New Orleans restaurant diary
Wed, 01/12/05 3:25 AM
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From my recent (just got back) trip:
Day 1:
Lunch: The AMTRAK train is late arriving, as usual, so I don’t get checked into the hotel and ready for lunch until 12:30. That calls for a place near the hotel on Conti St. so I opt for Johnny’s Po-Boys on St. Louis. This is a local 3-unit chain specializing in Po-Boys and the French Quarter location, though small, is the flagship. I order an oyster Po-Boy. It is good but not great. The bread is fresh. The oysters are small but tasty and their breading is nicely crunchy. I’’m not wild about the seemingly machine-shredded lettuce and 2 (one on each half of the sandwich) tasteless tomato slices--I’d have rather had neither and lots of tarter sauce (I removed most of the lettuce and added a couple sluices of tabasco before eating).
Dinner: On the advice of my niece (the one who travels and dines on Mom and Dad’s expense account), I head for NOLA, Emeril’s “other” place which Zagat calls “more casual and lighthearted” than his namesake spot. I walk in without a reservation and am offered an “elevated” table (stool height rather than chair height) near the front window and I take it. I start off with a glass of Kunstner “Estate” Riesling. It is reminiscent of the beloved Southern “sweet tea”. Really. On this warm, muggy (mid 70’s, humidity has to be near 100%) evening it is a blessing and I could easily drink it like soda pop--which it also resembles. I think about switching to something more sophisticated (i.e. less sweet) with my food--and decide not to (I frequently drink sweet tea with food).
For a first course, I decide to have roasted garlic/Parmesano-Regiano bisque. “Yum!” is all I can say except they must serve this in garlic lover’s heaven. It is served with breads including an excellent cornbread and a raisin/cinnamon/sweet potato roll. For a second course I choose the butterflied pork chop with caramelized sweet onions, pecans and sweet potatoes. Downed with swigs of the Riesling, I’m sure I have developed diabetes. And if I hadn’t after eating the pork chop, there can be no doubt after eating dessert: something called the “NOLA Buzz Bomb” consisting of 2 layers of chocolate mousse torte with chunks of candied apricot around a layer of bittersweet chocolate, drizzled with an apricot sauce and a glob of whipped cream with mint leaves on the side. I accompany it with excellent house decaf. Total tab including 2 glasses of the Riesling and tip: $77.00
Day 2:
Breakfast: My hotel offers complementary Continental breakfast so I opt for that.
Lunch: Dunbar’s, which call’s its food “Creole Cuisine,” but which really offers excellent soul food. I’ve been there before and it seems like the directions in my guide book are off, but I follow them anyway--and find myself 20 blocks to far up Freret St. There’s a bus, but after waiting a while none comes so I start hiking. By the time I get there, I’m hungry. I get the always-available fired chicken/red beans & rice combo with corn bread and “sweet tea” (which turns out to be even sweeter than last night’s Riesling). I truly believe these are the definitive red beans--they are wonderful. The chicken is excellent too, but not the standout the beans are. The corn bread is warm and delicious, if a bit too crumbly for use for pushing the beans and rice around the plate. I’d also like to put in a word for the service here. Like I said, I’ve been here before--and always the waitresses can only be described as “sweet”--like the tea.
Lunch was early (11:00) so a mid-afternoon snack of beignets and hot chocolate at Cafe Du Monde is called for. Of course I had forgotten what happens to dark clothing when eating food mounded with powdered sugar, but who cares?
Late afternoon rest (waiting for the dinner houses to start opening at 5:30): Community Coffee (Royal St.) which is a great place to collapse into a vintage leather club chair and read the paper over a glass of iced tea or a cup of coffee.
Dinner: Irene’s Cuisine. The house provides complementary and excellent tomato/mozzarella bruschetta to start. I follow these with prosciutto and cantaloupe with a hint of mild raspberry vinaigrette. Next comes shrimp sautéed in garlic, and oil, then laid over linguini and sauced with a garlic/basil sauce containing just a bit of fresh Roma tomato puree. Contrary to Italian tradition, I add a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan and wash it down with Shiraz. Today’s desert special is strawberries in Grand Marnier sauce with chocolate ice cream, sitting on a bed of caramelized brown sugar and topped with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and whipped cream. Tonight, sugar coma is unavoidable in spite of more house decaf. The bill: $55 with tip. Fortunately, my hotel is a good long walk.
Day 3:
Brunch: I skip breakfast and head over to Mother’s at 10:00 AM, a fortunate decision because there is no line, but 30 minutes later--at 10:30--there must be 50 people in line. The only real option is the definitive “debris” Po-Boy which I accompany with a Diet Coke and lots of the hot sauce found on each table. For those who haven’t had one of these, it resembles Cuban ropa viejo or a beef version of North Carolina pulled pork, served on a French roll with a bit of cole slaw (again, like NC “Q”). Mother’s food is, as expected, wonderful but leads to a question I cannot answer: “How does the Subway sandwich place a few doors down Tchopatoulas St. make any money?” It must just be from people with no tolerance for lines.
Snack: After a couple hours of wandering around, a stop at Cafe Beignet (Royal St.) for some of the eponymous pleasure bombs and the opportunity to read the Sunday paper. This small local chain’s version are not quite the pillowy delights of Cafe Du Monde (though they would be considered fabulous in any other American town), but there are no crowds and, unlike Du Monde, the place is quiet and mellow.
Dinner: Galatoire’s (for me, a must when I visit this town). It should really surprise no one that it has been headline news in the Times-Picayune since I arrived that an elderly local patron of the arts was shoved to the ground and rendered unconscious last week by a yuppie tourist from Texas in front of Galatoire’s. Galatoire’s is that kind of place--old New Orleans society dining in their own enclave at the end of the most raucous bit of Bourbon St. When I entered, I did NOT get some twenty-something telling me her first name and that she would be my waitperson. I was politely asked if I had a preference for my waiter from among the silver-haired, tuxedoed gentlemen (and one lady) available. I had none, but was promptly seated and efficiently served none the less by the house’s choice. I did notice that the 30’ish chap seated at the next table, who sported several large diamond rings and an accent dripping with southern honey, was greeted by HIS waitress of choice with a hug and 2 martinis (no need to ask what he wanted), then held court with the other waiters in an exchange of gossip. Next to him was a table of 70ish matrons, the nearest of whom kept blinding me with the grape-sized emerald on her finger and whose companion’s most prominent feature was the 7-stranded pearl choker on her neck. At 4:30 of a Sunday afternoon, about half the tables were thus occupied, but by 6 when I left they were filling up fast and the tablehopping among the regulars (average age about 65) had begun. Tomorrow is Galatoire’s 100th birthday. I think a few of my fellow diners were there for the opening.
My meal begins with an appetizer of oysters en brochette. This is a skewer of oysters alternating with bacon, floured en mass and deep fried, then served on a pool of parsley butter sauce with lemon and toast points (perfect for soaking up any remaining butter sauce). Galatoire’s version is archetypal. It puts me in about the same state as a slug of morphine--what a high! Next comes the house’s signature asparagus salad with creole mustard vinaigrette, perfect for cutting the remaining heaviness of the oysters. For an entree, I choose to go with tradition all the way and have shrimp creole. Galatoire’s is surprisingly refined, one might almost say simple--just perfectly cooked sweet medium shrimp in a surprisingly delicate tomato sauce with sizable chunks of well-cooked celery, onion and green pepper (the legendary cajun “holy trinity”), served with a mound of pristine white rice. This is all accompanied with Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay, available by the glass. Finally, I go with tradition all the way (Galatoire’s nearly requires it) and have bread pudding for desert, topped with bananas in Foster sauce (a brown sugar sauce), and coffee. When done, I literally have trouble walking out onto Bourbon St. The tab: $60.00 with tip.
Day 4:
Time to leave, but not without a return to Cafe Du Monde for more beignets and hot chocolate and a visit to the Central Grocery for a muffaletta to take on the train (I love tormenting the other passengers with that unique smell). Incidentally, there’s been some discussion here about the fate of the Progress Grocery, whose muffalettas I actually preferred to Central’s. Apparently it was transformed for a time into Luigi’s, but that seems gone now as well. There is a place named Frank’s a couple doors down (“downriver”) on Decatur St. from the Central and I can’t recall if that was the location of Progress--I thought Progress was “upriver”--but it didn’t look like much competition for Central.
