two blocks away. And how many Eat Club diners we would lose to the weather.
But we all got lucky. I almost passed Maximo's en route to the entrance to the always-convenient French Market parking lot, but was astonished to see not one but two open, legal parking spaces right in front of the restaurant. The parking ticket machine even worked with my credit card. Unbelievable!
When there is as much heat and rain as we've had lately, even the overpowering air conditioning in New Orleans buildings sometimes is tested. You don't get as much heat exchange when the coils are pulling gallons of water vapor per hour from the air. The chill is lost as the cold water drains away. And the water insulates the coils, too. Maximo's air coolers weren't quite keeping up, and it was just barely in the seventies during the radio show and the dinner. If anyone minded this, they weren't saying so. I'm glad Mary Ann--who like Maximo's--wasn't hear. She says she's always hot these days.
We began with some very spicy grilled shrimp, paired with a cool cucumber salad. Nice touch. Then the dish of the night: wild boar ravioli, with smoked-in-house provolone cheese and a very intense, zippy red sauce. They feature a different ravioli variation every night, made from scratch--including the pasta.
Then an unusual salad of butter lettuce (it tastes almost creamy) with bacon and crabmeat. No dissenters for that course. By this time, in my peregrinations from table to table, I was sitting at the food bar. Maximo's kitchen is entirely in the open, and a counter with comfortable stools (they have backs) wraps around it. Eight of the Eat Clubbers saw, rightly, that this was the best place to be. They might have had second thoughts when the chef brigade began pan-searing the next course: Alaska halibut. A bit too much smoke got into the air. And--as I found out the next morning--into our clothes. But all chef's tables/counters are that way.
The halibut was worth the trouble. Chef Thomas Woods told me during our chat on the radio that it was his favorite fish anywhere. He made a convincing argument with this dish, served with slices of pear and sauteed spinach.
The dessert was nothing much: a chocolate mousse that seemed badly made to me (but perhaps on purpose), and a glass of champagne with raspberries floating in it.
A lot of interesting people joined us tonight. One man has been a gourmet diner long enough to tell me stories about long-gone restaurants I never heard of. I was a little concerned that the restaurants doesn't have many big tables, what with all the booths for four. People who don't know one another have no problem blending when six or eight are at the table, but four is a little uncomfortable. Nobody seemed to mind, though.
The rain was long gone when I left at ten-thirty. But I was still very happy my car was just right outside.
Maximo’s Italian Grill. French Quarter: 1117 Decatur. 504-586-8883. Northern Italian.
Thursday, August 19. Last Supper At Acme. The countdown continues as Mary Leigh prepares to leave home Saturday. You can feel the electricity of her excitement from across the room. She is ready willing, and able to live on her own, and that's good enough for me.
This is a lot different from when I left home. I wasn't thinking about doing that, but a friend wanted to rent a house with some other guys (we were all in the same fraternity at UNO). I realized I had plenty enough money to swing this (I had two jobs). A few days later I informed my parents, and just left. I'd been paying all my own bills for years anyway. The mood over the change was dark and tinged with the unknown.
I was nineteen and a half then. I always hoped that my kids would be gone by twenty-one. Mary Leigh just turned eighteen. Jude left home when he was sixteen. I never imagined that either of them would beat my record, let alone both.
We have gone through a long list of Last Times For Everything in the past few weeks. Tonight's entry: Last Time For Dad And Daughter To Have Supper At The Acme In Covington. It's been our special place for the past few years, with dozens of wedge salads, plates of red beans with hot sausage, and grosses of grilled oysters put away by the two of us. We were only rarely joined by Mary Ann. Even when I want to eat the Acme's food, I have not gone there if Mary Leigh wasn't going to join me.
The Acme was shockingly empty. The seafood thing has everybody bothered, even though there still has not yet been even one instance of contaminated seafood in a restaurant. To my knowledge, the Acme has never been without good oysters. We went through our usual dozen grilled, and they were as good as usual. (I think the oyster shucker, who knows us as regulars, gives us extra-good bivalves.)
The Acme has a new menu. It looks different, but all the same items are on it. But with higher prices. Mary Leigh continued her new love affair with seafood gumbo. Then the inevitable wedge salad, which has gone up a dollar to $6. (It always did seem much too cheap to me.) I had a soup-and-poor-boy combo: mushroom bisque and fried oyster sandwich. Very good, all of it. We talked about the past and the future. She has a decided preference for the latter. Absolutely all the cards are going her way. What a lucky young woman she is.
It's a good thing she wants to have dinner with me in town once a week. I think I'm going to miss her more than I missed Jude. But there's that surprising, special and sweet daddy-daughter thing again.
Acme Oyster House. Covington: 1202 US 190 (Causeway Blvd.). 985-246-6155. Seafood.
Friday, August 20. Last Burgers And Fries At Home. Another tropical storm wannabe has passed through New Orleans--the third one this year. Not much in the way of winds, but brief downpours of attention-getting ferocity. I'm glad I didn't have to drive the Causeway in it.
I stayed home from the station again today, the Last Day When Mary Leigh Will Both Wake Up And Go To Bed Here. Today's Last Lunch menu: hamburgers and fresh-cut French fries, which is a bigger production and creates more of a mess than most of what we cook around here. (Most of the bother involves the fries.) That ritual was accomplished in late afternoon, right before I went on the air. The Marys went out to buy a few more things the junior member will need for her dorm room. I don't think either of them will be this excited when Mary Leigh gets married.
Late lunch means no supper. After the radio show, I sat around the living room with the Marys and watched a few episodes of Frasier. Last time (of about a thousand) for that, too.
Click here for the Dining Diary entry before the ones above.
Click here for an index to the last five years of entries.
Contemporary Creole.
Mandeville: 301 Lafitte. 985-624-5330. Map.
Lunch Tuesday-Friday. Dinner Tuesday-Saturday. Breakfast Saturday-Sunday.
Casual.
AE DC DS MC V
Website
WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
Among the best Creole kitchens on the North Shore, Juniper is not what it seems at first glance. It looks like the kind of place you'd go for a poor boy or a seafood platter--and in its past it was such a place. But the talents and reach of chef/owner Peter Kusiw bring much more ambitious food than the rustic surroundings would suggest.
WHY IT'S GOOD
Kusiw has a traditional Creole palate (and palette), and he's sufficiently adept to make even familiar dishes exciting. The goodness of the raw materials is unimpeachable. Portions seem to have been made for country boys turned gourmets. At these prices, the food that comes out constitutes a bargain.
BACKSTORY
Chef Peter Kusiw operated a coffeehouse on the Mandeville Lakefront for years before he expanded his operations into nearby bistro in 2004. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed both places. He moved soon after the storms to Juniper's present building. For most of the last century, it was an old-style bakery, complete with stone ovens. They're always talking about firing them back up again, but that would be a business unto itself.
DINING ROOM
Both dining rooms feature tall ceilings, big windows of hand-blown glass, wood-plank floors, and other evidence of its antiquity. There's also a small courtyard outside for alfresco dining. Sometimes his kids set up a lemonade booth outside the front door, adding another charming touch of small-town life.
ESSENTIAL DISHES
Seared sea scallops
Louisiana wontons with shrimp, crawfish and coconut curry
Brie with shrimp, blackened beef tenderloin and peppercorn demi-glace
Spinach and crab ravigote
Blue wrap salad (iceberg lettuce rolled with Stilton cheese and bacon
Sapphire salad (tomatoes, onion, almonds, fig and mandarin vinaigrette)
Creole tomato mozzarella Caprese
Blueberry salad with eggplant croutons
Gumbo ya ya
Jo Jo’s snapper soup
Artisan soup of the day
Confit de canard with pecan orzo and black cherry demi glace
Filet mignon with lump crabmeat and Creole hollandaise
Tasso encrusted Gulf fish
Panneed veal and gnocchi, crabmeat and Creole bearnaise
Eggplant napoleon with shrimp, crabmeat, crawfish and garlic cream lobster sauce
Pork osso buco
Grilled wasabi tuna
Bouillabaisse
Veal T-bone with saffron polenta and wild mushroom demi
Aegean lamb chops with feta, spinach, and chili demi glace
Bread pudding
Creme brulee
Grillades and grits (brunch)
Corned beef hash with eggs (brunch)
FOR BEST RESULTS
Make a reservation, especially on weekends; the restaurant is small and popular. Sunday brunch, during which parking is at a premium because of the church across the street, is a wonderful sleeper.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The entree plates would improve if at least two items were removed from them. The chef really loads the food on.
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 +1
- Wine and Bar
- Hipness +1
- Local Color +2
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
- Courtyard or deck dining
- Romantic
- Good view
- Good for business meetings
- Small private room
- Open Sunday lunch
- Open all afternoon
- Historic
- Unusually large servings
- Quick, good meal
- Good for children
- Easy, nearby parking
- Reservations recommended
Gulf Fish With
Green Peppercorn Sauce
Christian's founding chef Roland Huet came up with this great fish entree, originally made with redfish. But any firm, white fish will work. (Amberjack, baby black drum, flounder, grouper, and sheepshead would be particularly good.) The sauce is intense, yet it doesn't overshadow the fish.
- 4 8-10 oz. fillets of redfish, trout, grouper, etc.
- 2 Tbs. green peppercorns (packed in brine--not dried)
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 2 cups whipping cream
- 1/8 tsp. salt
1. Poach the fillets one at a time in two cups lightly simmering water, turning once, for about eight minutes on each side. Remove the fish and bring the stock to a boil. Reduce by two-thirds.
2. Add the green peppercorns and white wine to the pan and return to a boil. Reduce until only about two tablespoons of liquid remain.
3. Add the cream and bring to a light boil. Reduce by about one- third. Season with salt to taste.
4. Return the fish to the pan to warm it through. Spoon the sauce over the cooked fish and serve immediately.
Serves four.
