Sunday Brunch At Antoine’s, On The Balcony
Two salutary changes at Antoine’s since the hurricane is the old restaurant’s opening for Sunday brunch, and the rebuilding and opening to the public of its second-floor balcony. With the weather this weekend forecast to be glorious, Antoine’s brings those two qualities together with brunch on the balcony.
The classic menu at Antoine’s always had an entire section of egg dishes, including the original eggs Sardou (a little different from other versions around town). Chef Mike Regua worked up a few new dishes and added some of the lighter dinner items, and: brunch! Here’s the entire menu.
Reservations are essential, because while there’s plenty of space in the main rooms, the balconies can hold only so many.
Antoine’s
French Quarter: 713 St Louis. 504-581-4422. www.antoines.com.
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, October 24, 2014.
Steak With Angela. Turned Away At La Boca. Rue 127’s Birthday.
My weekly series with Angela Hill, in the last hour of her show, continues. The hour flashes by much faster than any on my own program. That’s probably because I’m not responsible for the show’s momentum.
Today I reel her in with steak. Steak is irresistible, and despite its association with masculine appetites–or perhaps because of it– it’s clear that a majority of women like going to the top steak places, as long as a man is paying the bill. It’s certainly true of Mary Ann. All I have to do is suggest Keith Young’s or Gallagher’s Grill or Ruth’s Chris in Metairie, and she abandons her usual control and lets herself be so squired.
We have a bottle of Malbec, which Angela says she loves. We have two glasses apiece. Maybe this is what keeps the show rolling right along.
That done, I take a twenty-minute nap on the floor of my office. I’ve decided that the futon I bought for this purpose nine months ago will never be delivered. I sleep just fine in the corner on the carpet. I write and record two commercials. I send out the Red Bean edition of the New Orleans Menu newsletter.
I leave the big black tower at six, in an unusually good humor. Completely relaxed. I walk three blocks to La Boca for dinner. Every day I drive past it and see many empty tables. I guess steak eaters are late diners, though, because when I walk into the nearly-empty restaurant, the hostess says that I may either dine at the bar or wait for a table that won’t open until ten-thirty. I know that if I actually do wait for a table, I will get one within a half-hour or so. I also know that if I had a date tonight, I would have been promised something sooner.
But I just walk away, not wanting to compromise my fine mood, nor appearing to pull rank if someone recognizes me. And I know that there is no rush for me to check out the new location of Chef Adolfo Garcia’s Argentine steak house, which moved to this much better location after A Mano went under.
Smoky frites at Rue 127.
The wheel of appetite stops with the pointer on Rue 127. Today is the third birthday of the excellent little bistro, and I haven’t been there in many months. Owner-chef Ray Gruezke is away on a catering job, a Mid-City neighborhood fund-raising event. It’s better he should be doing that, of course, than just holding down the fort, anniversary or no.
I have a glass of Hexagonales Pinot Noir and a cone of fresh-cut frites, coated with a smoky seasoning blend. This is new to me, and quite a bit too salty, but a good idea.
Then some cornmeal-coated, crisp fried oysters tossed with a motley assortment of full-flavor, crunchy (but in a different way from the oysters) vegetables. Peppers, onions, pineapple, and cilantro, to be specific. The oysters are stuck in position with a chilpotle aioli. This is not only a very tasty dish, but served very generously, such that I already have eaten too much.
Fried oysters and crunchy vegetables.
I am still in the mood for a steak. The only one on the card tonight is a “bistro filet.” I think this is a chuck mock tenderloin. I ask the server, but she’s not really sure. I roll the dice and go with it, and find I guessed its secret identity exactly. That’s a flavorful cut, but one a bit low in fat content. I like it, but it doesn’t quite sate the sizzling-butter steak envie in my head.
“Bistro filet” at Rue 127, with sharp herbs and chimichurri.
Dessert is a pumpkin trifle, with gingerbread cake, pumpkin mousse, maple-flavored whipped cream, pecans and butterscotch. This is perfect for the season, of course, and prettily presented, like a parfait.
Pumpkin trifle at Rue. 127.
I have all this at a duece in that little hallway that Ray made out of the old house’s side porch. I am secluded in a nice quiet spot. Time was when I would have found this entirely satisfactory. But I have become accustomed to dining with one or both of the Marys, and I must say that I miss them when they aren’t here.
I am really and truly a married man.
Rue 127. Mid-City: 127 N Carrollton Ave. 504-483-1571.
Le Charcuterie
L’Auberge
Archie and Danny’s
Metairie: 3322 N. Turnbull
1968-1975
The restaurant at 3322 N. Turnbull in Metairie probably holds the record for housing the greatest number of restaurants that came and went over the years.
It was built in 1968 as the home of Le Charcuterie, a spinoff of from the French Quarter’s popular La Boucherie. The owners learned a surprising truth quickly: just because a lot of people with above-average incomes were moving en masse to Metairie didn’t mean that those people would go out to dinner every night. In fact, most new Metairie people moved out there for the purpose of raising families. That effort takes all the time and money the residents have, as I can confirm from personal experience.
Not only were the customers not there, but the employees needed to keep such a place running preferred to remain closer to home, and continued to work in the French Quarter. Le Charcuterie had less than great food as a result.
I only dined at Le Charcuterie once. I was just learning how to dine out in fancy restaurants, and my college-years budget couldn’t support many forays to such places. All I knew was steak, and just barely. I was a bit intimidated, frankly. The average age of the other patrons was twice my own.
But I was more impressed by the place than Richard “The Underground Gourmet” Collin was. Le Charcuterie brought from his one of his funnier lines: “Any restaurant that calls itself a Restaurant Francais and features as le supreme du chef, the special of the day ‘for the real gourmet’ Hawaiian chicken (chicken with pineapple) had better take up Italian cooking instead.”
After a few years, the owners of Le Charcuterie saw that ambitious food, ceremonious service and beautiful dining rooms were not enough to make the restaurant click. So it became the first major restaurant in New Orleans to associate itself with local football heros as an extra attraction.
Archie Manning (at left in the picture) was in the first year of his brilliant career, and the great hope of Saints fans. He and fellow Saint Danny Abramowicz (right) signed on as ostensible proprietors. The ads made it seem that the two beloved greats would be there in person at all hours to greet the customers. Of course, that was not true even during the off-season, let alone in the thick of things.
When the Saints players appeared, the name of the restaurant changed to L’Auberge. It remained a somewhat fancy, if not especially pricy French restaurant. After a few years of unspectacular results, it was decided that the place needed to lighten up its offerings. Steaks, seafood platters, and New Orleans-style eats made their way onto the menu. At that point the name changed again to Archie And Danny’s. It still refused to become a big hit. In 1974, when Danny retired from football, it ceased to be a restaurant, instead operating as an upscale home-decorating store.
The store didn’t last long either. By 1976 it was a French restaurant again–a very good one called Romanoff’s. (We have an article about that one elsewhere in our Extinct Restaurant archives.)
That went bust in 1978. It was followed by a toned-down, mediocre continental place called the Regency. Then it was the Butcher Shop, a steakhouse. Two Chinese restaurants (both with the word “king” in their names) came next. The latter of the two had the longest run yet, holding on for about ten years. Then came an Indian restaurant called the India Palace. It also was there for many years, but didn’t come back after Katrina. It was replaced by a Korean restaurant called Gimchi. Finally, it renovated and reopened as Andy’s Bistro, which it remains today.
The problem here, I think, is that the restaurant is just far enough off Veterans Boulevard for the restaurant’s gravity to pull in a critical mass of customers.
Meanwhile, we continue to learn that having a professional sports figure as the face of a restaurant is not a guaranteed winner. Go to Manning’s downtown and see if that’s not true.
Pumpkin and Pecan Bread Pudding
This is no ordinary bread pudding. Not only does it have the fall flavors of pumpkin and pecan, but it’s quite rich and is best served not by scooping into bowls, but by slicing like a cake and serving elegantly on plates.
3/4 cup sugar
3 large egg yolks
3 whole eggs
1 quart half-and-half cream
1 pint whipping cream
2 Tbs. vanilla
1 loaf stale French bread
2 Tbs. butter
1 can pie pumpkin (the fresh jack-o’-lantern pumpkin won’t work)
2 Tbs. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup pecan pieces
Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
1. In a mixing bowl, blend the sugar, eggs and yolks, half-and-half, whipping cream and vanilla to make a custard mixture.
2. Mix the pumpkin with the cinnamon, nutmeg and 1/2 cup of the custard mixture.
3. Slice the bread into half-inch-thick slices.
4. Coat the insides of two 10-inch cake pans with a generous amount of butter. Line the perimeters with the smallest slices of bread, then cover the bottom with an overlapping bread layer. Pour enough custard mixture over the bread to soak it.
5. Spoon a quarter-inch layer of the pumpkin mixture and about a third of the pecan pieces across the bread. Add another layer of bread, soak it with the custard mixture, and top with the remaining pumpkin mixture and another third of the pecans. Finish with another layer of bread and pecans, and a final soaking with the custard. Repeat this procedure for the other pan.
6. Bake in the preheated 250-degree oven for about an hour and a half. The pudding will rise a great deal, but it will fall again when you take it out of the oven. Remove and cool.
Cut into pie-style slices and serve either warm or cold.
Serves twelve.
Green Salad With Pumpkin Seed Brittle @ Restaurant August
Not many dinner salads show up on this list, but it figures that one of them would come from Restaurant August. John Besh and his chefs give as much attention to the little courses as to the big ones. This starts out with organically-grown greens from local farmers. The blue cheese sprinkled thereupon are from somewhat father away–Point Reyes, just north of San Francisco. I don’t know where the pumpkins were grown, but they supply seeds for a brittle that rests on top. Pumpkin seed oil works its way into the vinaigrette. Ideal for anytime between Halloween and Thanksgiving.
Restaurant August. CBD: 301 Tchoupitoulas. 504-299-9777.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
October 30, 2014
Days Until. . .
Halloween 2
Our Outstanding Chefs
Today is the seventy-fifth birthday of Chef Gunter Preuss, the longtime owner of Broussard’s. He retired only last year (2013) when he sold the grande dame restaurant to its present owners. He was born in Berlin in 1936, which must have been. . . interesting. He came to New Orleans in the middle 1960s, and developed the menu for the Sazerac restaurant in the Roosevelt (later the Fairmont) Hotel, when the restaurant was a glittering new addition to the hotel’s dining options. He later opened his own restaurant, the five-star Versailles on St. Charles Avenue, in 1972. Eleven years later, Gunter and a partner bought Broussard’s. As time went on he bought out the partner, closed the Versailles, and focused on Broussard’s. The restaurant came a long way under Gunter, cooking New Orleans food with European polish. A bon vivant, Gunter and his wife live in the Quarter and are dedicated Orleanians, still showing up at Broussard’s often.
Food Inventions
Today in 1894 Domenico Melegatti won an Italian patent on an apparatus for producing pandoro on a commercial scale. Pandoro is a rich, eggy, sweet, yeast cake that looks sort of like a bundt. It’s name means “bread of gold,” and its was so expensive to make in the days before easily-available sugar that it was only on the tables of the nobility. Now we can all enjoy it, along with its close cousin pannetone. Both of them are traditional Italian treats around the holidays.
Today’s Flavor
This is Cochon de Lait Day. Cochon de lait is a small pig, still suckling its mother’s milk (hence the name). It’s roasted whole over an open fire. It’s a mainstay of festivals at this time of year throughout Southeast Louisiana. My direct experience with it came from roasting them at Boy Scout campouts. One of the other dads had rigged up a rotisserie, and the forty-pound pig roasted on it from eight in the morning until about five in the afternoon. What came out was eminently tender, smoky, and wonderful. Forty pounds might be a bit large for cochon de lait, but the idea is the same. The typical way to roast them is to butterfly the pig on a flat metal rack, which is then propped up in front of the fire and turned every now and then.
Such a process goes beyond what most restaurants want to undertake. Very few restaurants offer cochon de lait these days. The most prominent is Donald Link’s appropriately named Cochon, where the whole idea is to recapitulate all that Cajun butcher shop cookery in the Acadiana.
If you want to try it yourself, the hard part is getting a pig. Langenstein’s will order one for you. I like the product, but having watched the process a few times I must say it’s not something I’m inclined to perform myself–even though my wife has been badgering me for years to dig a pit and try. She may ultimately win out, but I hope not.
Today is also to be National Candy Corn Day. A great deal of candy corn has been purchased for distribution tomorrow across America. Candy corn is another one of those foods (to stretch the definition) like blue cheese, liver, and anchovies: you either love it or you hate it.
Annals Of Popular Cuisine
Today in 1952, Clarence Birdseye–the inventor of frozen food as we know it–presented his new frozen peas to a waiting world. Peas became much more popular after they didn’t need to be shelled. . . Today in 1989, the Smith Dairy of Orrville, Ohio made the world’s record milk shake: 1575 gallons. The flavor is unknown.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Candy Town, Ohio is a campsite in the woods about sixty-two miles southeast of Columbus, off US 33. Nothing appears on the aerial shot but a small loop on a road leading to an old dump. (I am not making fun: the road leading to the dump is called Old Dump Road.) Somehow, this all adds up to a place where lovers could find some privacy, but I’m only guessing. Perhaps before you head to Candy Town, you might have a nice dinner at the Rhapsody Restaurant, a mile away in Nelsonville.
Edible Dictionary
strata, n.–Strata–the Latin word for “layers”–are (is?) an egg dish that’s somewhere between an omelette and a quiche. It’s baked in a casserole dish in layers made with bread, beaten eggs, cheese, and meats or vegetables. As with omelettes, almost any meats or vegetables can be used. Many strata, no doubt, were baked in an effort to use up leftovers. When finished, the strata can be cut into squares and served either cold or hot. Strata can be made sweet (coming out sort of like a bread pudding), but they’re most commonly made savory as an alternative for breakfast. They’re most popular in the Midwest and on the West Coast.
Deft Dining Rule #901
Cochon de lait roasted by a bunch of guys standing around an open pit drinking beer will always be incomparably better than that which comes from a restaurant.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
Slow and low is the most delicious way to cook a whole pig. But too slow and too low will kill you.
Annals Of Food Writing
Andrew Jackson Downing, who wrote about landscaping in the early 1800s, was born today in 1815. His landmark book was The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. He was an influence on Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed many of the major American city parks.
Food Namesakes
Today in 1974, pitcher Catfish Hunter won the American League Cy Young Award. . . Television actor Ken Berry was born today in 1933. . . . The man who created the Little Golden Books we all read as children, Albert Rice Leventhal, was born today in 1907. . . American actor Rex Cherryman took The Big Stage today in 1897.
Words To Eat By
“Any part of the piggy
Is quite all right with me
Ham from Westphalia, ham from Parma
Ham as lean as the Dalai Lama
Ham from Virginia, ham from York,
Trotters, sausages, hot roast pork.
Crackling crisp for my teeth to grind on
Bacon with or without the rind on
Though humanitarian
I’m not a vegetarian.
I’m neither crank nor prude nor prig
And though it may sound infra dig
Any part of the darling pig
Is perfectly fine with me.”–Noel Coward, British songwriter.
Words To Drink By
“Cigarettes and coffee: an alcoholic’s best friend!”–Gerard Way.
And then, out he goes for a Big Mac.
The Coffeeshop Proliferation Changes Halloween.
Mainly, if affects the vampires out that night. It seems that morning never comes.
Click here for the cartoon.
The Halloween Witches, #6305
Two approaches to a burning fire with a black cauldron full of boiling water.
Click here for the cartoon.
Different Ghosts For Different Folks.
Some people can’t leave their jobs at the office, even on Halloween.
Click here for the cartoon.
Marti’s
French Quarter: 1041 Dumaine. 504-522-5478. Map.
Nice Casual.
AE DS MC V
Website
ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
Forty years ago, Rampart Street–the thirteen blocks of it that formed the northwestern frontier of the French Quarter–looked is though it would shortly be the place to be. Nice wide avenue, with lots of available space in cool old buildings, the Municipal Auditorium, and the soon-to-open Armstrong Park, where the Jazz Festival was recently born. A handful of serious, much-talked-about restaurants opened. All this played out by the mid-1980s, with a sort of literal death knell when Marti Shambra died and his trendsetting restaurant vanished. Even though the excellent Peristyle took over the space for a good while, the idea of a reborn Marti’s kept floating around. It finally came to ground in 2013, right about where it would be if it and Marti had never left.
Marti’s exterior: today’s is just like yesterday’s.
WHY IT’S NOTEWORTHY
New Orleans has so many long-running restaurants that there’s not much need to revive long-dead restaurants, even those with memorable names. But Marti’s might be the effort worthwhile. With the city’s two major auditoriums for live performances nearby, a growing demand for Rampart Street restaurants has emerged. The surroundings and memories the new Marti’s brings back to the scene seems perfect for this development. To say nothing about the new flowering of the Treme section.
Raw oysters.
WHAT’S GOOD The old Marti’s was unique in that instead of creating fancy, expensive new dishes, it retooled a host of familiar classics of Creole home cooking, using great ingredients and delicious flavor signatures. For example, it brought pannee veal to fine dining. Every time I’ve dined in the new Marti’s, I walked away with the feeling that if the old Marti’s had lived on, it would be exactly like the new Marti’s. The cooking and raw materials are decidedly local, with a scattering of Italian touches.
Rabbit cooked two ways.
BACKSTORY
The original Marti’s was the city’s first openly-gay gourmet restaurant. Unstated but quite obvious, that quality brought in a large number of customers from the local arts world, with their audiences. The big name was Tennessee Williams, one of many well-known regulars. Marti’s opened in 1972 with a menu like that of a neighborhood cafe. A few years later, owner Marti Shambra pushed the concept upscale. The place shortly became a four-star eatery, and it remained so until Marti’s deteriorating health and a fire brought the restaurant to an end. The building became Peristyle, which had its own four- and five-star run. Chef Tom Wolfe took over in the early 2000s, but he never really reopened after Katrina. The building sat there until Patrick Singley–owner of the superb Gautreau’s–thought the time was right for Marti’s to return, sans its old socio-sexual quality–which nobody would notice anymore, anyway.
Marti’s dining room, with Negroni.
DINING ROOM
You enter through the long, narrow, tiled bar, where oysters are shucked and cocktails are mixed, both with aplomb. A dozen steps through a narrow passageway puts you into the main dining room, with large windows on two sides and a general retro-modern-deco look. With terrazzo floors and unclothed tables, the sound quotient is high when the place is full. The servers are easy to imagine as French Quarter denizens, sophisticated and young.
Beignets and cappuccino.
FULL ONLINE MENU
DOZEN BEST DISHES, DESCRIBED
Starters
»Blue crab soup, saffron oil, garlic croutons
Hearty greens, pumpkin seeds, pickled shallots
Spinach & frisée salad, lardons, poached egg
»»Pommes frites, housemade mayonnaise and ketchup
Tuna tartare, shallots, capers, dijon mustard, avocado, potato gauffrettes, quail egg
Seared foie gras, smoked salt, green tomato jam
»Bucatini pasta, rabbit ragu, tomatoes, roasted garlic
Shrimp and corn risotto, mushrooms, white truffle oil
»Raw half shell oysters, with Champagne mignonette and lemon-caper vinaigrette
»»Roasted oysters, pimento butter, bread crumbs, herbs
Chilled Louisiana shrimp cocktail
Plateau de fruits de mer (lobster, shrimp, marinated crab claws, raw oysters, scallop ceviche)*
Steamed Prince Edward Island mussels, tomatoes, white wine, oregano
Maine lobster salad, greens, tomatoes, orange, Thai chiles, haved fennel & citrus vinaigrette
~
Entrées
»»Seafood provençal (scallops, shrimp, crab, mussels, saffron broth & rouille)
»Seared Columbia River king salmon, tomato-lemon vinaigrette
»Gulf fish amandine, green beans, almonds & brown butter
Grilled filet mignons, asparagus, shallots, fingerling potatoes, truffled mushrooms, bordelaise
»Mississippi rabbit two ways (braised legs, grilled sausage, mustard greens, dirty rice)
Duck leg comfit, chickpeas, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes
Crispy pork Milanese, mustard, farm green
»Pan-roasted chicken, quinoa, squashes, tomatoes & basil
~
Desserts
»Cappuccino, beignets, Bailey’s Irish cream
Dark chocolate pot de crème, salted caramel
»Blueberry napoleon, vanilla pastry cream, chocolate sponge cake, minted blueberry sauce
»“Bananas foster” tiramisu
Anise biscotti
Handmade ice creams & sorbet
Artisan gorgonzola dolce, honeycomb, toasted nuts & grilled bread
FOR BEST RESULTS
Start with a cocktail and an order of fries. That will give just the right amount of time to let the menu sink in, and you get used to the idea of eating some of the less-familiar ideas. Have a discussion with the waiter, and go along with much of his advice.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The extensive wine list is too expensive and the corkage fee even more so. An off-duty policeman might pay for himself in relief of people’s worries about the neighborhood (not as bad as you’ve heard.)
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 +2
Service+2
Value
Attitude +2
Wine & Bar +2
Hipness +2
Local Color +2
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
Romantic
Good view
Historic
Open Sunday brunch and dinner
Free valet parking
Reservations recommended