Valentine’s Day Is Tomorrow.
Even in a normal year, Valentine’s day is tough to negotiate. It’s one of the two or three busiest restaurants of the year. We have an added handicap this year. Valentine’s Day–to the great disgust of restaurant owners–falls on the Saturday before Mardi Gras. That is Endymion night, which brings the biggest crowds of the season. The usual French Quarter restaurants we think of first will be very difficult to get access to. Not just because of Endymion, but because the French Quarter traffic and parking are essentially shut down.
Here to help out is our annual list of the 100 Most Romantic Places To Diner On Valentine’s Day. Of course, this is highly subjective, and the female readers I am sure are chuckling about the idea that many man know what romantic atmosphere is about, anyway. My wife especially.
I have some strategies you guys might find worthwhile. The most important–and most neglected–is Make Reservations Or Die.
Click here for the 100 Most Romantic Valentine Restaurants.
NOMenu invites restaurants or organizations with upcoming special events to tell us, so we might add the news to this free department. Send to news@nomenu.com.
Friday, February 6, 2015.
When I’m Sixty-Four. Dinner Trouble, But Not At Keith Young’s.
The high point of my day occurs when my cellphone alerts me that my sister Lynn is calling. She launches immediately into a singing of the anachronistic but popular song from the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club album, “When I’m Sixty-Four.” I start singing along with her as I walk down the Poydras Street. Any other time of the year, this would have been regarded as weird, but most of people shoring the sidewalk are here for Carnival. During Mardi Gras everyone gets a pass for acting funny.
Sgt. Pepper and that song hit me in the prime of my pop-music life. I was sixteen, and to me the Beatles walked on water. I know it by heart, not only from its being on the radio then, but also because it was in the repertoire of the New Orleans Barbershop Chorus, of which I was a longtime member.
It doesn’t occur to me for a few moments that a new meaning has enrobed the song. Today, I am sixty-four. I wonder how it is that I missed that little detail until now. I always regarded the song as a caricature of doddering, hopelessly old people. But now here I am, undeniably one of them.
I would have enjoyed Lynn’s call more had I not found my dinner plans aborted a few minutes before. The Marys were to join me for dinner at Arnaud’s, to which I greatly looked forward. But when I struck out on the ten-block walk from the office to Arnaud’s, I was surprised to see the trailers and kiosks and carts set up for a parade crowd on St. Charles Avenue. There’s a parade tonight? Two Fridays before Mardi Gras? I don’t remember that happening before. I was apparently not paying attention.
I do not want to deal with the traffic we will face after dinner, which will also be after the parade. The streets leading back to the office (and my car, which will be blocked from leaving the garage) will be non-negotiable. Nor do I want to spend any part of my birthday on Mary Ann’s relentless search for a legal parking space, which she will undoubtedly find, but only after an hour of inching around the French Quarter.
We head for Metairie and Austin’s. Austin’s isn’t Arnaud’s, but its food is in the seme Creole-French category, and there’s a good pianist there who will let me sing a song or two with him. And Austin’s comes right after Arnaud’s in an alphabetical list of New Orleans restaurants–something only a maker of lists like me would know.
But more bad news. We are blocked from getting to Austin’s by the assembly of another unexpected parade at the already-jammed intersection of Clear view and Veterans. After a lot of maneuvering, I get to Austin’s to find no parking available anywhere nearby. I double-park to see what I knew I would see inside: a full house. Abort.
We cross the lake with Keith Young’s Steakhouse in mind. But when I get to the other side, I find yet another surprise parade blocking LA 22. The Marys rally my spirits by saying that it’s really not that much farther to take I-12 and double back to Madisonville. That’s not true–we are now decidedly in wandering-around mode. But I go along.
Keith Young’s is jammed, with quite a few people dining at the bar and a dozen or so waiting. Lynda Young, smiling and beautiful as she juggles the dining room tables, tells us what a great night it has been, and that it was something of a surprise. It’s because I needed a table there, is why that happened.
I keep my mouth shut about our first two attempts at dinner. In no way is Keith Young’s third place among the possibilities tonight. It’s just the one farthest from where we started, and the only seriously great restaurant without much parade interference.
The dinner shows its usual finesse. The Marys start with gumbo, I with turtle soup. Salads. Then the Marys split a large filet mignon (candidate for best around, and winner in sheer visual beauty of a large steak). I have a sirloin strip on a sizzling hot plate: lustily delicious. Creme brulee with a candle stuck in the center, and a singing by the waiters and others of the familiar birthday song.
Keith Young’s Steak House. Madisonville: 165 LA 21. 985-845-9940.
Dozen Best Value & Specialty Steakhouses
Steakhouses play two different identity games. One side of the category makes a big deal over the pedigree of its beef, claiming high grades, special breeds, aging, and other matters that they hope will keep customers from focusing on the lofty prices such steaks command. We have a list of those premium steakhouses here. .
The restaurants listed below also consider steak a specialty. But instead of stressing the intrinsic merit of the beef (which is often very fine), the cooking methods, sauces, and cut of beef are the attractions. The prices tend to be lower than in the deluxe steakhouses–sometimes by quite a large margin. Also included here are a few restaurants which, while not really steakhouses, have a distinct emphasis on steak. (Merely having a good steak dish is not enough for this list.)
1. Crescent City Steak House. Mid-City: 1001 N Broad. 504-821-3271. This is the steakhouse that set the standard for New Orleans’s great beefeating tradition. The bubbling butter idea started here, as did the idea of serving only top-quality beef aged in house. In its second generation the Crescent City hasn’t changed much over the years. It still looks like a neighborhood cafe. The side dishes are still just okay. But they now have a bit of seafood. Prices are significantly lower than in any comparable steakhouse.
2. La Boca. Warehouse District & Center City: 870 Tchoupitoulas. 504-525-8205. The most unusual of local steak specialists, La Boca serves beef the way they do in Argentina. All the familiar cuts are here, but so are some unfamiliar ones: chuck tenderloin (a.k.a. bistro tenderloin), flatiron, hanger, and flank. Best of all: skirt steak. Offbeat appetizers and sides, too.
3. Charlie’s Steak House. Uptown 3: Napoleon To Audubon: 4510 Dryades. 504-895-9705. The sizzlingest restaurant in town, little changed even after a Katrina-enforced total renovation. No claims are made for grade, and the trim leaves a lot of inedible bits in place. But for fans of T-bones (best cut), there is no better steakhouse. Best onion rings in town.
4. Austin’s. Metairie 3: Houma Blvd To Kenner Line: 5101 West Esplanade Ave. 504-888-5533. Austin’s has all the major cuts of beef, buys excellent quality, and serves the beef with the finesse and excitement as a steak house. But the menu goes on to make the place a general Contemporary Creole restaurant, and its steak prices are attractive.
Filet mignon (tournedos, really) at Pardo’s.
5. Pardo’s. Covington: 69305 Hwy 21. 985-893-3603. Pardo’s is the only five-star restaurant on either of our steak lists, an award it wins for the polished food throughout its menu. That the place should offer two or three excellent steaks on its menu is unusual (although LeRuth’s did it, back in the day). These are not merely for people who eat nothing but steak, but stand with the best dishes here.
6. Pascal’s Manale. Uptown 3: Napoleon To Audubon: 1838 Napoleon Ave. 504-895-4877. Manale’s is so famous for its barbecue shrimp, oysters and veal that its house filet mignon and strip sirloin are disregarded by most customers. I say that they are excellent by any standard, and priced at bargain levels.
Steak kew, new style.
7. Trey Yuen. Mandeville: 600 Causeway Blvd. 985-626-4476. Think of steak in a Chinese restaurant, and you think of diced beef of indeterminate origin, hiding among the stir-fry vegetables. Not here. In the steak kew and Hong Kong steak dishes, you find big chunks of either ribeye or tenderloin, seared the way a steak should be, juicy in the center. At around $20, these are the most expensive dishes on the menu. Still a bargain from any perspective.
8. Tujague’s. French Quarter: 823 Decatur. 504-525-8676. Tujague’s has always had a beautiful filet mignon with garlic butter on its menu, even in the days when they had one prix-fixe menu. In the new age of Tujague’s that started two years ago, the steak has become even better.
9. Chateau Du Lac. Metairie 1: Old Metairie: 2037 Metairie Rd. 504-831-3773. The classic French bistro worldwide always includes “steak frites” on its menu, and so it is at Chateau du Lac. It’s a hanger steak, but chef Jacques Seleun knows how to get the most out of that. He also runs a strip sirloin or a filet mignon with classic French sauces.
9. Chateau Du Lac. Warehouse District & Center City: 857 Fulton St. 504-301-0235.
10. Young’s. Slidell: 850 Robert Blvd. 985-643-9331. Young’s has been one of the best restaurants in Slidell since it graduated from being a hamburger joint to a major steakhouse in the 1960s. Steaks here have always been much better than the pricing of the menu imply. The cooking takes place on a hot grill that kicks up enough smoke to add flavor. Still hard to find; you have to use your instincts once you’re a mile and a half from Gause on Robert.
11. Andy’s Bistro. Metairie: 3322 N. Turnbull Dr. 504-455-7363. Andy’s Bistro lately had a major chef and menu change, with good results. The masculinity and youthfulness of the place shifted the emphasis to simpler cooking. With that change came more steaks, with all the major cuts now represented and acquitted handsomely, with prices in the low $30s.
12. La Carreta. Mandeville: 1200 W Causeway Approach. 985-624-2990. It is well known that you can raise the level of your Tex-Mex meals by going for the one or two steak dishes on the menu. La Carreta has quite a few such dishes, employing Certified Angus Beef in good cuts. Particularly fine are the skirt steaks and the Monterey cuts.
12. La Carreta. Covington: 812 Hyw 190. 985-400-5202.
Juiced, Peppered And Blasted Hanger Steak
The flavor of hanger steak makes a statement. It is unambiguously beefy, but it also has a distinctive hint of variety meats that makes it a little gamy. In some ways, it reminds me of the flavor of dry-aged beef. The challenge in cooking hanger steak (after you find one, which is not easy) is in making this fibrous muscle tender enough to slice and chew. For that I marinate in pineapple juice, add olive oil, and cook with the highest heat I can muster in my outdoor grill. Even if you like rare beef, I’d recommend taking this to about medium–135 degrees or so. And slice it with a sharp knife in the kitchen. Table knives, even steak knives, literally don’t cut it.
2 hanger steaks, about 20 oz. each
1/2 cup fresh pineapple juice
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 Tbs. Tabasco Caribbean Style steak sauce, or Pickapeppa
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. coriander seeds, crushed
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly-ground black pepper
1. Put the steaks into a one-gallon food storage bag. Add the pineapple juice, olive oil, garlic, and steak sauce to the bag. Push out all the air from the bag and seal it. Refrigerate for four hours to overnight.
2. You can cook this in a broiler or on a charcoal grill. For broiling, preheat the broiler rack in the broiler at 550 degrees. For grilling, fire up the charcoal as hot as you can get it.
3. Remove the steak from the marinade and shake off the excess. Bring it up to room temperature by microwaving at the lowest possible power until it’s just cool to the touch.
4. You can cook this in a broiler or on a charcoal grill. For broiling, preheat the broiler rack in the broiler at 550 degrees. For grilling, fore up the charcoal as hot as you can get it.
5. Season the steaks with crushed red pepper, cumin, coriander seeds, salt, and pepper. Push the seasonings into the meat.
5. Grill or broil the steaks for six to eight minutes on each side. Put the steak on a cutting board and let it rest for about five minutes.
6. Slice the steak across the grain into quarter-inch-thick slices.
Serves four.
Venison Loin Au Poivre @ Tomas Bistro
Guy Sockrider, the chef at Tomas Bistro, seems to like big robust chops with sauces with a demi-glace kind of flavor. He has several such on the menu at Tomas Bistro. Owner Tommy Andrade seems also to like such fare. That makes three of us, at least. The loin of venison is wet down with a complex, mildly peppery sauce with that meaty flavor. The texture suggests a braising rather than the roasting it actually gets.
Tomas Bistro. Warehouse District: 755 Tchoupitoulas. 504-527-0942.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
February 13, 2014
Days Until. . .
Mardi Gras–4
Valentine’s Day–1
Carnival
Today is the traditional day for the Krewe of Hermes parade. Hermes was the messenger to the gods, and very swift of foot. The parading organization has a history of moving along its St. Charles Avenue route at a rapid clip. It doesn’t have fewer floats and band. . .it just rolls by faster. The best place to watch it is from the sidewalk in from of Delmonico, a restaurant that has seen Hermes go by for over a hundred years. Good place to have half you dinner before the parade, watch the parade, then go back inside for dessert, coffee, and Cognac.
Food Calendar
The buzz on the Web is that today is National Tortellini Day. Tortellini come from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. They’re small ravioli–little pillows of pasta usually rolled up around the stuffing instead lying flat. The filling is most often cheese, but spinach, tomatoes, basil, mushrooms, or other fillings–more often vegetable than meat–can be enclosed in tortellini. A slightly large variation is called tortelloni, which no doubt has its own special day. My favorite tortellini (or tortelloni) dish is a salad Chef Ron Wilemon of Allegro Bistro made at a party once. I badgered him for the recipe, and I have it below, in the Recipes department.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Orange, Massachusetts–population 7500–celebrated its two hundredth anniversary in 2010. Other towns in the north central part of the state were substantially older, but a little settlement on the Millers River was enough isolated from them by the hills that it grew autonomous. It was named of William, Prince of Orange. Many of its residents were descended from the earliest British colonists. It evolved from a farming town to light industry. Along the way, it had the first automobile factory in the United States. Most of the restaurants seem to be chains, but one called Equus is intriguing.
Edible Dictionary
London broil, n.–London broil is a method of cooking beef, usually flank steak. The beef is first marinated with red wine, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, herbs, pepper, or other ingredients that will have a tenderizing effect on the somewhat tough cuts of meat used to make the dish. The meat is cut about an inch thick, then grilled or broiled using the highest available heat. It’s cooked until medium rare to medium, allowed to rest for a few minutes, then sliced across the grain about a quarter-inch thick. There is a lot confusion about London broil in the supermarket meat department. It might be flank, but cuts of beef labeled “London broil ” might be round or top sirloin. The dish is an American invention; neither butchers nor chefs in England know anything about it.
Annals Of Food Research
G. Brown Goode was born today in 1851. His contribution to our tables was a new two-volume atlas of the fisheries of the United States, published in the 1880s. It was the first resource with its scope, and included over 500 etchings of the many species of fish and shellfish that were caught and sold at the time.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
If you have to light a stove burner with a strike-anywhere match, it will never ignite properly on its own ever again. Unless that happened to be your last match.
Food In Sho-Biz
In 1972, the musical Grease opened on Broadway. A year later exactly, another musical, El Grande de Coca-Cola opened in New York City. A movie called Kitchen Stories premiered on this date in 2004. It was a comedy about making one’s kitchen work by the assembly-line method. I hear it wasn’t very funny. What was funny was a 1932 Our Gang episode called Free Eats. It featured the debut of George “Spanky” McFarland in the series.
Music To Chew Bubble Gum By
On the musical side of sho-biz, today in 1967 the Beatles song Strawberry Fields Forever was released. . . The Osmond Family had a Number One hit on this day in 1971, with their song One Bad Apple.
Food Namesakes
Eddie Pye, infielder for the Dodgers, was born today in 1967. . . German artist George Schrimpf was born today in 1889. . . Canadian musician Jeff Waters of Annihilator was born today in 1966.
Words To Eat By
“All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.”–Grant Wood, artist, who was born today in 1892.
“Fish should smell like the tide. Once they smell like fish, it’s too late.”–Oscar Gizelt, former manager of Delmonico’s in New York.
Words To Drink By
“Fill up the goblet and reach to me some!
Drinking makes wise, but dry fasting makes glum.”
–William R. Alger, “Wine Song of Kaitmas,” 1865).
A New Approach For Romantic Restaurants.
Serving this, they wouldn’t have to do things that make diners leave their tables before they really want to.
Click here for the cartoon.