Dozen Best Restaurants Open On Mardi Gras.
The worst day of the year to dine out in New Orleans, Mardi Gras presents many challenges to the would-be diner. In a league with Christmas and Thanksgiving in the universality of its celebration in southern Louisiana, Mardi Gras is a day for overindulging. It’s also a day when most people whip up their own food or eat street food. The fine points of the local cuisine are not much in evidence on Fat Tuesday.
Historically, not many restaurants open on Mardi Gras. That has been changing in recent years, particularly in the evening. With the demise of the Comus parade, once the last truck float following Rex has passed, the crowds become diluted everywhere except on Bourbon Street (which is shoulder-to-shoulder all day and into the night). People started looking for restaurants. And some restaurants were happy to serve.
That did not, however, change the attitude of the chefs and waiters. Nobody celebrates more heartily than restaurant workers, who are generally on low power by the time the parades have ended. So, even if you find a restaurant that seems to be ready to roll, it is unlikely to provide a peak dining experience.
Here are the dozen restaurants I think will be best for dining on Mardi Gras. But cut them some slack, and allot a long time to dine. You need to take a load off your feet anyway.
A few generalities: The most likely place to look for an open restaurant is in the major hotels. They have to be open all the time. Chef John Besh, who is involved in quite a few hotel restaurants, will have almost all of his places working all day. On the other hand, any restaurant that has become a fast-food window is to be avoided.
1. Tujague’s. French Quarter: 823 Decatur. 504-525-8676. Tujague’s ancient dining rooms has always been open on Mardi Gras, and even with its new menu it is back again. It’s a full house most of the day. Make a reservation.
2. Lüke. CBD: 333 St Charles Ave. 504-378-2840. John Besh’s best casual restaurant is directly on the main parade route, and has a near-perfect menu for casual dining. Reserve.
3. Criollo. French Quarter: 214 Royal. 504-523-3341. The restaurant of the Monteleone Hotel is relatively calm all day, and close to all the action. It’s good largely because nobody thinks about going there.
4`. Borgne. CBD: 601 Loyola Ave (Hyatt Regency Hotel). 504-613-3860. Chef John Besh’s great seafood house is in the Hyatt House hotel, near the Superdome. It will not be thought about by many people, and will be delicious.
5. Trenasse. CBD: 444 St Charles Ave. 504-680-7000. The new seafood house in the Hotel Inter-Continental is right on the St. Charles Avenue parade route. It’s hidden on the first floor and comfortable.
6. Crescent City Steak House. Mid-City: 1001 N Broad. 504-821-3271. The old Broad Street sizzling-steak specialist is the home of the Eat Club’s annual farewell to beef dinner, an idea that attracts the biggest crowds in the since-1934 history of the place. I’ll be there, as I have been for some 30 years.
7. Compere Lapin. CBD: 535 Tchoupitoulas. 504-599-2119. It’s the first Carnival for this new, well-hidden bistro in the Old 77 Hotel. The food is southern, Creole, Cajun, and Caribbean, and surprisingly unpredictable.
8. Domenica. CBD: 123 Baronne (Roosevelt Hotel). 504-648-6020. Chef John Besh again, with his Italian menu and wood-fired, stone-oven pizzas. Just off Canal Street, a few feet from the place where Rex toasts his Queen.
9. Kingfish. French Quarter: 337 Chartres St. 504-598-5005. This Cajun hangout spills out onto the corner of Chartres and Conti, with a big, casual menu all day long. I can’t imagine there will be a second when it won’t be full.
10. Flaming Torch. Uptown 3: Napoleon To Audubon: 737 Octavia. 504-895-0900. Far off the parade routes, the Flaming Torch will be a calm, quiet place to escape the raucousness of the parades in the evening. French bistro cookery.
11. Cafe Adelaide. CBD: 300 Poydras St. 504-595-3305. The casual bistro from the people who own Commander’s Palace is in the Loew’s Hotel, and is so committed to breakfast (excellent) lunch, and dinner.
12. Chophouse. CBD: 322 Magazine St. 504-522-7902. A few blocks away from the main parading action, this is an alternative to the local steakhouses for having your final slab o’ beef before Lent begins the day after Mardi Gras. USDA Prime all the way, seared black-and blue unless you request otherwise. Live music. Opens mid-afternoon and good through the evening.
Friday, February 5, 2016.
Hermes Pokes Along The Parade Route.
Kevin Kelly is the owner of the brilliantly restored Houmas House Plantation up the river. But that’s not the only centuries-old structure he revived. He lives in a townhouse on St. Charles Avenue that approaches two hundred years old. He uses it for all its worth, especially during Carnival season. It’s hard to imagin a better place for watching parades, and he gives the place over to that purpose for a few days every year. An assortment of his many friends and media people show up several days running for a substantial buffet every year.
Mary Ann is a big fan of Kevin’s Mardi Gras parties, and r.s.v.p.’s several times every year, whether I can make it or not. Tonight’s episode is the biggest bash in the series. Only those clothed in costumes or formal wear (or both as we were to see) are admitted.
The theme for the costumes this year is “It’s A Monumental Affair.” Among the figures present whose public statues will disappear in the near term are a guy who identifies himself P.G.T. Beauregard. His uniform is superb.
But Kevin himself wears the best getup of the night: he is Donald Trump, with a mask so convincing that after a few seconds you feel as if you’re talking to the man himself.
Nice crowd. With the exception of p.r. operative Bonnie Warren and Margarita Bergen (it’s not really a New Orleans party without Margarita), I know almost nobody here. But I get to talking with a bunch of people, of whom the most interesting is a younger feller wearing a superbly domed hat. He says it’s 100 years old, something he found in the closet of his grandfather. It looks new. I’d love to have one like that.
Hermes is an old krewe with many well-connected members. It has a reputation of being the fastest-moving Carnival parade on the streets, but it didn’t live up to that tonight. It didn’t poke along, but its many bands and excellent old-style floats loaded with good throws (many of them glowing in the dark) slowed it down.
One of the advance units was the 610 Stompers, the most innovative marching club in many a Carnival. They continues to innovate in a way that requires a certain sense of humor. I’d describe what they do if I could.
I cannot remember ever having been hit in the face by a flying pair of beads. It happened twice tonight. The first hit was so hard that I thought it might have broken my glasses. Either they’re making glasses stronger these days, or beads more brittle.
We watch the whole parade from the chilly, windy balconies, then return to Kevin’s parlor. Two of his cherished retrievers roam the room, completely at home even with all these strangers. Food is good: corn soup, roast pork with a good, brothy sauce, pasta with a creamy tomato sauce and shrimp, miniature crab cakes, seared chicken, and many little desserts. The bar is open and unstinting. What more could we want?
Well, there’s was this. . . We were having such a great time that MA lost track of the time, and her parking spot went into overtime. We got lucky: her car wasn’t booted. For once, the clogged streets at the end of the parade route was on our side, and the enforcement unit couldn’t get to us.
Happy Friday Gras!
Saturday, February 6, 2016.
Sixty-Five. Dates For Breakfast And Dinner.
It’s my birthday, the one that traditionally marks the laying down of life’s toils. The statistics say that only government workers actually retire at this age. I certainly have no expectation of doing so soon. What I do for a living is so entertaining that only an insurmountable obstacle (i.e., death) would keep me from going to the very end. I have a few milestones I’d like to pass: 30 years of hosting The Food Show on radio (in 2018), 30 years of publishing this online newsletter (2037), and 50 years of writing a weekly restaurant review column (2022).
I probably think too much about longevity. When I ran into him last week, Eric Tracy belittled the status of the Food Show as being the longest-running program in New Orleans radio history. “That’s in a new book I just published called ‘Things I Don’t Give A S— About.” I can see his point.
Mary Ann is always very kind to me on my birthdays. She offered to join me both for breakfast and dinner. (In one of the great ironies of our marriage, she doesn’t like to eat out all that much.)
Poached eggs with crabmeat and mushrooms at Mattina Bella.
We go to Mattina Bella for the first meal. It’s a full house with three tables ahead of us. So what? The line moves quickly, and we are there with the Blue Crab Benedict for me, the all-meat omelette for her, and one blueberry pancake. The latter is new to the menu and better than I expect. The blueberries are not in the flapjack itself, but in a compote full of whole berries you add to your pleasure. It avoids the gross over-sweetness of such things, with a great fresh flavor and a tinge of vanilla.
I have a two-hour radio show starting at two p.m. The main subject becomes Creole hot sausage, particularly the patties made by Patton’s. I can’t seem to get anyone to talk about Valentine’s Day, five days after Mardi Gras.
When I switch off the mic, the dogs and I take a five-lap walk around the Cool Water Ranch. The grounds are still squishy wet from this winter’s frequent, heavy rains. One of these days, I will place flagstones through the marshy areas. (Speaking of that, I wonder what happened to Marsha, a girl I dated in the 1970s. Haven’t thought about her in decades.)
My big birthday dinner is at Keith Young’s Steak House. The restaurant is so consistently excellent–a contender for Best Steak In The New Orleans Area, in fact–that as much as we love it, we hardly ever go there. Besides, this is the kind of meal that must be indulged in with moderation.
Keith Young’s oysters Bienville.
We begin with four oysters Bienville, which Keith tells me he pulled together using the recipe in my cookbook. How can I not get it every time I go?
They have a new French onion soup, and MA goes after it. It is just as it should be: the broth with a nice beefy consomme flavor and well-caramelized onions and a modest amount of cheese. It’s perfect for this cold night.
I thought Keith had a pork chop, but I am wrong, and I miss a chance to continue my investigation into the relative merits of the best steaks and the best pork chops. I am finding that the pigmeat is better, even though beef holds on as the people’s choice. (We ran a poll on this a few days ago, and beef took 79 percent of the vote.)
Keith Young’s outstanding sirloin strip steak.
The absence of a pork chop tonight pushes me to order my favorite of Keith’s hand-selected cuts, the sirloin strip. It is a beauty, extraordinarily flavorful and juicy, with enough of a sear around the outside to make it thrilling. I get it with New Orleans bordelaise sauce–garlic in hot butter. I am able to down about half of it before my hunger wanes.
Keith added something nice to his already good wine program. A special list two pages long offers some major wines by the glass, including a few with a bit of bottle age. They have installed a gizmo that prevents oxygen from getting into the open bottles. I ask for a glass of Arrowood Cabernet 2005, on the list at about $30 the glass. It’s a big, mouth-watering wine with obvious benefits from those ten years in the bottle. He has quite a few wines in that category, and even Opus One ($70 a glass), It adds a great deal to a dinner. Particularly for those of us whose spouses don’t drink, and who don’t drink as much as we used to. In any case, I find that when I have a really great wine in front of me, I don’t drink as much as I would of a more ordinary vintage.
On the way home, I demonstrate to MA that my new Beetle has heated seats. I can’t say I find that feature especially useful, but she likes it.
Keith Young’s Steak House. Madisonville: 165 LA 21. 985-845-9940.
Boiled Brisket of Beef
In New Orleans, the favorite method of cooking brisket is to boil it. This is done in many cuisines, mainly to derive a stock for making soups our sauces; the meat is often discarded. But despite the long cooking time, the brisket still has a lot of flavor, and makes a great match with boiled cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. Serve it with any of the many variations of horseradish sauce you can come up with.
One of the byproducts of making boiled beef is the ultimate stock for making vegetable soup.
4 to 6 lbs. choice brisket, preferably the butt end
1 large onion, cut into eight pieces
1 medium turnip, cut into chunks
Leafy tops of 1 bunch celery
Stems of 1 bunch parsley
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp. black peppercorns
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. marjoram
1/2 tsp. mustard seed
2 bay leaves, broken in half
2 cloves (not essential, but it makes the kitchen smell good)
2 Tbs. salt
Sauce:
1/2 cup Creole mustard
1/2 cup chili sauce (or ketchup)
1/2 cup prepared horseradish
1. Bring two gallons of water to a boil in a large stockpot.
2. Trim all huge slabs of fat from the brisket, but don’t be too severe about this. Cut it if necessary into two or three pieces to fit your pot. (It’s okay if it sticks out a little bit.) Put it into the water (no need to wait for it to boil). Add all the other ingredients. Cover the pot.
3. When the pot comes to a boil, lower it to the lowest possible temperature. Simmer for four to six hours, or whatever it takes for the brisket to pull apart when clutched with tongs. Skim off the scum that may rise to the surface.
4. Remove the brisket and set aside. Strain out the vegetables and discard, but save the beef stock for other uses–notably vegetable soup. The stock can be kept in the refrigerator for about a week, or it can be frozen almost indefinitely.
5. Slice the brisket it or serve it in large cubes, but cut against the grain with a sharp, non-serrated knife. The meat will be falling apart and easy to eat. Serve with boiled cabbage, potatoes, and carrots.
6. To make the sauce, blend the three sauce ingredients. Serve cool.
Serves eight, with leftovers for sandwiches or to add to vegetable soup.
Black Iron Skillet-Seared Sirloin Strip @ Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse
Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse was the realization of an idea the Brennan family (one part of it, anyway) had twenty years earlier: to open a restaurant serving first class steak house, but with a simple menu and a masculine touch. The centerpiece of the menu was the steak that had been served in some of the Brennan’s other restaurants, notably Commander’s Palace. It was a USDA Prime sirloin encrusted in a black iron skillet. The dish later gave birth to a more famous offspring–blackened redfish. But it’s more than a little good on its own.
Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse. French Quarter: 716 Iberville. 504-522-2467.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
February 9, 2016
Days Until. . .
class=”ListRecipeOrReview”>Valentine’s Day–5
Observances
It’s Mardi Gras, a day with several eating traditions. The first is saying good-bye to meat and alcohol for the Lenten season that begins tomorrow. You do this by generally overindulging today.
The word “carnival” means “farewell to meat.” My personal observance of this tradition involves eating a steak. And not just any steak, but a seriously large one of fine quality. I get it, in the company of anyone who cares to join me, at the Crescent City Steak House. I’ll get there around two-thirty to begin the indulgence.
The strangest aspect of Mardi Gras is that, despite this emphasis on indulgence of the senses, it’s the worst day of the year to eat a gourmet repast. If you can avoid going to a restaurant, it’s a very good idea to do so.
Many other parts of the world have eating traditions on this day. The entire French-speaking world does, of course–that’s how it got to New Orleans. This is the day for pancakes in places that refer to this day as Shrove Tuesday–notably Liberal, Kansas.
In Hawaii, the Portuguese presence in its past left behind a tradition of making malasada, a kind of doughnut. The Amish people in Pennsylvania Dutch country make fastnacht, a potato cake served with dark syrup today. In Iceland, they call this Sprengidagur, which translates as “Bursting Day.” They they celebrate by eating peas and salted, cured meats.
Deft Dining Rule #158: If you can’t let yourself have a Lucky Dog on Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras, you have no soul. If you let yourself eat a Lucky Dog any other time, you have no brain.
Annals Of Chocolate
Today in 1894 the Hershey Chocolate Company was founded. Milton Hershey, who had been in the candy business for some time, started the company after a few less successful ventures. Chocolate makers in Europe are puzzled by the American taste for Hershey’s chocolate, which they find has a slight tang from sour milk. But we certainly love it. The history of Hershey (and his fierce competitor Forrest Mars) is the subject of the excellent book Emperors of Chocolate, by Joel Glenn Brenner.
Today’s Flavor
Today is National Lox and Bagel Day, says the web rumor. The combination of silky smoked salmon with cream cheese on a well-made bagel is easy to get hooked on. It’s a filling repast. I can no longer eat even a whole bagel for breakfast and then have lunch–let alone one with salmon and cream cheese. But that doesn’t make it less of a pleasure.
“Lox” comes from the old German word for salmon. Similar words are found in all other Northern European languages. Strictly speaking, lox is not smoked but cured salmon. That’s certainly true of “belly lox.” However, that has given way in delis to Nova lox, for Nova Scotia, which once dominated the smoked salmon supply in Northeast America. Nova lox usually is less salty than belly lox, from being cured a shorter time in a milder brine solution.
Edible Dictionary
shu-mai, [shoo-my], Chinese, n.–A bite-size dumpling made by wrapping a thin skin of pasta dough around a stuffing of pork with mushrooms, and perhaps other finely chopped ingredients. Shu-mai are sometimes stuffed with shrimp. They’re steamed and served hot as an appetizer. The two most common dipping sauces are a combination of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar. But yellow mustard–not the hot Chinese kind, but more like the mustard you’d put on a hot dog–is also commonly served. In America shu-mai is more often found in Japanese restaurants than Chinese, but it definitely comes from China. The name means “cooked for sale.” So, it’s street food.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Cabbage Creek is in the northern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. The peninsula looks like a mitten, and Cabbage Creek is about where the fingernail of the index finger would be. It’s about twenty miles as the crow flies from Lake Huron. The creek flows from wooded, 900-foot hills into a marshy area adjoining Hubbard Lake. All of this terrain was shaped by glaciers tens of thousands of years ago. Although this is mostly wilderness, you’re only five miles from the nearest restaurant: Olivia’s Bearclaw Grille, in Barton City.
Deft Dining Rule #691:
Hot lox–as in cut up and cooked into scrambled eggs, or with pasta–sounds better than it actually is. Heating salty foods makes them seem even saltier, and perhaps unpleasantly so.
Food In The Movies
It’s the birthday of Brazilian movie musical star Carmen Miranda, who is almost always depicted as wearing a hat made of bananas, mangoes, and other fresh tropical fruit. She was a hat designer before she became a star, and she made hats–always tall and showy–out of non-food items, too.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
If you wear clothing decorated with food designs, you will never splash sauce on it. (You may, however, stain it with wine or coffee (unless the article has a wine or coffee design). This does not apply to aprons, unfortunately. [I think the Old Kitchen Sage may still be hung over from the parades over the weekend.–Tom.]
Feminism In The Dining Room
Today in 1987, the Exchange Luncheon Club–the eatery for traders at the New York Stock Exchange–added a ladies’ rest room to its facilities. The funny thing is that the NYSE began allowing women on the floor about twenty years earlier. In the interim, it’s was sort of like it was in the old days at Galatoire’s: the women had to climb a flight of stairs if they went to the loo. Lately, there’s more in common between male and female than ever, as everyone is screaming.
Chronicles Of Food Safety
The first fire extinguisher was patented today in 1863. Called the fire grenade, and it was very simple: you threw a bottle made of very thin glass and filled with salt water, into the fire, and out it went. You hoped. It made kitchens safer for frying soufflee potatoes. When’s the last time you checked the fire extinguisher in your kitchen? At the risk of sounding like the Reader’s Digest, you ought to check it once a month.
Food Namesakes
Dean Rusk, Secretary of State in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, was born today in 1909. (A rusk is that hard, dry piece of bread you find under eggs Benedict, among other places). . . Former Congressman Gary Franks was born today in 1953. . . Actor Joe Pesci was born today in 1943. (“Pesci” means “fish” in Italian.) . . . Chicago journalist, playwright, and humorist George Ade was born today in 1866.
Words To Eat By
“Protect your bagels, put lox on them.”–Sign at a bagel shop in New Haven, CT.
“A bagel creation that would have my parents turning over in their graves is the oat-bran bagel with blueberries and strawberries. It’s a bagel nightmare, an ill-conceived bagel form if there ever was one.”–Ed Levine, New York food writer and bagel commentator.
Words To Drink By
“When I drink, I think; and when I think, I drink.”–François Rabelais, French Renaissance writer and philosopher.
The Forgotten Man In The New Vegan Consciousness.
What ever will he do to keep on going? Can he sell higher grades of fresher greens?
Click here for the cartoon.