Tuesday, March 1, 2016.
Acropolis Cuisine Moves Into A New Era.
“We are rid of February, and good riddance, if you ask me.”–E.J. Kahn, Jr.
Even though it encloses my wedding anniversary, my birthday, Mardi Gras (usually), my late mother’s birthday, and Valentine’s Day, February is no friend of mine. Even in this, the warmest winter I can remember. The lawn is lush and green, not its usual brown. But what can I possibly do about it?
It’s a lovely day. I consider staying at home and going for a walk. There are many projects I could get done at home more effectively than if I make the two-and-a-half-hour commute into town. But I go in, anyway.
After the show, I try to get to the Flaming Torch to talk with Zohreh about the menu and other matters for our Eat Club dinner in two weeks. But the drainage construction has the place boxed in, and takes away the two dozen best parking spaces. I will ask her to move the dinner until after Daylight Saving Time kicks in, when at least we will be able to see where we’re going.
I drive a long way before I have an inspiration for dinner. The owner of Acropolis Cuisine died a few months ago, and the new management is in place. He has clearly pulled things together. I have what may be my best meal ever had in the little café on Veterans at Taft Park. And I don’t think I was recognized until I handed my credit card over to the waiter.
Six-onion soup at Acropolis Cuisine.
I begin with the restaurant’s famous six-onion soup. It’s different from the French onion soup we all know in that the onions are not caramelized, but treated as herbs. A light veloute holds it together. It looks creamy but isn’t. There’s a square of freshly-baked puff pastry on top. That’s more a gimmick than a feature, but the first few bites of the hot, brown bread are good. So is the soup itself.
The recipe for this highly distinctive item has made the rounds of the city for many years. I remember having first encountered it at Teddy’s, on LaSalle Street just off Canal, forty years ago. Teddy’s was a classic Greek-owned diner, and this kind of dish was the restaurant’s leap toward immortality. I next ran into it in a restaurant on Hickory, Dickory and Dock Streets in Harahan. The Greek guy there next moved it when he whowed up at the Acropolis. I think a couple more moves were involved along the way. This I know: only one restaurant at a time in the whole city ever has offered the soup of the six onions.
Moussaka at Acropolis Cuisine.
Next comes–as a function of the entree–a decent Caesar salad. The entree itself is moussaka. I couldn’t remember having had this at the Acropolis before. It had to be new to me, because a dish this good I would have remembered.
Moussaka is a casserole found throughout the former extent of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The Greeks made more of it than the other cooks of the region, and it’s a major item on Greek restaurants wherever Greeks are found–which is almost everywhere. It’s a layered dish with likenesses to shepherd’s pie and lasagna. The layers begin with vegetables at the bottom. Atop that is long-cooked lamb, which is topped in turn by potatoes (sometimes mashed, sometimes not) and then some eggplant and cheese. The top layer is bechamel, with a bit of cheese mixed in.
Usually a serving of moussaka is a big cube cut from a bigger pan. Acropolis, however, bakes its moussaka in individual servings, the puffy bechamel dusted with parmesan cheese. This makes for a cleaner, lighter dish. It’s too big to eat for someone who is not starving. You could certainly share it. Even eating just half, it’s still too much.
Bread pudding is dessert, finishing off a four-course prix-fixe dinner. Or was it a la carte at low prices? The food total was $22, which certainly seems some kind of deal.
When I arrive, the restaurant is nearly full. Metairaneans must dine early, because by the time I left at around 8:30 it was nearly empty. I’m happy to see this briefly endangered little café is still the best Greek restaurant in the New Orleans area. The fact that it’s the only Greek restaurant in town takes nothing away from its goodness.
Acropolis Cuisine. Metairie: 3841 Veterans Blvd. 504-888-9046.
Cafe Lynn. Mandeville: 2600 Florida St. 985-624-9007.
Cafe Lynn
Mandeville: 2600 Florida St. 985-624-9007. Map.
Nice Casual.
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Website
ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
Cafe Lynn has all you could want from a French-Creole bistro: a skillful, original chef, an imaginative menu, many regular customers, and lots of parking. At one time it also had a less appealing aspect: in its first years, it was located in what had been a Burger King. Even after a renovation, the place drew the occasional BK customer, who sometimes were well inside the dining room before they realized that no Whoppers were to be had. This became part of the restaurant’s legend, and even though it’s two years since Cafe Lynn moved into a more auspicious new home, people keep talking about the odd heritage. The contrast could not be more complete or delightful.
WHY IT’S NOTEWORTHY
As popular as they are in the city, there aren’t many gourmet French-inspired bistros on the North Shore. Cafe Lynn is one of the best, with an engaging menu just innovative enough to set it apart from the neighborhood restaurant it appears to be at first glance.
Cafe Lynn’s new dining room. It’s about three times bigger than it looks.
WHAT’S GOOD
The clean blend of French and Creole flavors is kept within the confines of the familiar. Also here are flavors from the South of France, a reflex from the chef’s years as lead cook at La Provence. Whatever the origins of the dishes, you don’t have to study the menu long before you find a dish that sounds great. The emphasis is on fresh local product, prepared without pretentiousness or the making of menu statements. An ideal example of this is soft-shell crab, a specialty done better here than almost anywhere else. Seafood in general is the mainstay of the menu, although your palate will find other places to wander.
Roasted quail.
BACKSTORY
The chef-owner is Joey Najolia, the final chef de cuisine at La Provence before founder Chris Kerageorgiou died. When the restaurant was sold to John Besh in 2005, Najolia decided to go on his own. He bought a disused Burger King, renovated as deeply as he could, and opened up. The restaurant moved in 2014 into a rustic new space in the building that once was a produce market. Perfect statement.
Soft-shell crab @ Cafe Lynn. It’s a candidate for best soft-shell in town.
DINING ROOM
The L-shaped room is spacious, dark in its color scheme, and very comfortable with white tablecloths and bistro furnishings. In Mandeville, one is dressed up when he dons a shirt with a collar and sleeves–which is more or less the scene in the French countryside the Cafe Lynn tries to emulate.
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 Cafe Lynn.
7/10/2015 ~
FULL ONLINE MENU
BEST DISHES
Starters
»French onion soup gratin
Oysters Logan (fried, Napa cabbage slaw, toasted almonds, sherry vinaigrette
Eggplant Gabriel (fried, lump crabmeat, jumbo shrimp, oysters in cream sauce
Crabmeat Nathan (Louisiana crabmeat au gratin)
Fried calamari, remoulade sauce
»Crab cake, panko breaded & fried, remoulade sauce
Fried eggplant fingers, parmesan cheese, tomato sauce
»Escargot Bourguignonne
Crab cake salad
»Greek salad
Oyster salad, blue cheese
Goat cheese salad
Entrees
Check the specials before ordering an entree. That’s where the really fine cooking is found.
Fish du jour
»Gulf shrimp au pistou (sautéed with olive oil, herbs & garlic; basil, parsley & olive oil
Pan seared quail, olive oil, herbs & lemon, brown sauce
»Filet mignon, au poivre
»Pannéed bone-in pork chop
Veal scallopini of the day
Lamb chops à la Grecque, lemon juice, brown sauce
Stuffed eggplant with shrimp and crab, casserole style
Chicken amandine, brown butter & toasted almonds
Veal t-bone, mushroom marsala sauce
Desserts
Vanilla ice cream
Wild berry sorbet
Brownie a la mode
»Creme brûlée
»Lemon tart
White chocolate bread pudding
FOR BEST RESULTS
The specials are a bit better than the regular menu, and there’s a board full of them. As casual as the place looks, you are well advised to reserve a table. Lots of enthusiastic regulars dine here.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The lighting scheme needs to be done over. As is the case in most North Shore restaurants, the service staff is young and less than polished.
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 +2
Service+1
Value +1
Attitude +2
Wine & Bar
Hipness +1
Local Color +1
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
Romantic
Open Sunday lunch
Open all afternoon
Good for children
Easy, nearby parking
Reservations recommended
Turtle Soup
New Orleans-style turtle soup is as unique to our cuisine as gumbo. Unlike the clear turtle soup eaten in most other places, Creole turtle soup is thick and almost a stew. The most widely-served style of turtle soup in the area is descended from the one at Commander’s Palace, which is distinctive in using as much veal shoulder as turtle and in including spinach as an ingredient. My recipe is influenced by that one, as well as the incomparable version at Brennan’s (quite different, with more tomato), and the wonderful old-style version they did at the now-extinct Maylie’s.
Turtle soup at Restaurant de Familles, whose recipe is a lot like mine.
The hardest part of any turtle soup recipes is finding turtle meat; if you can’t, using veal shoulder turns out a very credible mock turtle soup. It is traditional to serve turtle soup with sherry at the table, but I’ve never liked the alcoholic taste and aroma of that. I add the sherry into the recipe early to get the flavor, but not the bitter alcohol.
In case you’ve wondered: for purposes of Lenten abstinence, the Archdiocese of New Orleans has declared that turtle meat is considered a fish, and edible any time during Lent.
3 lbs. turtle meat or veal shoulder or a combination of the two, including any bones available
3 bay leaves
3 whole cloves
Peel of one lemon, sliced
1 Tbs. salt
1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
2 sticks butter
2/3 cup flour
2 ribs celery, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp. marjoram
1 cup dry sherry
2 Tbs. Worcestershire
1 cup tomato puree
1 tsp. black pepper
1 Tbs. Louisiana hot sauce
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, chopped
1/2 of a 10-oz. bag of spinach, well washed and chopped
1. Simmer the turtle meat and/or veal with bones in a gallon of water, along with the bay leaves, cloves, lemon peel, salt and black peppercorns. Keep the simmer going very slowly for about two hours.
2. Strain the stock, reserving the liquid and the meat. If you don’t have at least three quarts of stock, add water or veal stock to get up to that quantity. Chop the meat into small shreds and set aside.
3. Make a medium-dark roux (the color of a well-used penny) with the butter and the flour. When the roux is the right color, add the celery, onions, bell pepper, and garlic, and cook until the vegetables are soft. Add the thyme, marjoram, sherry, Worcestershire, and tomato puree. Cook for a minute, then add the stock.
4. Lower the heat and add the pepper, hot sauce, and meat. Simmer for a half-hour, then add the egg, parsley and spinach and simmer 10 minutes more. It’s ready to serve now, but it gets better if you let it simmer for an hour or two more.
5. Correct seasonings with salt and black pepper and serve in heated bowls.
Serves six to eight.
#16: Mussels, Saffron Cream Sauce, Chorizo @ Pardo’s
Pardo’s is the newest five-star restaurant in the area. This dish is an appetizer special there, and worth calling ahead to make sure they’re serving it. I love mussels, but it’s rare that I’ve had a version as good as this. In fact, I can’t think of a better version. The sauce/broth is thick, aromatic with saffron, and spicy with the juices coming from the Spanish chorizo. It’s a little too thick and intense to eat with a spoon, as is my habit. Instead, both my wife and I were going after every swipe with bread. And she doesn’t even like mussels. The fresh-cut fries added to the enjoyment. After two years, this place has become one of the most enjoyable restaurants in the entire area.
Pardo’s. Covington: 69305 Hwy 21. 985-893-3603.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
March 3, 2016
Days Until. . .
St. Patrick’s Day 14
St. Joseph’s Day 16
Easter 25
Sounds Like Candy, But Isn’t
The United States Mint was established today in 1791. On this same date in 1835, Congress authorized the building of a branch mint here in New Orleans. It lasted until the Civil War. The building is still there, part of the Louisiana State Museum now, at the southeastern corner of the French Quarter. In a few weeks, we’ll be there for the French Quarter Festival.
Music To Dine By
Today in 1931, Cab Calloway recorded his biggest hit and theme song, Minnie The Moocher. She was a red-hot hootchie-cootcher, rhymed the song, which went on to note that “Each meal she ate was a dozen courses.” Sounds like my kind of girl. What’s a hootchie-cootcher?
Today’s Flavor
It is National Deli Meats Day. Cured, smoked, and sliced deli meats range from the irresistible goodness of dry-cured hams, pastrami, salami, and deli-style roast beef to such unspeakable atrocities as luncheon meat and standard bologna. The gamut of goodness among hams alone goes from silky and mellow (prosciutto) to disgusting (ham roll).
But things are looking up. Supermarket delis are adopting higher standards than ten years ago. Their customers buy better deli meats if they’re available, even at significantly higher prices. The only downside is, with limited space in the typical deli case, some cold cuts of old are becoming hard to find. Cured beef tongue, once universal in delis, is now seldom seen. How much longer will liver cheese be able to hang on?
The next wave in the deli will be the appearance of deli butchers. They will make recommendations among the various meats, and slice them with better-than-present care. We would like to hurry this trend along by suggesting that deli employees be tipped. They make a tremendous difference in the goodness of what they sell. Thinly-sliced meats give a better flavor release than thick-sliced, because of the greater surface area exposed in the meat. Despite that, most deli employees cut meats as thickly as they can get away with unless you ask otherwise.
Edible Dictionary
habanero, n.–One of the hottest peppers in common use, the habanero is a bright red, heart-shaped capsicum pepper about two inches long and an inch and a half in diameter. It originated in the tropical regions of Central America, but is named for Havana, Cuba. It’s closely enough related to the scotch bonnet pepper that the two names are interchangeable except by passionate pepper buffs. Hot sauces made with habanero peppers are extremely hot, and are usually thinned out with carrots or other vegetables to make them usable even in small quantities.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
All meats–hams and roast beef included–are easier to slice thinly and uniformly if they are ice-cold.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Beans is a town that really came out of its shell when a dam on the Holston River backed up water into a reservoir called Cherokee Lake. Beans is right on the western edge of the reservoir, and what was formerly a poor farming town in the hills of extreme eastern Tennessee is now a place of docks and boathouses and recreation. It’s on US 11W, the highway that runs from New Orleans to Canada. Beans even has a restaurant: the Valley Bar and Grill. I hope they have red beans.
Deft Dining Rule #76:
If you ask a restaurant for a recipe and they refuse to share even a hint, it probably means that they’re buying the dish ready-made and are just warming it up. This is a certainty if they respond to your request with, “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you or kill myself.”
Annals Of Extinct Eating Fads
In the spring of 1939, one Lothrop Withington (he sounds like a freshman at Harvard, and in fact he was) swallowed a goldfish plucked out of an aquarium on a dare. For a few months, his feat was repeated at an increasing rate not only of frequency but in the number of goldfish swallowed. By the time the fad played out, a record 300 fish were eaten in one go. Then laws and medical advice slowed goldfish eating. What goldfish tasted like never came to light; most were swallowed whole. More on this in the Bad Fads Museum website.
Dining By Rail
George M. Pullman, the creator of the railroad sleeping cars that bore his name, was born today in 1831. The Pullman Company operated the sleepers and diners cars on almost every railroad in America until 1969. It set standards for service at a time when America was far from a country of gourmets. Pullman dining cars on the best trains equaled the food serves in all but the finest restaurants. I read a story once, for example, about a Pullman waiter’s being dressed down for inserting the cocktail fork for a shrimp cocktail into the meat of a lemon wedge instead of just under the skin, as he was supposed to. All of this is only a memory now. Eating on Amtrak isn’t horrible, but it’s nothing special at all.
Food In The Movies
Today is the birthday in 1911 of Jean Harlow, the most unforgettable (because of her voluptuousness) character in the classic film Dinner At Eight. It’s about a fabulous dinner with guests and conversations from hell.
Eating Across America
Today in 1845, Florida became the last state in the South to join the Union. It had been a Spanish colony until well into the 1800s. The dominant cuisine of Florida now, other than standard American, is Cuban, particularly in the southernmost part of the state. There’s also a strong Greek presence around Tarpon Springs. And Southern cooking throughout the Panhandle. Lots of fine seafood resources, notably Apalachicola oysters, pompano on the Gulf Coast, and royal ruby shrimp and rock shrimp. Conch is a big deal in the keys. But the finest Florida food export is oranges, the best juice oranges this side of our own here Louisiana.
Words To Eat By
“Round a table delicately spread, three or four may sit in choice repast, or five at the most. Who otherwise shall dine, are like a troop marauding for their prey.”–Archestratus, ancient Greek food authority and poet.
Words To Drink By
“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.”–Emile-Auguste Chartier, French writer, born today in 1868.
Science Versus Philosophy, In The Kitchen.
Comparing Tomatoes.
It always comes by to this: the more labels attached to the produce, the less flavorful it will be.
Click here for the cartoon.