Brilliant Dinner At Apolline. Macaroni Grill: In Transition?

[title type="h5"]Monday, February 24, 2014.[/title] There has to be a better way of deciding where to go for dinner than to have three people all saying to one another that it doesn't matter to them, anything would be all right, and then declaring that any idea broached by either of the other two is unacceptable. Including the notion of not going anywhere at all. It's almost enough to make me go back to dining alone most of the time. If it weren't for this damned radio schedule. Today's iteration of the above non-decisiveness wound up playing out okay. Mary Ann mentioned the Macaroni Grill. National chain, one we've been to five or six times. It's one of a few examples of how a chain restaurant can be good. I have a feeling it might be this particular location (in Mandeville, the only one in the New Orleans area). Certain aspects of the place suggest to me that the owner may be giving more of his own spin to things than is usually the case. If so, it's a good thing, and the corporate guys that the chain ought to study it. [caption id="attachment_41453" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pizza or flatbread?
[/caption] The evening began with a micro-debate with the waitress as to whether what the menu calls a flatbread is actually a pizza. Even after enjoying the broadly oval semi-pie, we couldn't decide. We did agree that it was a tasty way to start the meal. Very thin crust with a modest load of cheese and sauce, charred a little in the brick oven--an effect I like. While waiting for that and holding further discussions with the waitress about other oddities, we discovered that Macaroni Grill now offers a tasting menu. I pressed my discovery to make sure the offer was for real. It began with a few fried ravioli with a red sauce. Then a Caesar salad--chain style, but good for that. Followed by a choice of pasta (I got the alfredo). [caption id="attachment_41454" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Chicken with artichokes and caperberries.[/caption] The tasting-menu entree was an undeniably pan-seared chicken with artichokes, onions, caperberries and a butter sauce. Roasted potatoes on the side. By my count, that was four full-size dishes, for--$18? That can't be right, I thought. But it was right. And every part of this was well above average. The others at the table thought so, too. The Boy had a salad instead of his usual chicken Parmesan. One of the Marys fixed that by ordering chick-parm herself. A couple of enormous salads were on the table, as were some good tomato-dominated bruschettas and an Italian approach to queso dip (it had slices of prosciutto in it). The strongest indication that this MacGrill is operating by its own rules is that the place is a little beat up. The table we wanted had a taped-up rip in the upholstery of the banquette, for example. It made the place feel more friendly and less formulaic. [title type="h5"]
Romano's Macaroni Grill. Mandeville: 3410 US Hwy 190. 985-727-1998. [divider type=""] Tuesday, February 25, 2014. Eat Club At Apolline.[/title] The Eat Club dinner planned months ago at Apolline seemed to have gris-gris in its ether. The first time around, we had to postpone it because of the icy weather that shut down most of the city that day. It gave us a chance to fiddle with the menu (leaving the food alone, but knocking down the price a bit). That pulled in more attendees than the sparse list we had. And I had my misgivings about the menu. It was a little too offbeat for the mainstream diners the Eat Club attracts, even with the two choices we were given in each course. It hardly mattered: everything was wonderful. First course: rillettes of rabbit. I am not a fan of rillettes, a paté variant in which the meat is cooked to softness, then shredded. But with the house-made pickles and an onion jam on crostini, this was hard to resist. I didn't get a taste of the little pie shells filled with corn and crabmeat, but they looked good, and the people eating them were smiling. Next, a chicken-andouille gumbo served with a link of boudin with the casing removed. Why has nobody thought of this before? Or (more likely), why has this never come my way? It was as delicious as the quail gumbo at La Provence, and for the same reasons. The rice inside the sausage added a dimension of flavor far beyond that of a plain-rice gumbo. The other option for this course got past me as I moved from table to table. It was an heirloom tomato salad with feta, and engendered no dissent in the room. [caption id="attachment_41456" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Grouper with corn macque choux at Apolline.[/caption] Entree: pan-seared grouper on top of macque choux (God bless you!). Both of these are on my secondary list of Louisiana dishes. I like them all right, but not to the point of enthusiasm. But this was as fine a piece of grouper as has come my way, moist and tasty, cooked ideally in terms of doneness and coating. The macque choux (gesundheit!) was cleaner and fresher than any I could remember. If it were always like this, I think it would make my A-list. The alternative was a confit of duck leg. We had a table full of Cajuns from Larose-Cut Off, and they were very happy with this. There is no better praise for a duck dish than one that comes from a Cajun. The sweet potato pancake with malted milk ice cream sounded good, but I have a hard time backing away from a bread pudding. This one also had ice cream (a trend lately), as well as candied pecans and pralines. Very good, especially with the nice little Spanish late-harvest wine that came with it. The rain I hadn't heard while we ate stopped long enough for me to get back to my car after dinner. But not for long. The rain followed me home, increasing to a torrent on the Causeway. That certainly kept me awake. [title type="h5"]
Apolline. Uptown 3: Napoleon To Audubon: 4729 Magazine St. 504-894-8881.[/title]