A One-Week Reprieve For Summer Special Menus.
August 31 was the last official day of the annual Coolinary promotion. Then the two organizations that coordinate Coolinary take two weeks off for unknown reasons, and come back with a one-week reprise of the Coolinary: called less than brilliantly “We Live To Eat Restaurant Week.” That started yesterday and runs through this Sunday, September 30, with eighty restaurants participating.
Despite this overcomplexity, the attraction is easy to understand. All of the restaurants participating have three-course dinners for $39 or less. Most of them also have two-course lunches for $20. None of the food involved is diluted, lowball fare, but the same kind of deliciousness you find in these restaurants every day. Nor are these a bunch of secondary eateries. Three five-star restaurants (the Pelican Club, Commander’s Palace, August) and even more four-star places.
The menus for all the restaurants involved are here.
After this week, a few restaurants persist with the summer menus until the end of the month. It continues to be a good idea to call for reservations and ask whether the summer menu is still in force. The program has become one of the most popular in the local restaurant business. And it helps restaurants keep their staffs busy during this slow time of the year.
NOMenu invites restaurants or organizations with upcoming special events to tell us, so we might add the news to this free department. Send to news@nomenu.com.
Friday, September 12, 2015.
Dominique Rises Again.
Some chefs don’t stay in one place very long, particularly if they came from the European tradition, in which constant roaming from kitchen to kitchen is typical. Let’s see if I can accurately chronicle the New Orleans career of Dominique Macquet. The first I heard of him, back in the late 1980s or early 1990s, was as the third or fourth chef at the Bistro at the Maison de Ville. Next he turned up under his own name in the restaurant of the Maison Dupuy Hotel. He was there quite a few years, and during that time he developed a unique tropical style. In those years, he was the ceviche king of New Orleans. (He was born on the French island of Mauritius.)
Chef Dominique Macquet at Saveur, carving his new beef shank. As always, he seems just to have returned from a visit to the Fountain of Youth.
A change in management put Dominique briefly on the street, but then he turned up at La Crepe Nanou, then at Martinique. That was followed by a long waiting period while a restaurant that would carry his name was built. (This did not keep him from appearing in a number of restaurants as a guest chef, nor at events like the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience. Finally Dominique’s opened in a cool space on Magazine Street, but that didn’t go long-term. (The place is now Apolline.) Next he and his name graced another, even cooler space on Magazine Street that has since become Shaya. Not long after Dominique left there, he moved into the former Baie Rouge, across the street from Shaya. The owners entered some kind of deal that changed the name to Saveur and changed the menu to Cuisine Dominique.
That’s where things stood when my friend and dermatologist Dr. Bob invited me to join him and his fiancee Julie for dinner at Saveur. Maybe he heard that I am home alone these days, maybe not. But I was glad to get the invitation.
Dr. Bob and I ate a couple of times at Baie Rouge about a year ago, and he was intrigued by what was going on there now. The big news is that Dominique’s menu includes a $75 beef shank. This is osso bucco all grown up, and not on steroids. It’s more than twice the size, with all the meat collected at the bottom of a bone the size of a Little League baseball bat. Indeed, you could probably kill somebody by swinging this thing around. It requires a full twenty-four hour day of braising. Before it’s served, it’s returned to the braising liquid to warm it through.
This is enough meat for at least three people. It is well known that most diners–even those who are members of the same nuclear family–are unlikely to split large roasts of red meat in a restaurant. That’s why we see so few restaurants serving dishes like beef Wellington, Chateaubriand, racks of lamb, porterhouse steaks, or veal shanks in the style Chef Willy Coln used to cook. It’s hard enough to get the members of a dining team to agree about which sides to get, let along three or four people agreeing to eat meat from a mutual bone.
Venison sirloin at Saveur.
Still, if anybody can create a phenomenon about this, Dominique will. He brought the baseball bone to the table and sliced off a modest steak’s worth for each of us. It had the look of a round steak, but was much tenderer and with a big, big flavor–perfect for the expansively flavored wines Dr. Bob brought from his collection. Imagine a steak cooked at a low temperature in beef stock, with the gelatin from the bone adding mouthfeel. It’s the kind of thing Dominique could become famous for.
Red snapper crudo at Dominique.
He still has a knack for sashimi, crudo, and ceviche. The three of us split an order of red snapper that also had spent some time in a marinade. Wonderful. An order of marinated fresh beets and arugula came pursuant to my order, but once again I find that far fewer people than I thought have a taste for beets. I wind up eating all of it. My entree is a ribeye of venison, sent out with a crepinette of elk. A lot of red meat on this menu, we all thought.
Red snapper with Israeli couscous.
Julie found one of the seafood dishes for her entree: sauteed red snapper. (Dominique brought the entire red snapper to the table, to make the point that it really is fresh red snapper. Dr. Bob was also eating seafood, but it slipped my notice.
I don’t know when, how, or why this got started, but I have been answering the offer of dessert in restaurants lately by asking for a single scoop of ice cream. Nearly all restaurants have this–even Asian restaurants, as notorious as they are for not having much in the way of sweet endings. The waiter or sometimes even the chef will offer to add chocolate syrup or whipped cream or berries, but all I want is the ice cream. It’s not low in calories or fat, but it is simple, good, and smaller than the desserts in most restaurants these days. Dominique had a dulce de leche ice cream, and that worked perfectly for me, even though he insisted on giving me two scoops.
Saveur. Uptown: 4128 Magazine. 504-304-3667.
Stuffed Onions Florentine
This dish was in my very first cookbook, a little tome published in 1982, long out of print. One day not long ago, someone called me on the radio and said they’d made it and loved it. I cooked it again, made a few improvements, and found out why the caller liked it so much.This dish was in my very first cookbook, a little tome published in 1982, long out of print. One day not long ago, someone called me on the radio and said they’d made it and loved it. I cooked it again, made a few improvements, and found out why the caller liked it so much.
Stuffed onions Florentine.
6 medium onions, no larger than will fit into your muffin tin
8 thick slices bacon
2 crimini mushrooms, chopped
2 10-oz. bags fresh spinach, cooked and chopped
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 Tbs. red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp. Creole seasoning
1/4 tsp. salt
Dash Worcestershire
1 tsp. Herbsaint or Pernod (optional)
1/2 cup chicken stock
Topping:
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup bread crumbs
1. Peel the onions and cut off the tops about one-fourth the way down. Scoop out centers of onions, leaving quarter-inch-thick onion shells. Chop onion centers.
2. In a skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Remove and crumble. Pour off fat, but don’t wipe the pan. Cook chopped onion in remaining fat until tender.
3. Lower the heat to medium-low and stir in all the other ingredients and the bacon. Cook until all the moisture has been absorbed and the mixture is beginning to dry.
4. Fill onion shells loosely with spinach mixture. Blend the topping ingredients and sprinkle generously on top of the onions.
5. Arrange the stuffed onions in muffin tin. Cover with foil. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, then remove foil and bake until the topping browns.
Serves six.
Double-Cut Wood-Grilled Pork Chop @ Muriel’s
As much fuss as we make over the best steaks, a well-prepared pork chop of good pedigree is at least as delectable as even the best sirloin strip. Perhaps even better. The double-cut pork chop at Muriel’s–a fixture there since the place opened, if I remember right–gives good evidence of that. It’s seared over a wood-burning grill, leaving it crusty on the top and the bottom and a blush of pink in the center. It starts with a thick-cut, well-trimmed chop, and heads upward from there. Even at half the price of a steak of the same size and trim, I find myself enjoying the likes of this more often than I do beef steaks.
Muriel’s wood-grilled pork chop.
Muriel’s. French Quarter: 801 Chartres. 504-568-1885.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
September 15, 2015
Days Until. . .
Summer ends 8
Gourmets Through History
Today is the birthday in 1857 of William Howard Taft, the twenty-seventh President of the United States. He weighed over 300 pounds, a record for the chief executive. Big guys were common in those days of massive eating. Banquet menus from that time make today’s wine dinners look like snacks. Taft, after he finished his term as President, became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Turning Points In Eating
Marco Polo was born today in 1254. The explorer from Venice traveled widely in the Far East, establishing trade with those lands. The primary commodity: spices. Marco Polo is often credited with having brought pasta to Italy from China, but pasta was already there. Still, there was once a restaurant in Gretna (in the building where Kim Son is now) named for Marco Polo. Its menu combined Chinese and Italian food. Not a big hit.
Eating Around The World
This is Independence Day for most Central American nations. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica all broke away from Spain today in 1821. There is without question a distinctive Central American cuisine. It has two sets of roots, in Spanish cookery and in that of the native pre-Columbian populations. It’s based on the foodstuffs native to the area: corn, chile peppers, and beans.
Each Central American country has its own particular dishes, and many of them have different styles of cooking on their east and west coasts. One items found in all of the countries is the tamal–cornmeal and a little meat enclosed in a banana leaf. But even that shows big differences as you move around the isthmus.
New Orleans has never had many Central American restaurants. The most persistent at the moment is Pupuseria Divino Corazon, a Salvadoran cafe in Gretna that’s been around since the 1990s. New Salvadoran restaurants have opened since the hurricane, notably the two locations of Pupuseria Macarena. We’ve occasionally had Nicaraguan and Honduran restaurants, even very good ones. Someday we’ll support them long enough for them to become permanent.
Today’s Flavor
In honor of the independence of the five Central American nations today in 1821, this is Pan-American Tres Leches Day. In any restaurant where you find it, tres leches cake can be counted on to be the best dessert in the house. Meaning “three milks,” tres leches is made by layering a firm yellow cake with marshmallow cream, then soaking the whole thing in condensed milk, evaporated milk, and fresh milk. A good deal of variation appears in the recipes. Not all of them use the marshmallow cream. Some use fresh cream instead of one of the milks. Coconut milk also shows up in some. Crushed fruit, rum, and nuts in others. There’s some dispute about its origins, but it seems to us that Nicaragua has the best claim. Tres leches is now found in almost every Central American restaurant in the United States. With good reason: it’s wonderful.
Deft Dining Rule #2
Eat it where it lives. To paraphrase: When in El Salvador, eat pupusas.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Three streams in Idaho are all named Dip Creek. Coming from different directions the water from all three winds up in the Snake, the major tributary of the Columbia. What are the chances of that? The first is in the southeast corner of the state, hard on the Wyoming state line, in the ski areas of the Rockies near Soda Springs and Jackson Hole. It runs five miles and drops about a thousand feet before its water enters Dry Creek. The second Dip Creek is up in some more serious mountains, a 158-mile drive east from Boise. This one drops about 1500 feet through a canyon into the Big Wood River. The third Dip Creek is in the Idaho Panhandle, 134 miles east of Spokane, Washington. It begins on the slope of Crescendo Mountain (what a great name!) and drops 2200 feet through a rough, tree-filled wilderness canyon. It goes six miles to the Foehl River, a tributary of the Clearwater River and then the Snake. None of these are near any known restaurants, so pack the potato chips in.
Edible Dictionary
yellowfin tuna, n.; also known by its Japanese name ahi–The most common variety of tuna from the Gulf of Mexico sold in restaurants or stores. In the fish display case, it’s often marked with the meaningless accolade “sushi grade.” Yellowfin tuna is, however, the most popular fish in the sushi repertoire in this country. Its red flesh fades to pink or even almost white in some specimens. The dark parts near the blood lines are (or should be) cut away. The typical yellowfin (an accurate name) weighs around 75 pounds, but they can grow to a few hundred pounds in their long lives. Like other tunas, yellowfins are lightning-fast swimmers and incomparably efficient predators of other fish. This accounts for one of their negatives: they concentrate mercury picked up from the fish it eats. Tuna is excellent raw. When cooked, it’s almost always grilled or seared in a pan.
Annals Of Candy
Today in 1995, the tan M&M’s were replaced by blue ones, as a result of a poll of M&Ms eaters that revealed a groundswell of interest in a blue piece. Interestingly, the tan M&Ms entered the pouch to replace purple ones in the 1940s.
Music To Drink Cheap Wine By
Jimmy Gilmer was born today in 1940. He had two hits, both with food/drink titles, six years apart. The first was Sugar Shack, in 1963. The second, with a completely different sound and under the name The Fireballs, was Bottle Of Wine. It blistered the radio in 1968.
Music To Drink Cognac By
Bobby Short, perhaps the greatest male American cabaret singer in history, was born today in 1926. For decades, he played in the Cafe Carlyle in New York City, a little club that was packed with his fans every night. I’m one of them. Short had a preference for the standards, rendered in a unique, sassy, jazzy way. He accompanied himself brilliantly on the piano as he sang with enough vibrato to shake leaves off a tree. He died in 2005, but his albums are still available. I’d recommend My Personal Property.
Food Namesakes
David Stove, an Australian philosopher, was born today in 1927. . . His countryman Terry Lamb, professional rugby football player, hit the Big Field today in 1961.
Words To Eat By
“Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table.”–The Anarchist Cookbook.
Words To Drink By
“A drunk was in front of a judge. The judge says ‘You’ve been brought here for drinking.’ The drunk says ‘Okay, let’s get started.'”–Henny Youngman.
How To Tell You’re Eating Too Much Chicken.
If you eat too many carrots, your hands will turn orange. Sort of the same thing when you overdue the pullets.
Click here for the cartoon.