Wednesday, October 19, 2016.
Café Sbisa Returns From The Dead.
A turning point in the annals of New Orleans restaurants was the opening of Café Sbisa in the mid-1970s. Dr. Larry Hill, a psychiatrist and gourmet, saw a new path opening in the restaurant community, and a clientele that was interested in going that way, too. One dish on the menu became emblematic of these new possibilities. Using a charcoal grill fabricated with the hamburger grill at Bud’s Broiler in mind, Café Sbisa became the first restaurant in modern times to offer fish not just fried or broiled, but grilled over a smoky fire. Suddenly, here was a new kind of dining, one particularly like young customers and other hipsters.
The bar and the Dureau art above.
After Mr. B’s and the other new Creole bistros stole its thunder, Café Sbisa had a spotty history. It closed for long periods at least twice as the ownership shifted. Even Dr. Hill’s first chapter was a reopening. Sbisa’s Café (as the neon sign named the restaurant) had already beein in business since 1899, and was one of the more successful restaurants in the French Market neighborhood. But it was a closed mess when Dr. Hill took over.
I will pass over all the other reopening stories–they’re boring at best, and I’m not sure I have all the whys and wherefores straight. The latest renaissance involves Craig Napoli, who has owned the building for decades, and Alfred Singleton, a skillful chef who was here some point in the Sbisa story. (More recently, he was the chef at Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse. His chef’s jacket says that he is the owner of Café Sbisa.
Tonight, I continue my survey of the new and renewed restaurants in the 1000 blocks of Chartres and Decatur Streets by having dinner at Sbisa’s. It opened about three weeks ago, and I let two press openings slip by me. I am greeted at the door by people who do not know me, but who are as hospitable as if I were a longtime regular. The server is a smiling blonde with her hair braided. She says that she’s new to the business, but I could not tell this from her efficient upkeep of my table.
The staff had time to spend with me. The place was nearly empty. But we are within the confines of the soft opening. The evidence of this comes from the restaurant’s willingness to inaugurate an addition to the wines by the glass, when I say that there seemed to be a lack in that department.
Oysters Sbisa.
The opening day menu is Café Sbisa’s Greatest Hits. Turtle soup, a fried take on oysters Rockefeller, seafood courtbouillon, barbecue shrimp and a rack of lamb. The most popular dish is trout Eugene–a fried fillet of large size, topped with all the loose seafood in the house. Shrimp, crab fingers and crawfish tails, all in a rich sauce. Not even the name is really a Sbisa legend: Trout Eugene originated at the Caribbean Room. But Sbisa was hardly the only restaurant that served the dish.
Turtle soup.
Missing is the charcoal grill. The 1970s Sbisa also had a raw bar, with not just oysters but raw clams. But none of these minor complaints should interest anyone other than a history-minded restaurant critic. (Who might point out that having the bathrooms in the back of the second floor is authentic.) And there are other things to get excited about.
Trout Eugene.
For starters, the restaurant looks great. The famous George Dureau mural above the second floor is back home. The walls throughout the first floor have been refinished.
I eat too much, having started with both the oysters Sbisa and the turtle soup. The latter was a big serving of a very thick, well-made potage. The trout Eugene was easily big enough for two people. I only made it through half, and that was while leaving the crab fingers on the plate. (They’re hard to eat without making a mess.)
The spirit of this edition of Café Sbisa recalls the Grand Dame restaurants. A love for Antoine’s, Galatoire’s, Broussard’s and Arnaud’s translates easily into at least a liking for the newestCafé Sbisa. All the place needs are local regulars.
In my comings and going aroung this part of the French Market area, I find myself crossing Decatur Street by walking through the dining room of the casual seafood restaurant at the corner. They have a live jazz band there every night. I always stop and listen to a tune or two. I guess I’ll have to have dinner here some night as part of my expanding analysis of this culinary rebirth.
Cafe Sbisa. French Quarter: 1011 Decatur St. 504-309-7477.
Game Birds Paradis
It’s named not for the bayou town on US 90, but for the paradise to which you are supposed to be lifted by this dish. That’s what they told me at Antoine’s, where this was the standard house treatment of squab in the early 1970s. Squab was out of vogue then, though, and the sauce soon moved to chicken. Now that squab is available (if only occasionally) and liked by lots of people, it would be nice for the old dish to return.
Failing that, the sauce would work with almost any bird–particularly those with dark meat. Duck or quail would be good, as would leg quarters of chicken. Cornish game hens and pheasant if you can get it. The recipe calls for pepper jelly, but taste it first: it shouldn’t be lip-blistering hot. If very hot is all you have, substitute something like apple jelly for half of it.
Cornish hen Paradis.
4 Cornish game hens
1 apple, cut into eighths
1 orange, cut into eighths
2 Tbs. Creole seasoning
2 tsp. salt
Sauce:
1/4 cup finely-chopped sweet onions
1/2 stick butter
1/4 cup flour
1 cup tawny port
2 cups strong duck, turkey, or chicken stock
1 Tbs. pepper jelly (not too spicy!)
About 20 red seedless grapes, cut in half
1/2 tsp. salt
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
1. Stuff the cavities of the Cornish hens with the apple and orange sections. Season with Creole seasoning and salt. Place on a roasting pan, breast side down, and put in the oven. Immediately lower the oven temperature to 350. Roast for 45 minutes, then turn up the heat to 425 for a final five minutes. The internal temperature should be about 175 on a meat thermometer shoved in the thigh.
2. While the birds are in the oven, make the sauce. In a saucepan over medium-low heat, cook the onions in 1 Tbs, butter, stirring often, until they become light brown uniformly.
3. Add the butter and flour, and make a blond roux.
4. Whisk in the tawny port. Bring it to a boil and hold it there, whisking often, until the liquid is reduced by half.
5. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Dissolve the pepper jelly into the sauce, then strain.
6. Return the sauce to a very light simmer, and add the grapes. Check seasonings and add salt and pepper as needed.
7. Place a whole roasted Cornish hen on each dinner plate, and serve the sauce around it.
Serves four.
Duck Salad, Blue Cheese, Fig-Pecan Vinaigrette @ Cypress
Figs and ducks are a natural combination. When the figs are brought to bear ont he duck as a glaze, that’s as nice as the orange-flavored version, and gratifyingly different. But the magic persists in this salad, whose several flavors orbit your palate until coming together in a wonderful composition of tastes. Warning: although the price is in single digits, it’s more filling than you expect. Doubled up, it wouldn’t be a bad entree.
Cypress. Metairie: 4426 Transcontinental. 504-885-6885.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
October 25, 2016
Days Until. . .
Halloween 6
Food Calendar
Today is National Greasy Foods Day. This reminds me of something a man in the next barber chair said when I was about eight. He was talking about a restaurant. “They don’t have food,” he said. “They just have different flavors of grease.” It was the first time I’d ever heard that there was a difference among restaurants. I’ve been waiting all my life since then to use that line in a review, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Some foods must be a bit greasy, I believe. New Orleans-style hot tamales and chili, for example. We once had a fine Nicaraguan restaurant in Fat City (the name escapes me) that served its red beans from a pot that had a half-inch layer of some kind of fat on top; the beans were terrific.
Perhaps it’s the word that’s the problem. Dick Brennan, Sr. often said that nobody in the food business should ever use the word “grease.” He especially hated to hear the oil used to fry foods called that. I think he was onto something there.
Edible Dictionary
Herbsaint, n.–The brand name for an anise-flavored liqueur, similar to Pernod, Ricard, and modern absinthe. It was originally created to serve as a substitute for absinthe, a very popular spirit in New Orleans until it was banned in the 1910s. The combination of that ban and Prohibition a few years later wiped out what was left of absinthe (aside from the names of two bars bearing the name). After Prohibition ended, a pair of New Orleans men. One of them was J.M. Legendre, a World War I veteran who had acquired a taste for absinthe in France. He created an absinthe without using wormwood–the herb that caused the ban–but the federal authorities wouldn’t let Legendre call his concoction absinthe. So he made up the name Herbsaint. It found two roles: in coating the glass in which a Sazerac cocktail would be served, and in adding an extra anise kick to the sauce for oysters Rockefeller. The Sazerac Company makes Herbaint now, but Legendre’s signature is still on the label.
The Sazerac company allows Chef Donald Link to use the name Herbsaint on his flagship restaurant. Herbsaint has always been one of the bestter gourmet bistros in the CBD, and remains so even though now Link and company have several restaurant: Cochon, Peche and Butcher.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Chestnut Street follows the curve of the Mississippi River through most of the Uptown neighborhoods of New Orleans. It begins at Felicity Street on the downtown edge of the Garden District. It travels all of that architecturally rich section and keeps going through more modest neighborhoods for 40 blocks. It has three breaks, the biggest of which is Audubon Park. Then it runs two blocks more before ending at the Mississippi River levee. It first appeared on planning maps in 1829; by 1879, its entire length was built. In the early days it spelled Chesnut. No restaurants have a Chestnut Street address. However, five-star Commander’s Palace is only a block away. Two blocks from the river, restaurant-rich Magazine Street parallels Chestnut Street all the way.
Food Inventions
In 1955 on this date, the first home microwave oven was introduced by Tappan. It cost $1300, and didn’t sell very well. It took twenty years before the appliance took off. The device was created by Raytheon, which called it the Radarange. With good reason. The technology was born when radar engineers noticed that anything with a water content got hot when it was near a radar transmitter. Microwave ovens got a lot of disrespect in the early years, but it’s hard to imagine a kitchen without one now. I use mine most for warming milk for my cafe au lait.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
Always use round dishes, not square or rectangular ones, to warm food in the microwave. Food in the corners will heat faster than in the center, overcooking those parts.
Restaurant Art
Today is Pablo Picasso’s birthday, in 1884. The groundbreaking artist lived a simple life of great pleasure for himself. He was a native gourmet: he most enjoyed the foods of wherever he lived, when they were prepared well, without needing much in the way of grandeur or ceremony. As far as I know, the only New Orleans restaurant to have an original Picasso on its walls was the extinct LeRuth’s. At the Court of Two Sisters, they have a great trout dish named for the artist. It’s made with strawberries, bananas, kiwis, and other seasonal fruit. Sounds odd, but it’s actually wonderful. I wish they made it more often than as a special.
Tips For Great Servers
When you see a diner looking at the art on the walls around him, he’s not an art lover. He needs something. Find out what and get it.
Food And The Body
In 2000, British researcher Stephen Gray found that Indian-style curries have an addictive effect on the body. That confirmed what many lovers of curries have known for a long time. When you eat the stuff, you want it again the next day. But it mustn’t be a powerful addiction, or that’s all we’d eat.
Food Namesakes
Actress Barbara Cook, who was in the Broadway version of The Music Man and, more recently, in the movie Thumbelina, was born today in 1927. . . Violinist Midori Goto (who usually goes by just her first name, which she shares with a Japanese melon liqueur) was born today in 1971. . . Former runner, now health advocate Allison Roe was born today in 1981. . . Kathy “Taffy” Danoff, a singer with the Starland Vocal Band, opened up her tonsils today in 1944. . . American poet John Berryman read his first line of blank verse today in 1914.
Words To Eat By
“I always wanted to write a book that ended with the word ‘mayonnaise.'”–Richard Brautigan, American novelist, who died today in 1984.
“The Americans are the grossest feeders of any civilized nation known. As a nation, their food is heavy, coarse, and indigestible, while it is taken in the least artificial forms that cookery will allow. The predominance of grease in the American kitchen, coupled with the habits of hearty eating, and the constant expectoration, are the causes of the diseases of the stomach which are so common in America.”–James Fenimore Cooper.
Words To Drink By
“Something has been said for sobriety but very little.”–John Berryman, American poet, born today in 1914.
It’s All In The Words, Not The Reality.
The words experienced wine tasters use is what scares off the beginners.
Click here for the cartoon.