Friday, June 12, 2015.
Rained In. Welcome Back Home At Acme.
Last night, a dashboard light in my car began to glow, alerting me to some problem with my ABS system. It was accompanied by a strange feeling when I hit the brake pedal. I pull off the road, turn the car off, turn it back on, and the problem is gone. It’s really amazing how many machines respond to being rebooted.
I don’t ignore brake issues. When I get home I go on line to find that the problem is probably not disastrous. (The warning light is yellow, not red.) Still, this is the brakes we’re talking about. And it’s raining too hard for me to do the Causeway in a potentially iffy car.
So I do the radio from home. Lord knows I have enough work to catch up with. (It would be a week before the Dining Diary for the cruise is fully edited and online, for instance. As you read this, the Cruise Diary is finished, and can be found here.)
Perhaps I can create a macro for this department–two or three keystrokes that will spit out this:
“After the radio show ends, the Marys and I go to dinner at the Acme Oyster House. Dozen grilled oysters, wedge salad with blue cheese for ML, house salad for me. MA ate nothing.”
I would use it right now, and then add that having done so, we are now officially back in our day-to-day life after the sixteen days abroad.
Saturday, June 13, 2015.
Welcome Back, Mexican Style.
And then I could compile another macro (see previous Dining Diary entry) that would automatically type these words:
“Its being the weekend, the Marys plan to sneak out to La Carreta in Mandeville, where they go through a bushel of tortilla chips with a pitcher of the restaurant’s great salsa and a tub of choriqueso. [Option A:] They sneak out to go there without telling me. Sometimes I wonder whether they even like my company anymore. [Option B:] I get an inkling of this plan and ask whether I may be permitted to come along. They look at each other with a shadow of guilt in their eyes, and half-heartedly extend the invitation. [End Options.] After the choriqueso, ML eats steak tacos and the great bean soup to which I turned her on at La Carreta. Mary Ann eats nothing, which almost makes up for the immense amount of chocolate she will eat at home sub rosa.”
Today would have exercised Option B, to which I add only that, since La Carreta seems to have given up on serving molé sauce, I order a shredded pork dish with a sort of creamy sauce that I do not like at all.
What I’ve never mentioned here is that La Carreta makes excellent flan. One must ask for it without the whipped cream and cherry on top. Those are an American touch added by the chains. Some additions are subtractions. A nice flan with a puddle of caramel sauce and a noticeable flavor of vanilla cannot be improved upon.
Sunday, June 14, 2015.
In Good Voice. Brunch @ Oxlot 9.
Every singer and speaker knows that he or she has good voice days and bad voice days. We always overestimate this, as can be proven by comparing recordings made on both kinds of days. I suspect it’s more about how the Adam’s apple feels, not what’s coming out of it. Whatever the explanation, I am in very good voice singing at Mass this morning, and wish I could sound/feel like that all the time.
Dining room at Ox Lot 9.
A couple of days ago Mary Ann told me that, five days after returning from two and a half weeks in Europe with the Eat Club and, a month before that, a week and a half in Germany, she is leaving for yet another vacation tomorrow. This one is to Los Angeles, where she plans to hang with our son Jude while staying in the Langham Hotel in Pasadena, her favorite hotel.
As always happens two or three days before she escapes the hellhole we call home, she is in a very cheerful mood today. That makes one of us. She suggests that we have Sunday brunch at Ox Lot 9, the restaurant of the very cool Southern Hotel in old Covington. It’s our first brunch there, and after enjoying it I hope we can do this with at least a third of the regularity we accord Mattina Bella, the Acme, and La Carreta.
Oysters and sausage at Ox Lot 9.
The brunch is lavish and local. We begin with crisp fried oysters atop a kind of tartar sauce-remoulade hybrid, on the warm side. These are better than the crawfish hush puppies, which are a shade dry.
Crawfish hush puppies.
The main for me is classic poached eggs with hollandaise atop boudin cakes, with a sauce similar to the one we found under the oysters. And fingering potatoes. I am just about convinced that fingerling potatoes are only good for their looks.
Crispy boudin and eggs.
Huevos rancheros.
Mary Ann has huevos rancheros, two flour tortillas with fried eggs on top. The beans part of the plate is the best part, but everything gets to running together after a few bites.
Cinnamon beignets and blueberry preserves.
The dessert beignets come in an octet, certainly too many for one person. I get about three of them down (that’s the magic number for beignets anyway, right?). A ramekin of blueberry preserves is in the middle for dipping, but more sweetness is the last thing beignets need. Now if they squirted the stuff into the center of the beignets, they might have something.
The waiter is conscientious enough to fetch coffee for me from the hotel’s bar. It’s the same coffee that, in the restaurant, is brewed in a French press–a method of making coffee that I despise. (Too much bitter particulate matter.) This was a bit of extra trouble for the server, but that’s the kind of restaurant this is trying to be.
Ox Lot 9, except for its name and a few too many implementations of trends, is a fine new addition to the North Shore fine dining market. Every time we go, Mary Ann and I talk about planning a weekend of dining, wine, and cooking demos in this fine, revived hotel.
Ox Lot 9. Covington: 428 E Boston St . 985-400-5663.
Kyoto
Uptown 3: Napoleon To Audubon: 4920 Prytania St. 504-891-3644. Map.
Casual
AE DC DS MC V
Website
ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
Summertime is sushi time. Japanese restaurants provide a wider array of cool (in both senses of the word) things to eat It’s cold food than any other kind of eatery. It’s light, too. Even the cup of soup is usually a little tepid, making the entire experience refreshing when the heat is on.
That’s something we can all agree on. Here’s something we can’t: which are the best sushi purveyors around town. Even the bad ones (and there are not many of those) have adherents who declare as self-evident that their place is supreme. Kyoto Uptown is one of the good ones, and has an unusually large following.
Special rolls.
WHY IT’S NOTEWORTHY
Lots of sushi bars are Uptown, where lots of sushi eaters live. Kyoto has particular appeal to many of them, because in a time when even sushi bars seem to be slipping into slick formulas, this place still has a personality and a uniquely Uptown look. The menu is above average both in its selection and its goodness. You get not just sushi, tempura, and teriyaki dishes but also some grilled, barbecued, noodle, and vegetarian dishes in significant number.
Tuna tataki.
WHAT’S GOOD
The menu has all the favorites–that’s necessary for serving those who eat the same few dishes every time they go Japanese. The charm of Kyoto is in the number of dishes here I’ve seen nowhere else (like the grilled or stuffed mushrooms) or are done better here than most places (tuna or beef tataki). The sushi list is pretty comprehensive in scope. The cooked side of the menu is a shade more ambitious than most.
BACKSTORY
Sara Molony was the first woman to open a sushi bar in New Orleans, as far as I know. That’s noteworthy, because of the old Japanese prohibition (now discredited) against female sushi chefs. She opened the place in 1995 to a quickly enthusiastic audience. In 2009 she opened a second location in Elmwood.
Mushroom salad.
DINING ROOM
Kyoto occupies an old Uptown storefront, and so feels like a standard New Orleans neighborhood cafe. It’s a bit run down, a quality it shares with all of its restaurant neighbors. (It’s in the middle of a knot of good restaurants.) None of the tables or even the sushi bar itself seem to fit quite right in the space. The regulars consider this part of the charm.
REVIEWER’S NOTEPAD
FULL ONLINE MENU
BEST DISHES
Starters
Grilled shimeji/shiitake mushrooms
Grilled beef and asparagus roll
Japanese barbecue mackerel or salmon
Grilled yellowtail neck
Noodle soups
Seaweed udon soup
Buckwheat noodles in broth with slices of beef
Gyoza dumplings
Seaweed salad
Baby octopus salad
Sushi and Sashimi
Made to order, in assortments, or special rolls
Entrees
Steamed and chilled broccoli, snow peas, carrots, sesame oil
Vegetarian tempura dinner
Chicken, beef, or salmon teriyaki
Sukiyaki (sliced beef stew with vegetables)
Desserts
Black sesame ice cream
Green tea ice cream
Ginger ice cream
Lychee sorbet
FOR BEST RESULTS
Allow enough time to go through the menu of rolls. As in most places, this is mainly a process of eliminating the 90 percent with snow crab as an ingredient. Also as in most places, it helps to engage the friendship of the sushi chefs, and asking what’s especially interesting today.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
If it were me, I’d renovate the premises pretty soon. But that may upset some of the regulars.
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 +1
Service
Value +1
Attitude
Wine & Bar
Hipness +2
Local Color +2
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
Romantic
Open Monday lunch and dinner
Quick, good meal
Easy, nearby parking
Reservations accepted
Shrimp, Eggplant, and Rice Casserole
Rice and eggplant don’t come together often. On the other hand, shrimp and eggplant are natural partners, and this winds up being a good dish. I adapted it from one sent me by Jerald Horst, who for many years wrote the interesting Lagniappe newsletter about seafood published by the LSU Sea Grant College. (He and his wife have written a series of books about Louisiana seafood, called “The Seafood Bibles.” When making this, measure the ingredients carefully. The amount of liquid is critical to making sure that the rice cooks properly. It doesn’t seem like enough, but it is.
1 large eggplant, peeled and cut into one-inch cubes
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 medium onion, chopped
2 ripe fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
3/4 cup uncooked rice
1 lb. small, peeled shrimp
1 Tbs. Creole seasoning
4 sprigs fresh parsley leaves, chopped
1 green onion, tender green parts only, snipped finely
1. Sprinkle the eggplant cubes with salt and place into a colander. Fit a bowl about the same size as the colander on top of the eggplant, and weigh it down lightly. Put the whole apparatus into the sink. After a half-hour, rinse the salt off the eggplant and drain.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over high heat until it shimmers. Add the red pepper flakes and crushed garlic cloves. Saute until the garlic is brown around the edges. Remove and discard the garlic. Add the eggplant and onions, and saute until the eggplant has browned at the edges.
3. Add the tomatoes, rice, shrimp, salt, parsley, and 1/4 cup of water. Bring to a light boil, stir well, and cover the saucepan. Put it into a preheated 350-degree oven, and cook for 30-35 minutes, until the rice is tender.
4. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and green onions before serving.
Serves four.
Napoleon Of Eggplant With Tasso And Peppers @ Keith Young’s Steak House
Why are so many excellent panneed eggplant dishes appearing on local menus these days? Seems like I run into a good, new one every week. This one is a product of a second trend. Every time we eat at Keith Young’s Steak House, he has something new and delicious. This was an appetizer special: a a stack of fried eggplant discs, with a sauce made with butter, tasso, green onions, and sweet red peppers. Nothing but good. Steakhouses are not supposed to be this inventive.
Keith Young’s Steak House. Madisonville: 165 LA 21. 985-845-9940.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
June 23, 2015
Days Until. . .
Fourth Of July 11
Food Calendar
Today is National Vichyssoise Day, which always sounds good this time of year. It’s a rich soup made with potatoes and leeks with cream and sometimes sour cream. It’s most distinctive quality, however, is that it’s served cold. Ice cold, in fact. Restaurants used to serve vichyssoise in a round-bottomed bowl resting in a bigger bowl, usually made of silverplate, filled with crushed ice. You almost never see that anymore.
The original vichyssoise was neither French nor cold. It was created in the United States less than a hundred years ago by Louis Diat, a famous French chef in New York. He said it was a chilled version of a soup his mother used to make. There is no doubt about its goodness.
The unaccustomed idea of a cold soup tricks up some would-be vichyssoise eaters. Although such a thing might seem immensely popular in the summer, cold soups never sell very well. It marks you as a gourmet if you do order it, which is reason enough right there.
The potatoes and leeks are completely pureed, and there shouldn’t be even little pieces of anything solid, save for snipped chives floating on the surface. My friend and fellow cookbook author Kit Wohl came up with a great variation: sprinkling Roquefort cheese into vichyssoise at the table. It may be the greatest advance in the history of the dish.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Coconut is twenty-one miles south of Fort Myers, in the southern end of the Florida Peninsula, on the Gulf Coast. It’s on Estero Bay, and is part of a resort area. It’s full of fishing boats and everything that goes with them. Five major golf courses are within a couple of miles. A few homes are on the small grid of streets, but more people can be found on any given day at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point. The best restaurant in the area is Tanglewood, right there on Coconut Point. The population of bars is higher than average.
Food On The Air
On this date in 1933, Don McNeill took over as host of a radio show called The Pepper Pot. He renamed it The Breakfast Club. He and the show remained on the air every weekday until 1968. It was a variety show with a band, comedy bits, guests, audience involvement, and the daily “walk around the breakfast table.” It began on the NBC Blue network, which split off later to become ABC. It was carried in New Orleans on my station, 1350 AM. It survived years after all other network radio entertainment shows (except Arthur Godfrey’s) were gone.
Edible Dictionary
hummus, Arabic, n.–A blend of chickpeas, garlic, and sesame seeds, ground down into a smooth paste and blended with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and some subtle seasonings. It’s served at room temperature as a dip or spread. Hummus is the most widespread staple of Middle Eastern cooking and has been for thousands of years. All of its ingredients are among the most ancient of human foods. Its role in its home cuisine is so pervasive that it’s found in all but the dessert course. It literally holds the other parts of a Middle Eastern meal together. The name come from the Arabic for chickpea. The spelling varies a great deal, but hummus is becoming the preferred English word for it. Although it’s served from Greece to India and across Northern Africa, it’s most powerfully identified with Lebanese cuisine.
Turning Points In Dining
In 1960 on this date, the Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of Enovid, the first birth control pill. It may seem strange, but the widespread use of The Pill was a tremendous boost for the restaurant business. Within a few years, casual new eateries and drinkeries were opening at a pace never before seen and single people began dating with new urgency.
Eating In Cartoons
The Disney animated feature movie Lady and the Tramp, whose most famous scene depicts the most romantic possible way to eat spaghetti, premiered (in CinemaScope, yet!) on this date in 1955.
Disquieting Moments In Food
Today in 1998, some 4500 Chicago people got sick with an E. coli infection. The main suspect: a bad batch of potato salad. . . Here’s other bad news: On this date in 1993, Lorena Bobbitt used a knife from her matched kitchen set to perform what became a famous operation. I don’t think it ever came out what brand of knife it was. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing for its maker?
Food Namesakes
Irvin S. Cobb, for whom the Cobb salad was not named, was a writer and humorist in the early 1900s. Born today in 1876, he became a popular after-dinner speaker, and left behind many good quotations. I like this one: “If writers were good businessmen, they’d have too much sense to be writers.”. . . Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger was sworn in on this date in 1969. . . Professional golfer Dottie Pepper won the Rochester International Golf Tournament today in 1996. Did she have a brother who was a doctor of some kind?
Words To Eat By
“A bearnaise sauce is simply an egg yolk, a shallot, a little tarragon vinegar, and butter, but it takes years of practice for the result to be perfect.”–Fernand Point, one of the classic French chefs in the first half of the 1900s.
Words To Drink By
“The health of the salmon to you: a long life, a full heart and a wet mouth!”–Irish toast.
The Immense Appeal Of Flaming Desserts.
A classic New Orleans dessert finds its way to one of America’s best-known greasy-spoon diners.
Click here for the cartoon.
Recent Back Editions
Click on any date below to see the entire 5-Star Edition for that day.
5-Star Back Edition TU 6/23/15
5-Star Back Edition MO 6/22/15
5-Star Back Edition FR 6/19/15
5-Star Back Edition TH 6/18/15
5-Star Back Edition WE 6/17/15
5-Star Back Edition TU 6/16/15
5-Star Back Edition MO 6/15/15
5-Star Back Edition FR 6/12/15
5-Star Back Edition TH 6/11/15
5-Star Back Edition WE 6/10/15
5-Star Back Edition WE 5/21/15
5-Star Back Edition WE 5/20/15
5-Star Back Edition TU 5/19/15
5-Star Back Edition MO 5/18/15