Richard Fiske’s Martini Bar & Restaurant: Sept. 23
Richard Fiske, who passed away two years ago, made the Bombay Club into the distinctively delicious and entertaining hangout it always was. His staff stuck together after the Bombay name went to the hotel where it was located, and they opened a new restaurant in the handsome dining room of the Chateau LeMoyne Hotel almost a year ago. It’s a great place to be, starting with exceptional cocktails, progressing through the cooking of chef Nick Gile, and ending with live music. Nick–one of the least-known great chefs hereabouts–and his sous chef Jeremy Wells have quite a menu for us, to wit:
Imported Cheeses, Domestic Fruits, Charcuterie with Housemade Condiments
Crawfish Bisque
Grilled corn salad and crawfish wonton
Duck Confit, Wild Mushroom Pansotti
Triangular stuffed pasta, sherry and Stilton veloute, toasted walnuts and parsley
Pan-Seared Maine Diver Scallops
Three-potato, brussels sprout and bacon hash, chimmichurri
Lemon, Garlic, Mint-Rubbed Lamb Chops
Whipped cauliflower puree and tomato, cucumber and feta relish
White Chocolate And Lemon Cannoli
Blueberry compote and chantilly cream
In Richard Fiske’s bar.
Richard Fiske’s Martini Bar & Restaurant
Wednesday, September 23, 6:30 p.m.
French Quarter: 301 Dauphine St (Chateau LeMoyne Hotel). Map.
$75 inclusive of tax, tip, and wines
Click here to reserve.
The price is $75, payable at the door (credit cards okay). Free validated parking at the Central Garage, corner Iberville and Dauphine (a block from the restaurant). We begin serving at around seven, but people start showing up to join me for cocktails (extra) at around six. Dress is nice casual. I will be arrayed in jacket and tie to hold the standards up, but this is not required.
Thursday, September 17, 2015.
Eat Club @ Café Giovanni.
Café Giovanni may be the easiest Eat Club venue for me to fill with eaters. We came close to filling every seat in the main dining room, for around 66 people total. (Which I think is a few too many, but it wouldn’t be the first time.) Most of these people didn’t bother to wait until the menu came out. That’s a good thing, because as usual Chef Duke Locicero didn’t hand over the details until just a few days ago.
Cafe Giovanni with the Eat Club.
The Duke went along with my suggestion that he bring back two dishes we haven’t seen from his hand in awhile. Some fifteen years ago, he won a cooking competition for which I was one of the judges. (Alec Gifford was another, to give you a mild shock at how time zips by.) The dish was an Asian-flavored essay on sea scallops, with a peppery sauce that was so good that the judges unanimously gave him the win. Here that dish was again tonight, as edible as it was last time.
Gazpacho with other touches.
We are off to a great start, with a dish generically named “baked seafood.” Metal shells held oysters, crabmeat, and shrimp, with a very light sauce of bread crumbs, herbs, and cheese. A poll I would take later in the evening will call this unassuming dish the favorite eat of the night. I consider asking the people at my table to hide their empty shells when they’re finished, at which time I would demand to have this allegedly unserved baked seafood brought out immediately. (The strategy doesn’t work. Duke made only a few extras.)
Crabmeat Siciliana.
Good as that was, we have many more delicacies. For example, an unusual cold soup made with avocado, crabmeat, and the standard ingredients for gazpacho. Perfect timing of that in this dinner. Then another cold course: crabmeat Siciliano, a surfeit of white lumps on a pile of crisp greens.
Asian-style scallops and shrimp.
We return to hot eats with the aforementioned sea scallops, sent out with some big shrimp to make it even more alluring. A short gap in the service allowed me to move to another table, where Chef Duke’s current signature dish appears. It’s a prosciutto-wrapped small filet mignon, with a sauce containing both foie gras and green peppercorns.
I have a strange visual reaction to that one. The main item is cylindrical in shape, a darkish brown color and a sauce that made it look as if it could have been a sweet item. I welcome this pseudo-dessert, heralding the end of the dinner. But then my apprehension of the dish shifts to reality. I am mildly disappointed that the dinner still has two courses to go. I can’t remember having felt that way since the unforgettable overfeed about twenty years ago in Sclafani’s in the French Quarter.
A unique variation on cannoli.
The real dessert is worth waiting for–and worth eating on a full stomach. Chef Duke has devised a new approach to the cannoli. Instead of stuffing the sweetened ricotta into a hard, fried shell, he pipes it into a puff pastry and then bakes it. This gives the dessert a lightness that is almost unimaginable. (There is nothing light about a standard Sicilian cannoli.)
This is a lot pf praise for a six-course dinner. But the kitchen didn’t fumble anything. Or should I take into account what one of the Eat Clubbers thought worthwhile to complain about? He said the food tasted fine, but he was miffed that the kitchen didn’t drop off all the plates for a course in a single motion. No, they didn’t. The reason: Café Giovanni’s kitchen is absurdly small, and it can’t knock out a dozen of the same hot dish at one time without slowing the service down or serving the food cold. It is the only complaint I would hear all night.
The New Cafe Giovanni singers and their accompanist.
There’s been a change in Café Giovanni’s music program. A new pianist, a new male singer, and an alto who has been there for awhile. She sounded better than I remember from previous dinners. And the new guy is not only a good singer, but very funny, too. One of his shticks was milking the audience for applause by just repeating his last high note.
This was a late-running dinner. I didn’t get to my car (I walked over from the radio station, which is only five blocks away) until about ten-thirty. That means a midnight home arrival. I used to do that several nights a week, but such behavior is anathema now.
Cafe Giovanni. French Quarter: 117 Decatur. 504-529-2154.
Friday, September 18, 2015.
Seaweed, Raw Fish, And The Louisiana Philharmonic.
I am trying to find activities that both Mary Ann and I enjoy. I see that the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra–the indirect descendent of a long association of classical music providers in New Orleans–has begun its season. This weekend’s offering is Gustav Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. A performance in the expansive, acoustically fine First Baptist Church in Covington is tonight. It’s a short ride up Highway 21 from the ranch. What’s more, Daniel Lelchuk–The Gourmet Cellist–offered us tickets. Daniel is a regular caller to the radio show, when he’s not hanging out in Europe, which he has this past year. He’s also the second-chair cellist with the LPO.
We are going to have supper before the concert. That so presses us for time that I change into a suit during the last two commercial breaks during the radio show. I know I will not need to dress up, but I like standing out in a crowd, and indeed only some one percent of the audience will be arrayed in anything but casual duds. (The performers, of course, are in white tie and tails.)
Seafood salad with seaweed and caviar.
Supper is a combination of the seafood and seaweed salads at Tchoupstix. This is always a good deal in a good sushi place. The fish is what’s left after the beautiful center cuts are carved off the fillets. There’s nothing wrong with these irregular pieces, and they work perfectly in a salad. Ten bucks!
At Tchoupstix they serve you a clear, dark-brown beef broth with noodles when you sit down. It’s on the house. I love it, but tonight I realize that I may have a permanent mental association with the soup that is something less than savory. A few months ago, I asked the restaurant to sell me a quart of this good consomme. It qualifies as a clear liquid–one of the only things that one can consume for a half-day before a certain medical examination I had a few months ago. As I eat the soup today, I still like the taste, but I remember. . . well. . . that’s my problem.
That passes from my mind as we get great seats (there are many such available; the auditorium is enormous). We’re right across from Daniel, and that also gives us a great view of conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto. Who is somebody to watch. I have never seen a conductor so energetic. I can’t recall seeing one actually jump into the air–not just once, either. The Mahler Number Two is a great showcase for this. The piece is dynamic. That the performers got through it without being perspiration-soaked is a credit to the air-conditioning. I was exhausted just listening to them.
Also superb was the chorus, composed of two organizations singing together. About 150 members, singing as one voice! That is the Holy Grail of choral singing, the destruction of which I am guilty for over fifty years.
At this moment, a reader (not you) is thinking about sending me a note asking why I would hear the LPO in Covington when I could have done so in the newly-reopened Orpheum Theater yesterday or this Sunday. To him I say, “You’re right. But I don’t know.”
Tchoupstix. Covington: 69305 LA Hwy 21. 985-892-0852.
Kosher Muffuletta
How can you turn a ham and cheese sandwich into something kosher-style (although not strictly kosher)? You need thick garlic bagels, smoked salmon sliced thinly, the sharp but light ricotta salata cheese, and the same olive salad you’d use for a regular muffuletta. And a little cream cheese. Buy a ready-made olive salad, unless you always have your own in the refrigerator. (Making your own takes about two weeks, and you can’t make a little bit of olive salad.) This is a good light lunch, and you don’t have to be Jewish to like its flavor.
4 oz. Philadelphia cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup Creole-Italian olive salad
1 tsp. lemon juice
2 tbs. snipped fresh dill
2 Tbs. small capers
4 garlic bagels, preferably on the large, dense side, sliced in half
6 oz. thinly-sliced cold-smoked salmon
6 oz. ricotta salata cheese at room temperature
4 very thin slices of red onion
1. Set the cream cheese out to warm up to room temperature for about an hour. In a mixer bowl , beat it until it’s fluffy.
2. Put the olive salad, about two tablespoons of the olive oil from the olive salad jar, and the lemon juice into a food processor. Using short bursts, chop it very fine.
3. Add the chopped olive salad to the cream cheese and mix in thoroughly.
4. Toast the bagels (or not, as you like). Spread each side with the cream cheese-olive salad mixture. Sprinkle the capers and dill over each side, and press down with a rubber spatula to hold the capers in place.
5. Slice the ricotta salata as thinly as you can, trying to keep it from crumbling. Lay it down on one side of the bagels, and the salmon on the other. Fold the two bagel halves together.
There is no need to cut this into quarters, like a standard muffuletta.
Serves four.
Corn And Crab Bisque In A Bread Bowl @ Vincent’s
Vincent’s didn’t invent corn and crab bisque, but it’s one of only a few restaurants that features the dish on its menu full-time. It’s good enough to stand on its own in a standard soup cup, but what makes most customers remember is is that the large serving comes out in a round French bread bowl. The bread dissolves into the soup and makes it even better. Some people eat the whole thing. The two main ingredients were made for one another, and the presentation is inspired. About the only adjustment one might make is a few drops of Tabasco.
Crab cand corn bisque in a bread bowl.
Vincent’s. Riverbend: 7839 St Charles Ave. 504-866-9313.
||Metairie: 4411 Chastant St. 885-2984.This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
September 21, 2015
Days Until. . .
Summer ends 2
Today’s Flavor
This is National Spinach And Artichoke Dip Day. We will live to see that stuff pumped through pipelines around the country, with terminals in every chain restaurant and supermarket deli. The popularity of “spindip” (the chain restaurants’ name for it) is only slightly explained by its appeal to the palate. A more powerful engine is that it’s inexpensive to make, and restaurants earn a stunning markup on each order. The presence of spinach dip on a restaurant’s menu speaks of a dearth of imagination in the kitchen–unless it’s also the kind of place where you’d conceivably eat a hamburger.
All that said, it must be admitted that a good version of spindip makes for tasty party food. Perfect for, say, watching a football game on television. The challenge in making it is to prevent the glop effect from taking over. I like it best when the leaves of spinach still are firm enough that you can feel them in your mouth while eating. It’s also easy to make spindip too rich. The cheese aspect particularly should be kept under control. I have the recipe we use here at the Cool Water Ranch later in this newsletter.
Deft Dining Rule #507
Ordering spinach dip lets the waiter know you’re an inexperienced diner and possibly an unskilled tipper. If you must have it, get the youngest person in the party to order it.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Roasting Ear Island is in the Okefenokee Swamp, a wildlife refuge in the southeast corner of Georgia. It’s a fifty-seven mile drive northwest of Jacksonville, Florida. It’s not an island in the traditional sense of land surrounded by water, but a hill rising about swampland. (A concept easy to understand for those of us who live in Louisiana, where there are many such islands.) Roasting Ear Island doesn’t peek out much–just a few feet–but that’s enough to create more or less dry land. It has more and bigger trees than the swamp, which makes it stand out more prominently. The nearest place to eat is at K&C’s Oak Tree Cafe, nine miles away in St. George.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
If you have the time, it’s worthwhile to soak artichokes for an hour or two in a mixture of a quarter-cup of lemon juice and one quart of cold water.Do this after you’ve rinsed them but before cooking. It makes the leaves tenderer and helps the flavor.
Edible Dictionary
azuki bean, Japanese, n.–Azuki beans are small red-brown beans grown throughout southeastern Asia and used in a wide variety of dishes, most of them sweet. In this country, you’re most likely to encounter these beans as part of a flavor of ice cream. Red bean ice cream turns up in Thai, Vietnamese, and Indonesian restaurants, and sometimes in Japanese and Chinese restaurants.
Food In Show Biz
Chuck Jones was one of the guys who directed Bugs Bunny, the Road Runner, and other Warner Brothers cartoons. He was born today in 1912. He must have been quite a gourmet, because I’ve seen his drawings of Bugs on napkins in quite a few restaurants. There’s a good one on the stairs at Arnaud’s, for example.
Comic actor Bill Murray was born today in 1950. Murray performed an unforgettable food bit in the movie “What About Bob?” in which he plays a nutcase who stalks his psychiatrist. The psychiatrist gives him a snack, and Murray goes into what could only be called a foodgasm.
Food In Literature
Today in 1937, J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit. Hobbits were a race of small beings separate from but somehow related to humans. They lived quiet lives of peaceful indulgence. They ate six meals a day and enjoyed them enough that they could be called gourmets.
Food Namesakes
All of the birthdays today involve members of Congress for some reason. New Jersey Congressman Bob Franks was born today in 1951. . . Theron M. Rice, a Congressman from Missouri, was born today in 1829. . . Clarence C. Dill, a Senator from Washington, was born today in 1884. He put forth the Radio Act, the first regulation of commercial broadcasting, a desperately needed law in the 1920s.
Words To Eat By
“I’m a nut, but not just a nut.”–Bill Murray, born today in 1950.
Words To Drink By
“Wine is the most healthful and the most hygienic of beverages.”–Louis Pasteur.
The Difficulties Of Baking.
It’s not like cooking a pot of gumbo. You must have a good recipe and follow it exactly. Otherwise, you can actually get hurt.
Click here for the cartoon.