Richard Partridge–born a Hoosier and made an electrician–is one of the surprisingly large number of winemakers who start out from a far-flung point and work their ways in. In this case, Richard makes some 500 cases a year of Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay in Napa. That is a very small output, with the usual advantages–mainly that of being able to do almost everything by hand, one vine at a time.
I think he has made a previous appearance at the Windsor Court to the one he will make there tomorrow, March 14 at 7 p.m. Four courses, four wines, $95 plus plus. For reservations, call the number below.
Seared Diver Scallops
Asparagus, wild mushrooms, citrus beurre blanc
Wine: Chardonnay, Richard Partridge (Napa Valley) 2012
Roasted Squab Breast
Confit tortellachi, pecan purée, tart cherry jus
Wine: Cabernet Sauvignon, Richard Partridge (Napa Valley) 2009
Painted Hills Strip Loin
Truffle potato purée, bloomsdale spinach, foie gras
Wine: Cabernet Sauvignon, Richard Partridge (Napa Valley) 2010
Black Cocoa Brownie Tart
White chocolate ganache
Wine: Cabernet Sauvignon, Richard Partridge (Napa Valley) 2011
Windsor Court Grill Room
CBD: 300 Gravier. 504-522-1994. www.grillroomneworleans.com.
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.
Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015.
Solo. Easter Buffet With Friends.
I am not easily embarrassed, a trait that permits me to do and say things in public that most people wouldn’t consider. In fourth grade, my teacher–the inaptly named Mrs. Clement–laughed at me when I asked to join the school choir. She could not stop me. From that moment on, I’ve been in choirs most of my life. But what I’ve never done until today is to sing an entire hymn solo. A couple of months ago, I asked the leader of my current choir if I could lay claim to the Easter Sequence. Nobody else had ever asked, and so the gig was mine. I rehearsed it it a couple dozen times, and I flubbed only one word in the performance.
It’s a good thing the Marys are in Prague today. They would have had a dilemma. They don’t really like to listen to my singing, although they loyally do so now and then. But the price for them was hearing the Mass in Czech. That’s quite a cathedral they found, though.
Our friends the Billeauds and the Taylors have a big gang of family for their noon Easter buffet. Chuck found out I would be home alone, so he invited me. A lot of good food, with particularly fine boudin, a couple of hams, many cakes and cupcakes, lots of easter-bunny chocolates and the like. And three–perhaps four–generations of this long-established Mandeville family.
Jude, out in Los Angeles, calls in late afternoon to congratulate me on my solo. Our family of four is certainly spread out on this family day. During the ten peak years of our childraising, Easter was the occasion of a terrific party. The Cool Water Ranch is a great place for an Easter egg hunt. (At the same time, it’s also a fine classroom for learning what poison ivy looks like.) But we will not likely have that fun ever again, even if the kids have kids.
Monday, April 6, 2015.
No Music. Thai Spice.
The Marys move to Berlin. That is Mary Ann’s prime destination in her trip to Germany, but it seemed for awhile that they wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Now I hear that they will be there three days.
NPAS has no rehearsal tonight. Instead, after the radio show I head out for dinner at the Thai Spice in Covington. My system is clamoring for a dinner made mostly of vegetables in a spicy sauce. Thai food fits that bill ideally. I get my favorite dish here: panang (Indonesian-Malaysian) curry with pork, three-stars spicy out of a possible four. It steams the top of my head, which is the way I like it. It is the perfect meal for the way I feel.
Panang curry at Thai Spice.
I have a lot of work to do of the kind that makes for very dull diary entries. Namely, pulling together my annual guide to the food at the French Quarter Festival in three days. This is a web page that needs no selling to my readers: they begin asking me for it weeks ahead of the festival. It takes a lot of typing and computer coding to make the star ratings come out right.
I see more turnover this year than in a long time. About ten of the food vendors are new to the Festival, although they are otherwise very familiar. I check the data against last year’s and note that some half-dozen non-returnees are completely out of business. Another sign that the restaurant community may be at the point beyond which any newcomer is balanced by a quitter.
Bayona
French Quarter: 430 Dauphine. 504-525-4455. Map.
Dressy
AE DC DS MC V
Website
ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
Susan Spicer is rare among chefs of her caliber. She’s affected neither by the river of her celebrity nor the drift of culinary fashion. Her career path always has been charted by her own curiosities. Not a hint of commercialism or voguishness about it.
Her restaurant Bayona celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary last week. It’s a lovely, understated place, reflecting her personality and style. Its main room feels generous and comfortable. The other, smaller rooms are intimate but in a cool way. When the weather is decent, you can dine outside.
If a measure of a restaurant is the number of its former cooks who have gone on to open their own good restaurants, then Bayona ranks high. Its most celebrated alumnus is Donald Link, who owns Herbsaint, Cochon and Peche. Other former Bayona hands are scattered throughout the country. Meanwhile, Susan keeps encouraging the careers of everyone who works with her, while keeping a solid base of local and visiting customers happy.
WHY IT’S NOTEWORTHY
The personal restaurant of Susan Spicer, Bayona is for those who like to think about what they eat. The ingredients stand up to the closest scrutiny. The cooking style beyond category: Susan and her chefs (who are allowed to express themselves fully) take cues from every known cuisine. It may be too subtle for some people. Celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2015, Bayona is as good as its ever been, and just as low-key. And it’s one of the outstanding values on the gourmet side of the dining scene.
A tuna and farro special.
WHAT’S GOOD
The ingredients are carefully sourced, with an emphasis on locally-produced, wild-caught, artisanal, and organic foodstuffs. The menu lets you know all that; it was one of the first to abandon dish names in favor of descriptive ones. All of this is prevented from becoming mere posturing by Susan’s unerring, well-educated taste. She presents two complete menus: one of the long-running signature dishes, the other changing daily with ingredients from the current markets. One is as good as the other.
BACKSTORY
Susan Spicer came to restaurant cooking in the late 1970s, working at Louis XVI with the brilliant French chef Daniel Bonnot. That association led to her fronting her first restaurant, Savoir-Faire, in the early days of the New Orleans gourmet bistro revolution in 1983. She cooked around France for awhile, and returned to New Orleans in 1986 to head the kitchen at the new Bistro at the Maison de Ville. In 1990, she partnered with Regina and Ron Keever to open Bayona, in an old French Quarter building that formerly housed several restaurants–Maison Pierre most memorable among them. The building’s wall sported one of the many tile signs around the French Quarter telling of the city’s Spanish past. It notes that the Spanish name for Dauphine Street was Calle de Bayona–hence the name of the restaurant.
Another special: rabbit and handmade pici pasta.
DINING ROOM
The restaurant has a decidedly Mediterranean look. The entrance through the carriageway is charming. The main dining room has low ceilings, brick arches, and many windows, most of which are shuttered on the outside but allow light to filter in. Flowers are profuse enough to create opulence. The small “lizard room” (puzzle: sit in there and figure out why it’s called that) is a bit quieter than the sometimes noisy main room. The upstairs dining room is claustrophobic and to be avoided. In nice weather, they serve in a small courtyard. The entire restaurant is compact, with not quite enough space anywhere.
FULL ONLINE MENU
BEST DISHES
Starters
Eggplant caviar and tapenade, herb croutons
Goat cheese crouton, mushrooms in Madeira cream sauce
Grilled shrimp, black bean cake, coriander sauce
Veal sweetbreads, lemon caper or sherry mustard butter
Cream of garlic soup
Crispy smoked quail salad, pears, bourbon molasses dressing
Fried duck livers, pumpkin-hazelnut brown butter, roasted acorn squash
Entrees
Wild Alaskan salmon, choucroute and Gewurztraminer sauce
Chile-dusted duck breast and tamale, Oaxacan mole
Peppered lamb loin, goat cheese, Zinfandel sauce
Duxelles-stuffed rabbit roulade, porcini-dusted leg, celery root, hen of the woods mushrooms
Pork chop, parmesan polenta, rapini
Desserts
Grapefruit panna cotta, toasted meringue, cornmeal cookies
Truffle of peanut butter, black currant tea, chocolate
Chef’s daily artisanal cheese selection
Chocolate custard tart, dulce de leche, espresso ice cream, and almond nougatine
Honey-caramelized pear with creme fraiche, pear salad, and candied walnuts
FOR BEST RESULTS
When full, the noise level can be very high. It’s a good idea to avoid the weekends and when many visitors are in town.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The menu descriptions never have done justice to the food, which is always better than it sounds. The service staff can get a shade too full of praise of the chef and her food–even though the praise is deserved. Susan is famous for her sweetbreads, but they clean them a bit too assiduously and they fall apart into too-small morsels.
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 +3
Service+2
Value +2
Attitude +1
Wine & Bar +2
Hipness +2
Local Color +3
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
Courtyard or deck dining
Romantic
Good for business meetings
Open Monday dinner
Open some holidays
Historic
Reservations recommended
Green Curry With Shrimp
Thai cookery has been one of my favorite flavor palettes since the first time I tasted it. In recent years we’ve been treated not only to some terrific new Thai restaurants, but also to new Thai dishes in non-Thai restaurants. One of the most distinctively good dishes in Thai places is green curry, the spiciest of their curries. This one is made with eggplant and shrimp; it can also be made with chicken. It’s fiery with pepper, mellow with coconut milk. The ingredients were once hard to find, but now you’ll find all of them in any decent-size supermarket. The cooking technique is the same as is used in Chinese cooking, with rapid cooking in a wok.
Per person:
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
6 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 cup cubed eggplant
1/2 cup bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup sliced bamboo shoots
1 tsp. Thai green curry paste
2 tsp. nam pla (fish sauce; also known as nuoc mam)
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/2 cup chicken broth
1. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok until almost smoking. Add the shrimp, eggplant, bell pepper, and bamboo shoots and stir-fry until the shrimp are pink–about 15-20 seconds.
2. With a slotted spoon, remove all the ingredients and keep warm. Pour off the oil but leave the residue. Add all the other ingredients and bring to a boil. Allow to reduce to half its original volume, or until sauce has a pleasing thickness.
3. Return the shrimp, etc. to the wok and toss with the sauce until combined. Serve immediately.
Alligator-Stuffed Mushrooms With Sauce Piquant @ Restaurant des Familles
This appetizer was the first course in one of our Eat Club dinners a couple of years ago. The picturesque restaurant is on the bayou of the same name. It is is not uncommon for an alligator to emerge from the bayou and look through the big windows into the dining room. In fact, a rather large one did that very thing the night of our dinner. She must have been mad that we were eating an alligator dish. Which was much better than I expected–alligator not having a particularly strong flavor. The dish has become a signature on the menu.
Restaurant des Familles. Lafitte: 7163 Barataria Blvd. 504-689-7834.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
April 13, 2015
Days Until. . .
Jazz Festival 13
Eating Around The World
The Songkran Festival, Thailand’s celebration of the new year, begins today and continues until April 15. The exciting, absurdly healthy food of that country has become extraordinarily popular around America. The flavors of Thai curries, noodle dishes, and spicy soups always get me going. Most dishes are jammed with fresh vegetables and herbs. The cuisine has been popular long enough that more than a few chefs of other kinds of restaurants have borrowed Thai flavors. You even see that in chain restaurants.
Annals Of Winemaking
Baron Philippe de Rothschild was born today in 1902. At age 20, he took over management of Chateau Mouton, which his great-grandfather bought in 1853. For the next two decades, he was single-minded in the pursuit of first-growth status for Mouton, which had been a second growth in the great Bordeaux classification of 1855. His motto: “Premier ne puis, second ne daigne. Mouton suis.” (First I am denied, second I disdain. I am just Mouton.) He reached his goal in 1973. Baron Philippe also created the world’s first branded wine in Mouton Cadet. And the first French-California partnership in Opus One. He was a revolutionary.
It’s also the birthday of America’s first boutique winemaker. Thomas Jefferson–who in addition to his achievements as a statesman and philosopher was a serious gourmet and wine lover–was born today in 1743. He planted vineyards in Virginia using vines from Bordeaux, and thought that some day American wines could rival French wines. But his favorite wine was Chateau Lafite.
Deft Dining Rule #236
Never order a famous, very expensive wine just to be on the safe side. You’re already on the safe side by ordering wine at all.
Edible Dictionary
larb, Thai, n.–A warm-and-cool salad found widely on Thai and other Southeast Asian menus. Its origins are in Laos, but few restaurant serve that cuisine. In Thai restaurants around New Orleans, larb is almost always made with beef, although it can authentically be made with pork, duck, chicken or (rarely) fish. The meat part of the dish is on the spicy side, with chili peppers used in the cooking. Mint, basil, and other herbs are involved, as are crunchy greens and vegetables, all served as raw salad ingredients. It’s a good appetizer for two to four people, or an entree for one.
Gourmet Gazetteer
The Eaton Lakes are in the rugged Salmon Mountains in northern California. They are unusual in that you would have to climb up over two thousand feet on the north flank of Eaton Peak from the highway to get to the lakes, at 6610 feet. The summit is almost another thousand feet higher. Very clearly volcanic in origin, the peak and its lakes at the top are intermittently wooded. On the west side of Eaton Peak are the spring-fed Duck Lake, drained by Duck Creek. That’s five food-named places in one small area. Whoever named all these must have been hungry. It’s ten miles north to the nearest restaurant, Out Back BBQ, in Etna.
Today’s Flavor
It’s Peach Cobbler Day. Peach cobbler is easy enough to make: you bake some fresh peach slices with a little sugar and cinnamon until they’re soft. Then you drop spoonfuls of sweetened biscuit dough into the baking dish, mix them up, and bake again until it browns.
Not enough restaurants serve peach cobbler. The best I ever had around here was at the Coffee Pot on St. Peter Street, where they’d serve it, only on Saturdays, in a big beer schooner with whipped cream. Its only drawback was that it was very sweet, which is a hallmark of the dessert. I think it would be better if made with fresh peaches and less sugar.
Bad Taste Through History
In 1883, Alferd Packer was convicted of acts of cannibalism. Since this happened in Wild West Colorado, he became a folk hero. After he served his sentence, he became a vegetarian, and supported himself by selling autographs and memorabilia. There’s a museum of his stuff, and a web site. His name, by the way, is indeed spelled Alferd–that’s not a typo.
Music To Eat Barbecue By
Bob Nolan, the long-time leader and baritone of The Sons of the Pioneers, was born today in 1908. The group–founded by Roy Rogers, and appearing in many of his movies–was the most famous of the many cowboy harmony groups in the 1930s through the 1950s. In addition to having an immediately recognizable voice, Nolan wrote hundreds of songs, of which the most famous are Cool Water and Tumbling Tumbleweeds.
Annals Of The Soda Fountain
Today is the birthday, in 1852, of F.W. (Frank Winfield) Woolworth. He founded the dime store chain that bore his name. While most of what they sold were dry goods, most of us remember Woolworth’s (or, as they pronounced it on Magazine Street, “Woolswoit’s”) for its lunch counter. Many breakfasts, burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, and malts were enjoyed at Woolworth’s in those pre-fast-food times. It was a very big deal when I was a kid.
Culinary Royalty
Today is the birthday, in 1519, of Catherine de Medici. She was the granddaughter of Lorenzo (“The Great”) de Medici, one of the major figures behind the Renaissance in Italy, and a practitioner of a high style of living. Catherine inherited a taste for the finer things. Legend has it that when she married King Henry II of France, she brought her Italian chefs with her. Supposedly, those chefs inspired French grand cuisine. Italian chefs love that story, but it’s not really true. French cuisine was already fairly well developed by that time, if not quite up to the level to which the Medicis were accustomed. Still, Catherine was quite a woman. Among other accomplishments, she was the mother of three French kings.
Food Namesakes
Actor Harry Leek–better known as Howard Keel (leek spelled backwards) was born today in 1919. He was in Dallas on TV, as well as Kiss Me, Kate and other movies. . . Janet Cook won a Pulitzer Prize today in 1981 for an article she later admitted she made up. (The award was taken away.) . . . Schalk Burger, a professional rugby player from South Africa, hit the Big Field today in 1983.
Words To Eat By
“An apple is an excellent thing–until you have tried a peach.”–George du Maurier.
Words To Drink By
“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted ox and hatred.”–Unknown origin.
Cooking With Wine, Episode #429
We discover a major course in which wine is appropriate only in very small amounts.
Click here for the cartoon.
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