Thursday, July 7, 2016.
Touring The Mediterranean, In My mind.
My dinner idea comes to me in the sun-blinded zone of the I-10’s Carrollton Flyover. I see few gaps in the traffic, in which I must weave through four lanes to the Metairie Road exit. Mary Ann says I drive like an old man, but I wish she had been there to watch me pull this one off.
My ultimate target on Metairie Road is Vega Tapas Café. I got a note from them just this morning telling me that the annual Mediterranean Tour begins today. It’s a gimmick, but an amusing and tasty one. Vega Tapas covers all the cuisines bordering the Mediterranean Sea, from Morocco and Tunisia across North Africa, around the Levant to Lebanon and its neighbors, through Croatia and Cyprus to Greece, to Italy then France to end up in Spain. In each virtual port your passport (a little book issued by Vega Tapas) is stamped as you go from one dinner to another.
Each of the cuisines is served in four courses, the portions the right size to allow for a generous but not gut-stressing repast. The price is $40, including coffee or tea. If you’d prefer wine, there are pairings for each of the courses–or you can have a glass or two of something. If you manage to get all the spaces stamped, you get. . .a good feeling.
I’ve never managed to fill up my passport, but I’m suckered in by the idea. The dining room is filled with people talking about the Tour and enjoying the game.
Dining room at Vega Tapas Cafe.
Two gazpachos.
The food is worthy of discussion, too. I begin with the soup of the day–not part of the Med Tour, but too good to resist. It’s a gazpacho made with two different recipes–one the normal red, the other a pale orange. What’s interesting about this is that the two are made into a yin-yang in a single bowl. The flavors are very different and very good.
Tabbouleh salad.
The Mediterranean aspect begins with a very large tabbouleh salad, loaded with parsley, tomatoes, cracked wheat, garlic, lemon, olive oil, and the rest of the Middle East standard ensemble, crunchy and fresh.
Baba ghanooj.
Now comes a lighter style of baba ghanooj–the Lebanese eggplant dip, with even more garlic than its predecessor. This is the first Middle Eastern dish I ever ate, back in the 1970s. I liked it then and now.
The entree is grilled kibbe, with four patties of ground lamb, parsley and bulgur wheat. It looks as if it started out as a meatball and got squashed down about half the way to becoming a hamburger patty. This was the weak spot of the dinner, but not bad.
The dessert is a moist, semi-sweet rice pudding, flavored and sweetened by orange flower water and pistachios. It was more than I felt good about eating, but that’s not a very strong criticism. I may be there next week for the Italian menu, premiering on July 11.
Vega Tapas Cafe. Old Metairie: 2051 Metairie Rd. 504-836-2007.
Friday, July 8, 2016.
Fausto’s Is About Seafood.
We invite Doug and Karen Swift to dinner at Fausto’s. They liked the place a lot, but hadn’t been there lately because. . . well. . . they couldn’t think of a reason. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that from others. It has something to do with the small size of the restaurant, and the occasional difficulty of getting a nearby parking space.
It has nothing to do with the food, which is excellent to a startling degree. Owner (and brothers) Fausto and Rolando di Pietro and their family have been in the New Orleans restaurant business long enough that the Creole marks are all over the Sicilian base. The strong department of the menu is its seafood, which rivals or surpasses that of every other New Orleans Italian restaurant.
Stuffed mushrooms at Fausto’s
We begin with a plate of crabmeat-stuffed mushrooms and an arancino the size of a baseball. It’s more than enough for the four of us to split. The mushrooms are good, but the arancino is even more impressive–a ball of rice tinged with tomato sauce, and stuffed with mozzarella and ground beef.
Arancino.
An assortment of salads comes next. By now we are up to date on the lives of our sons, who were classmates at Christian Brother’s School in sixth and seventh grade, then at Jesuit High School. That’s how we know one another, although MA keeps up the friendship by calling Doug–who is an MD–whevever she needs medical advice.
Also at this moment I run out of liquid refreshment–an Italian Chardonnay. Instead of going ahead with that, I order a drink I have not watered my palate with in a long time: a half-and-half. Simple enough: equal amounts of white and red vermouth on the rocks. (It’s known as a “cin-cin” if you make it with Cinzano vermouth.) Back in the 1970s I often imbibed this, often asking for pure red vermouth.
Saltimbocca
The entrees are terrific–mine in particular. Parmesan-encrusted fish (it’s puppy drum tonight) is so spectacular in its sharp butter sauce that everybody wants to take a taste of it. Not that the Swifts have missed out on the good food. The veal saltimbocca has always been a great specialty at Fausto’s. A soft-shell crab amandine is hard to argue with, as well. Mary Ann has the simplest dish: fettuccine alfredo with artichoke hearts.
Chocolate cheesecake for the Swifts, a wedge of spumoni for me, and the usual nothing for MA’s dessert. Doug and I begin discussing the World Wars, because we are both in the middle of audio books on the subject. Doug also likes my Beetle, since he apparently had one at some point in his past. He has studied the mechanics of the current Beetle, and approves my purchase.
We’ll be back at Fausto’s again, when we may take up the topic of cats versus dogs. Karen has five cats, and would like to
have ten. I see her point, even though I only have three. Doug and MA are both dog people. But how does that affect the right number of kitties?
Fausto’s. Metairie: 530 Veterans Blvd. 504-833-7121.
Ralph’s On The Park
City Park Area: 900 City Park Ave. 504-488-1000. Map.
Nice Casual.
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Website
ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
I guess it’s a good thing when the owner of a restaurant is so successful that he starts another one. And another and another and another. Think about John Besh, who in the past year has been involved with the openings of at least six establishments–and who might have three more before Christmas. Think about Ralph Brennan. . . Yes, let’s think about Ralph. His restaurant collection numbers eight. One of them–Brennan’s on Royal Street–is one of the most important restaurants in New Orleans.
Another of Ralph’s places is his eponymous flagship, Ralph’s on the Park. Or is it, now that Brennan’s is in the catalog? And if it is, how has it been affected by the the internal competition for management attention?
I hadn’t been there lately when, having not yet dined, I drove in front of the place a few weeks ago. A switch popped open in my brain: this is the time of year when Ralph’s OTP offers a summer special. For $33, they serve three appetizers and a glass of wine.
Even disregarding the markdown price, this is one of the most appealing menus in New Orleans today. The list of possible plates and wines is broad enough to make it stand on its own, with the feeling of a wine dinner but without the formality. And they’re flexible enough that adding another course or wine is as easy as it is delicious.
So, whatever the competition among its sister restaurants, Ralph’s on the Park is, if anything, better than its benchmark performance over the years.
WHY IT’S NOTEWORTHY
Ralph’s is historic and beautiful. Across the street is the oldest part of the park, with the biggest live oaks and an ancient bayou. In the past few years the food has equaled the environment. Chef Chip Flanagan creates the most distinctive food Ralph’s has ever had, while remaining solidly in the contemporary Creole vein and employing locally-raised foodstuffs almost exclusively. Among the dozen Brennan restaurants, only Commander’s and Brennan’s are better.
Main dining toom at Ralph’s.
WHAT’S GOOD
The restaurant keeps itself in the French-Creole bistro tradition. Although its cooking keeps up with the times, it’s uncomplicated and familiar. During Chef Chip’s regime he has expanded the menu in all departments. That’s a great improvement, since the menu has a history of being too abbreviated. The possibilities are much extended, with an especially strong small-plates section. Perfect for an all-appetizer dinner.
BACKSTORY
More a bar than a restaurant for most of its history, the building can claim a continuous career of food and beverage service dating back to 1869. Its recent career as a major restaurant began in the early 1980s as Tavern on the Park. Ralph Brennan took over in 2001, and spent almost a year and millions of dollars to renovate the place. Ralph’s on the Park was the luckiest restaurant in the Katrina disaster. Entirely surrounded by some of the deepest floodwaters, the restaurant’s location on the Metairie Ridge limited its damage to one broken window.
DINING ROOM
The two dining rooms on the first floor are heavily windowed, the better to let the marvelous park view in. The whole place has an antique style. A mural depicting a historically-accurate 1800s faceoff between the high-end call girls of the time and the wives of their customers is amusing. The bar is the better dining room. It’s smaller, quieter, and on some nights sports a piano player. The private dining rooms upstairs are sometimes used for a la carte service; they have balconies that take even greater advantage of the setting.
REVIEWER’S NOTEPAD
More ruminations appear in our Dining Diary. Click on any of the dates below for those reports, each written a few days after a meal at Ralph’s On The Park.
11/10/2015 ~
FULL ONLINE MENU
BEST DISHES
Starters
»Turtle soup, sherry
Gulf shrimp & mirliton bisque, pickled mirliton
»City Park salad, red oak leaf lettuce, romaine, Granny smith apples, Stilton blue cheese, smoked bacon
Pickled shrimp & cucumber salad, Argentine red shrimp, bagna cauda, basil vinaigrette, charred croutons, lemon
»Watermelon salad (ginger beer-infused watermelon, local greens, fried pecans, pickled watermelon rind, pepper jelly vinaigrette, feta
»Marinated crawfish salad, lolla rosa, Creole mustard vinaigrette, Italian cherry peppers, provolone, prosciutto, roasted corn, green tomato chow chow
Roasted brussels sprouts, fried haloumi, za’atar vinaigrette
Broccoli Toussaint (steamed broccoli, cheddar cheese mornay)
Grilled asparagus, balsamic vinegar
»Truffle fries, black truffle mayo
Pommes dauphine, onion creme fraiche, mushroom dust
»Mississippi shiitake agnolotti pasta, basil, ricotta, shiitakes, lemon, brown butter, mirliton, squash, preserved lemon vinaigrette
Cheese plate, quince paste, white truffle honey, hazelnuts and water crackers
Crabmeat deviled egg, white remoulade, pico de gallo, espellette
»Smoked fried oysters, Bourbon tomato jam, white remoulade
»Crabmeat Daniel, housemade French dressing, brandy, chervil, celery root
Tuna two ways (tartare and pepper-seared with avocado, sweet chili, wasabi crème fraiche)
Entrees
Barbecue shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, toasted garlic bread
»Oyster rockefeller risotto, fried oysters, herbsaint, spinach, parsley, tarragon, preserved meyer lemon, parmesan cheese, toasted breadcrumbs
»Brown butter glazed redfish, almond butter, green beans, lemon gelée, almond wafer
Fried chicken wings, watermelon rind kimchi, Triple S sauce
»Mrs. Crispy (housemade brioche sandwich, béchamel, creole tomato, fried quail egg
»Beef molé sopes, poblano & guajillo chilis, pepitos, lime pickled onion
»Duck confit leg quarter, braised mustard greens, duck cracklin’ corn bread, potlikker sauce, pickled greens & Vidalia onion slaw
»Ribeye steak au poivre, Brandy peppercorn sauce, oyster and shiitake mushrooms, roasted broccoli, pommes dauphine
Desserts
Peanut butter & banana pudding, peanut butter quark, chocolate chip and banana bread, peanut butter cookie
Hazelnut chocolate tart, strawberry infused rum mousse, chocolate and hazelnut butter crunch
Chocolate doberge, creme anglaise
»Butter rum bread pudding, toffee-honeycomb crunch, hot buttered rum sauce, rum raisin ice cream
Ice cream & sorbets
»Cheese plate, chef’s selection of cheeses served with quince paste, white truffle honey, hazelnuts and water crackers
FOR BEST RESULTS
Ralph’s seems always to be running a promotion, of which the three-appetizer-$33 summer special is typical. They also regularly stage special dinners at the other end of the price spectrum, too.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
While Ralph’s has never served better food than it does now, and while the execution of the dishes is solid, I always leave feeling that it could be better still, with a little more taste and imagination. When full, the acoustics of the main dining room get uncomfortably loud.
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 +2
Consistency +1
Service+2
Value +1
Attitude +2
Wine & Bar +1
Hipness +1
Local Color +3
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
Balcony tables
Romantic
Good view
Good for business meetings
Many private rooms
Early-evening specials
Open Sunday lunch and dinner
Open Monday dinner
Open some holidays
Historic
Good for children
Free valet parking
Reservations accepted
Barbecue Duck
I observed the creation of this dish while hanging around the kitchen at Commander’s Palace one day in the mid-1980s. Emeril Lagasse was the chef, and he was exploring the idea of serving duck as an appetizer. This is what he came up with. It’s a great first course for a dinner that will have seafood as an entree.
1 4-5 lb. duck
Creole seasoning
~
Sauce:
1/3 cup olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 head garlic, peeled and chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
3 bay leaves
2 Tbs. whole black peppercorns
1 Tbs. thyme
1 Tbs. rosemary
8 oz. tomato puree
2 12-oz. bottles beer
1 8-oz. bottle Tabasco Chipotle pepper sauce (or garlic pepper sauce)
1 cup Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Final assembly:
2 Tbs. butter
1 small onion, sliced
2 oz. mushrooms, sliced
2 green onions, tender green parts only, snipped finely
1/4 cup crushed peanuts
Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
1. Season the duck with Creole seasoning and cut shallow slits in the skin. Place it on a roasting pan with a rack and into the 500-degree oven. Immediately lower the oven to 350 degrees. Roast until a meat thermometer inserted into the breast reads 150 degrees. (This is underdone, intentionally.) Remove.
2. After the duck has cooled enough to handle, strip the meat off the bones in pieces as large as possible. Reserve the skin and the bones separately.
3. Make the sauce. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy Dutch oven over high heat until it shimmers. Saute the onion, garlic, carrot, celery, bay leaves, peppercorns, thyme, and rosemary until the onions are lightly browned. Then add the duck bones (broken up enough so that they lie flat in the pan) and the tomato sauce. Lower the heat to medium and saute another five minutes.
4. Add the beer and bring to a light boil, scraping the bottom of the pan as you do. Add a quart of water (or, better still, chicken or duck stock) and return to a simmer. Reduce until the sauce coats the back of a spoon.
5. Strain the sauce, pressing to get all the juices. Add salt to taste.
6. In a medium skillet, heat the butter and saute the onions and mushrooms till the onions are transparent. Add the duck meat and saute until medium rare to medium. Add 2 cups of the sauce and bring to a boil. Simmer for additional two minutes.
7. Serve topped with a sprinkling of green onions and crushed peanuts.
Serves six to eight as an appetizer.
Slovenian Sausage Hot Dog @ Dat Dog
The slightly wacky, imaginative hot dog stand on Freret Street has done more to raise the reputation of the frankfurter than any other restaurant in New Orleans history. All the various sausages available are good, but this one–made with chunks of pork and a enough smoked and hot paprika to make it red)–is a thriller. They grill it until the skin gets black patches here and there. Any garnish you can imagine is available. Even the bun is in a class by itself.
Dat Dog. Uptown: 5030 Freret St. 504-899-6883.
Uptown: 3336 Magazine St. 504-894-8885. This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
July 11, 2015
Days Until. . .
Bastille Day Eat Club Dinner @ Flaming Torch 6
Eat Club Dinner @ MeMe’s (Chalmette) 15
Satchmo Summer Fest 26
Celebrity Restaurateurs Today
Drago Cvitanovich was born today in 1922, in a small town near Split, Yugoslavia (now Croatia). He moved to Louisiana along with many of his countrymen, and joined the oyster industry in Plaquemines Parish. He moved to New Orleans in the 1950s, and worked for a time at a restaurant owned by his brother-in-law Drago Batinich. When that Drago’s, this Drago opened his own place, also called Drago’s, in what later became Fat City.
Klara and Drago Cvitanovich.
The new Drago’s menu was half seafood and half Croatian food. It was also half-full, on a busy day. Its specialty always has been oysters. Drago handled that end of the business personally, drawing on his contacts with the oystermen in Empire and thereabouts. The place seemed to be going nowhere when the family decided to reinvent the place. One dish did the trick: char-broiled oysters, such a phenomenon now that it’s as widely imitated as barbecue shrimp or oysters Rockefeller. That was about ten years ago; now, led by Drago’s son Tommy, Drago’s is one of the most successful restaurants in town. Drago is pretty much retired now, but he shows up at the restaurant daily. In his prime (not long ago), he was the fastest oyster shucker you ever saw, and kept up a conversation all the while he did it.
Today’s Flavor
Today is National Blueberry Muffin Day. Beware: the “blueberries” in many commercial muffins are actually little bits of dried apple colored blue. However, a good blueberry muffin is wonderful. Make some: blueberry season is ending down here, but it spreads north trough the next couple of months. The most famous blueberry muffins in New Orleans were (and are) those baked at the Pontchartrain Hotel. Although the restaurant offerings of the Pontchartrain are much diminished from their glory days when the Aschaffenburg family owned the place, the blueberry muffins still go on. Actually, they’re a little on the dry side, but they do make a breakfast something special.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Dinner Hill is in the Guadalupe Mountains, about twelve miles north of the Texas-New Mexico border, and less than a mile west of the boundary of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. This is dramatic desert country, superb for hiking. Dinner Hill rises to 6407 feet, and has creeks running away from it in all directions. You will need to pack your food in to have a meal on Dinner Hill. The nearest restaurants are a fifteen-mile hike to Whites City, an old tourist town on the Carlsbad Caverns Highway.
Annals Of Dueling
Today in 1804, the most famous duel in American history came to a bad end when Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton–the man most responsible for assembling the U.S. government as we know it–fell in Weehawken, New Jersey, across the Hudson from Manhattan. Burr, who came out of the deal with a badly damaged reputation, came to New Orleans, where he began starting other trouble. Now, of course, men challenge one another with knives in the kitchen (i.e., the Iron Chef).
Gambling And Food
Today in 1913, within walking distance of the Dueling Oaks, the New Orleans City Park Casino opened. It served as the central refreshment stand for the park (and still does). When we were kids, we associated a visit to City Park with the sno-balls, popcorn, and hot dogs we gleaned from the Casino. Then we climbed all over the big live oaks outside between merry-go-round rides and turns on the swings. Ah, innocent childhood.
Dressing Up For Dinner
Today is the birthday, in 1934, of Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani. I wish I could wear one of his suits, but you need a certain kind of physique for those beautiful duds. Avid eaters rarely have such a shape.
Edible Dictionary
pippin, n.–An apple–generally a good one–from a tree grown from a seed. Since the apples on ungrafted seedling trees are almost never like the apple the seed came from, when a good apple results from such a tree it’s considered a lucky break–a “pippin.” (Most fruit from chance seedlings are very bad for anything but making cider.) The most famous American pippin is the Newtown pippin, a green apple from a tree that grew on Long Island, New York in the 1700s. Trees grafted from that one were grown throughout the American colonies. It is still considered one of the best of the green apples.
Annals Of Overeating
Former U.S. President William Howard Taft was sworn in today in 1921 as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. First and only man to head two branches of the Federal government. But he was the size of two men, at well over 300 pounds.
Treat Of The Day
Many locations of the 7-11 chain of convenience stores around the world will give you a free 7.11-ounce Slurpee today if you ask. Note the date.
Food In The Wild
Today in 2001, a patrolman in Vancouver was accosted by a duck who walked up and grabbed him by the pants leg. The duck kept pulling the cop, who kept breaking loose, down the street to a catch basin. There, in the drainage, were eight baby ducklings. The policeman fished them out with a vegetable strainer, and the reunited duck family resumed its walk to a nearby pond. I’m thinking of some tale of how delicious they all were in the police kitchen that night, but I can’t bring myself to write it.
The Saints
Today is the feast day of St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictine monks, the first Christian monastic order, in the sixth century. His rule was “Pray and work.” Cooking and baking have always been a big part of the work. The Benedictines at St. Joseph’s Abbey near Covington bake an enormous amount of bread everyday, most of which they give away to the poor.
Food Namesakes
Bobby Rice, pop singer in the 1960s and 1970s, was born today in 1944. He was heard on the Fireballs’ song Sugar Shack. . . Mel Appleby, of the rock duo Mel ‘n’ Kim, was born today in 1966. . . Blind Lemon Jefferson, one of the most influential early blues singers and guitarists, wailed for the first time today in 1897. . . Brazilian physicist Cesare Lattes discovered himself today in 1924. He discovered the pi meson, so small its filling could not be tasted.
Words To Eat By
“Mother: “It’s broccoli, dear.”
Child: “I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.”–E. B. White, long-time New Yorker writer, born today in 1899.
Words To Drink By
“They never taste who always drink.”–Matthew Prior, On a Passage in the Scaligerana.
Beware Of Threatening Aphorisms.
Don’t claim to be working hard in the kitchen if you don’t really want to do so.
Click here for the cartoon.