Saturday, September 6, 2014.
Football Interrupts. N’Tini’s. Visiting Separated Friends Together.
My Saturday radio show on WWL has a distinct season, and that season is ending. Every week since June it’s been on the full three hours, every week, noon until three. But today an LSU game took a bite out of the Food Show. Next week’s will chew up two hours. The show disappears when when LSU starts playing basketball, too.
Why so much sports? Because it sells a lot of commercials. Period. But a survey I just saw ranks sports at the bottom of a list of reasons why people listen to the radio. (Number One is no more encouraging: “To hear your favorite songs.”
On the other hand, I blushingly acknowledge that the reason The Food Show is an is that it. . . well. . . sells a lot of commercials.
N’Tini’s dining room.
The entire Cool Water Ranch quartet has dinner at N’Tini’s. Good news! Helen, for many years our favorite waitress there, is back to work weekends as she builds up her real estate business. She’s friendly and knows what’s going on. What more could one ask of a server.
She fetches me a copy of N’Tini’s upcoming new menu. I’m surprised to see that they kept the New Orleans Cut steak. Last time we were here, it seemed that they were about to get rid of it. They were doing it wrong anyway, not cutting a thick one into two filet-size pieces as I suggested. (The idea is not original with me, but the name is.)
N’Tini’s filet.
The kitchen is out of the strips entirely, so I get a hefty filet mignons. Our daughter The Boy split a filet with barbecue shrimp–something they ordered by mistake last time, but liked enough to have a reprise.
Onion rings at N’Tini’s.
The first course, however, is a tall pile of thin-cut fried onion rings. I’m happy to see that more restaurants are backing away from thick onion rings and adopting the meat-slicer-thin onion strings. N’Tini’s has its own spin: they grate mozzarella cheese all over the hot rings, and the cheese melts until it hangs on the rings like moss. This is not an especially good look, but it’s very taste with a glass of wine or a cocktail.
The usual salads fill the gap between order and entree, with Mary Ann adding a cup of red bean and crawfish soup. (This is a better idea than it sounds, but it’s not brilliant, either.)
Every time we dine at N’Tini’s, I have the idea that it would be fun to do a Sinatra karaoke night there. It’s certainly the right crowd for that. Mary Ann keeps telling me that karaoke would do less than nothing for my reputation. But if it was okay for the late Sheriff Harry Lee, why not me?
After dinner, we visit the new home of a friend for drinks She separated from her husband last year. He lives 150 miles away, but is here tonight. “We’re still friends,” she says. “But we don’t get in each other’s way all the time anymore.” One of their daughters lives here with her mother. She is Mary Leigh’s approximate age, fully an adult by any standard. But as I do with Mary Leigh, I can’t help thinking of her as a little girl, the way she was when we all first became friends a million years ago.
Also here is her mother’s brother. Two years ago he put a new roof on our house. (New Orleans Incest alert! Remember, only 500 people live in this metro area!) His date laughs at all my jokes. So it’s a convivial evening, everybody the friend of everybody else. I desperately hope MA and I never separate, but if it happens I hope it plays out this way.
N’Tini’s. Mandeville: 2891 US 190. 985-626-5566.
Sunday, September 7, 2014.
Sausage And Ribs.
I wasn’t awake when Mary Ann said that today would be a non-restaurant day, and that we would have grilled sausages and ribs. In fact, as I fought my way out of the sheets, she was already excavating the freezer for the meats. A rapid that will shortly be forthcoming, but that shouldn’t do much damage.
I still am having no luck in persuading MA to clean out the ashed from the bottom of the Big Green Egg if she wants to cook on it. As it is now, the air intake is almost completely blocked. Good thing I caught this issue before the charcoal was fired up. I am considering an edict that makes all use of the Egg without mu oversight a family offense punishable by a long argument.
The weather has been strange this year, but my prediction that we will not even come close to having any tropical storms is holding as we reach the peak of the season. Or, I should say, the depth of the season. We should not pull for tropical storms. But a lot of weathermen use phrases that sound as if they are cheering the storms on, while denigrating the wind shear that prevents bad storms from growing.
The weather has given us the lushest lawn we’ve ever had. Even the color is such a beautiful Irish green that as I drive my mini-tractor across it to give it a trim, I experience retinal fatigue and the whole world looks orange, even the sky.
The sausage and the ribs, ready around three, are very good.
Namese
Mid-City: 4077 Tulane Ave. 504-483-8899. Map.
Casual.
AE DS MC V
Website
ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
Your parents wear clothes you find ridiculous, and your kids listen to music you can’t stand. It is ever thus: tastes change with each new generation. The sons and daughters of New Orleans’s original influx of Vietnamese have grown up. The popularity of their parents’ food hit it big with the local Millennials. So imagine the possibilities of VietGen2 as they move into the restaurant business. Especially when the food is hybridized with the flavors and ingredients of this part of the world.
Namese, a former Shell.
WHY IT’S NOTEWORTHY
Owner Hieu Doan explains the essence of Namese this way: “We cook in the traditional Vietnamese style, but we also cook the new dishes we have fun creating in our kitchen.” If you always eat pho with brisket when you dine on the food of Vietnam, you will find it done well here. But if you are up for something a little different (or even a lot), that is here too. All credible, delicious and very fresh.
Bun noodles with everything at Namese.
WHAT’S GOOD The menu is one-fourth the length of those in the old Vietnamese places. But Namese probably winds up with more range. Ask for something offbeat using the standard local ingredients, and you get it. One night the chef prepared a rice-noodle dish loaded with lobster and shrimp and a sauce he described accurately as having a certain spaghetti carbonara quality. But the Vietnamese flavors were in full expression, too. One thing that didn’t change: massive amounts of food for low prices.
BACKSTORY
Hieu Doan’s parents were refugees from Vietnam to New Orleans in the 1970s. (So was Hieu, but he was only four months old at the time.) In the industrious way the Vietnamese people live, Hieu’s parents opened a seafood market and deli in an former gas station at the busy corner of Carrollton and Tulane. When they retired, Hieu and his sister Denise took over the business with the idea of transforming it into a restaurant. The mission was accomplished late in 2013.
DINING ROOM
The building was originally a sleek, modern Shell gas station–the last of the kind that could do mechanical work for you. Renovated with a wood deck in front and a spacious line of three dining rooms inside, the adaptation goes almost unnoticed. Walls are covered with thin, long, horizontal sticks of ceramic tile that suggest bamboo. The service staff is mostly Asian, but they show little sign of accents, and are a cheery, well-informed bunch.
ESSENTIAL DISHES
Starters
Izzy’s shrimp mousseline balls
Sautéed calamari, sauce with onions, bell peppers, and garlic
Fried calamari, wasabi cream, sriracha aiòli
»Namese shrimp, onions, bell peppers, garlic, special sauce
Crab rangoon
»Namese chimichurri cubed beef filet, greens
Phú quõc wings
Fried pork & vegetable dumplings
Vietnamese eggrolls, lettuce wrap
»Classic spring rolls, poached shrimp and pork.
House cured bacon & shrimp
~
Bao (Steamed rice-flour buns, choice of meat)
»Grilled shrimp, chimichurri sauce
»Vietnamese BBQ shrimp
»Peking duck, cured and braised, pan seared, shredded, hoisin BBQ sauce
Braised beef debris, Vietnamese gravy
Five-spice roasted and seared pork belly, caramel sauce
Grilled marinated shrimp
Grilled steak, chicken, or pork
Tofu, mixed mushrooms, teriyaki sauce
~
Entrees
Soft shell crab, crabby rice
Pan seared catfish, traditional Vietnamese caramelized pepper sauce
Chicken, meatball, or brisket phó & roast pork bánh mì combination
»Vietnamese crepe with shrimp, pork, and bean sprouts
Ducky Cuban (pressed sandwich, braised duck, bacon, hoisin aioli, pickled green beans
Hué style spicy beef noodle soup
Namese beef stew, baguette
Sticky sweet pork ribs, Asian spices, caramelized sauce
Sautéed eggplant, Vietnamese-style tomato sauce, fresh herbs
Namese surf and turf (steak, garlic shrimp; rice or vermicelli)
~
Salads
»Asian slaw, freshly-picked herbs, pork belly, grilled shrimp, house dressing
»Papaya salad, pork belly, grilled shrimp, house dressing
Vietnamese steak salad, greens, fresh herbs, house veggie, house vinaigrette
~
Phó (Noodle Soup)
»Flat rice noodle in pho broth, cilantro, onions, basil, bean sprouts, limes; add chicken, beef brisket, beef meatballs, filet for surcharge
Chicken broth, shrimps, squid, crabmeat, mussels
Vegan phó broth, fresh mixed vegetables
~
Com (Rice Entrees)
Jasmine rice, freshly-picked veggies, nuóc châm, house special soup; add crabby rice, pork & egg terrine, or fried egg for surcharge
»Shaken steak or filet mignon, marinated and pan seared
Shrimp sautéed in garlic sauce
»Fried Cornish hen, dijon ginger sauce
Grilled steak, chicken, or pork
Sauteed tofu & mixed mushrooms
~
Bún (Cool Vermicelli)
Rice noodles topped with choice of meat; lettuce, basil, mint leaves, limes, bean sprouts, crushed peanuts
»Bún vermicelli combination (Izzy’s shrimp balls, grilled pork, & grilled marinated chicken; topped with an eggroll)
Traditional Vietnamese eggrolls, lettuce and herbs on vermicelli
Sautéed tofu & mixed mushrooms
~
Bánh Mì (Vietnamese Poor Boys)
»Baguette filled with choice of meat; aioli, julienne veggie, cilantro, jalapenos
Fried shrimp bánh mì
»Three-way pork (house-cured bacon, pork meatballs, roast pork, paté)
Vietnamese pork meatballs stewed in a tomato sauce, paté
Marinated grilled pork or bbq pork, paté
»Five spice pork belly
Sautéed tofu & mixed mushrooms.
Phó-boy (all pho fixings in a banh mi, served au jus)
~
Desserts
Daily specials
FOR BEST RESULTS
Forget the pho and check out the more original variants on Vietnamese cooking. They don’t stray too far. The specials are particularly good.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The gray-on-black design of the menu makes it difficult to read. They need to shift to a different species of squid; these are very tough.
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 +1
Service+2
Value +2
Attitude +2
Wine & Bar +1
Hipness +3
Local Color +1
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
Courtyard or deck dining
Romantic
Open Monday lunch and dinner
Open all afternoon
Unusually large servings
Quick, good meal
Easy, nearby parking
Reservations accepted
Hot Tamales Post-K
Q. I know that they were greasy and no good for me, but I still miss Manuel’s Hot Tamales. What happened? Will they ever come back? Are there any other places to get hot tamales like those?
A. This is a question I’m asked on the radio at least once a week. The answer begins with the end of Manuel’s. Near the corner of Carrollton and Canal Streets, it took very deep flooding from the storm. The lady who ran it almost single-handedly after her husband passed away some years ago thought it was a good time to retire. The grandson of the original owner registered the name, but nothing has come of that yet to my knowledge. An outfit called Lemonade Parade served some outside-bought tamales from the old Manueal’s location. They looked but didn’t taste like Manuel’s. So the original is really and truly not in the field at the moment.
Manuel’s hot tamales were, despite the name, totally American in style, and were found throughout the former Confederate states (that may be a coincidence). Not much like what you’d find in Mexico, or even Texas.
The best I’ve found of this kind of tamale are made and sold at Guillory’s, a small Old Metairie grocery store that evolved into a café. Its specialty is homemade hot tamales, along the lines of the what Manuel’s used to do–but significantly better, I think. Guillory’s is at 3708 Derbigny, a side street two blocks from and parallel to Airline Highway, between Cleary and Severn.
Also out there, but with unpredictable location, ate Mamita’s Hot Tamales. They use the recipe created by the family that ran the old El Ranchito in the 1960s and 1970s. I keep hearing reports about it, but never any solid address. Sort of a food truck at the moment.
Natchitoches Spicy Meat Pies
Spicy meat pies, as big as your hand and shaped like a half-moon,are a major specialty in the central Louisiana town of Natchitoches (pronounced “NAK-uh-tish”). That French colonial city boasts being even older than New Orleans. We get our share of meat pies at the Jazz Festival and the like, but the temptation to make them at home is strong. I must warn you that this is not easy. The filling is straightforward, but the dough is a little work (as is all pie dough). And then you have to deep-fry, never any fun. (They can also be baked, but they’re not quite the same that way.) Still, these things are so good that your guests will think they’re worth the work, even when you decide otherwise.
Meat pie.
You can make the pies up ahead of time and freeze them, and fry them when ready to serve. They will taste better if you make the meat mixture the day before and refrigerate it.
Filling:
3 Tbs. vegetable oil
2 Tbs. flour
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
1 lb. lean ground pork
1 lb. ground round
1 Tbs. salt-free Creole seasoning
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 ribs celery, chopped
12 sprigs parsley, leaves only, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
Crust:
4 cups self-rising flour
1/2 tsp. salt
6 Tbs. Crisco
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups milk
2 quarts vegetable oil
1. Heat the oil and the flour together in a heavy, large skillet. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, to make a medium-brown roux. Add the onions when the color is right, and saute the onions until they begin to brown slightly. Add the bell peppers. Cook for another minute.
2. Add the pork, beef, Creole seasoning, cayenne and salt. Saute, breaking it up as you go, until well browned. Pour off any excess fat that may have been rendered.
3. Lower the heat and add the celery, garlic, parsley, and Worcestershire. Continue to cook for another five or six minutes, stirring now and then to keep anything from forming clumps.
4. Remove the meat mixture to a big metal pan to cool for a few minutes. Then cover and refrigerate. The pies will be best if the meat can be chilled for several hours or overnight.
5. Crust: In a bowl, blend the salt into the flour, then cut in the Crisco and blend with a whisk till it disappears and makes the flour slightly crumbly.
6. Blend the egg yolks into the milk, and add the milk to the flour. Stir with a kitchen fork till mixed in, then with a rubber spatula to eliminate most of the dry flour. Stir as little as possible.
7. Dump the dough onto a clean work surface and roll out about 1/4 inch thick. Fold the dough into thirds, to make three layers. Roll out again, this time to the thickness of two stacked quarters. (This will make it pretty wide; you might want to cut it in half.) Cut out circles about six inches in diameter. Handling as little as possible, roll out the leftover dough to cut another batch of circles.
8. Spoon about three tablespoons of the meat mixture onto one half of a dough circle. Moisten the edge of the circle with a little water. Fold the circle over into a half-moon, and press down the edges with a fork to seal.
9. Heat the two quarts of vegetable oil in a heavy, deep kettle to 350 degrees. Fry no more than two pies at a time until golden brown. Let the heat of the oil recover between batches.
Makes 18-24 pies.
Drumfish With Hot And Hot Shrimp @ Upperline
Although the black drum (cousin of redfish) is the center of the plate, the shrimp are what you’ll remember. It comes to the table napped with a buttery, peppery sauce, but a little pitcher on the side allows you to add the second, different, and much hotter sauce to your liking. Owner JoAnn Clevenger said she saw the idea in a restaurant she visited, and had then-chef Ken Smith devise the Upperline’s version.
Upperline. Uptown: 1413 Upperline. 504-891-9822.
We find this dish to be among the 500 best in New Orleans area restaurants.
September 17, 2014
Days Until. . .
Summer ends 6
Today’s Flavor
Today is National Greek Salad Day. Not only is it found in every Greek and Middle Eastern restaurant in America, but in almost exactly the same form in tavernas all over Greece. Greek salads require a certain critical mass for the ingredients to balance out, so they’re usually served in an entree size. Here’s what goes into it:
Green leaf lettuce, constituting only about half the salad
Sliced cucumbers
Green onions
Mild green peppers (preferably something like wax peppers, but bell peppers are okay in pinch)
Tomatoes
A great deal of feta cheese, crumbled
Kalamata olives
The dressing should be an emulsified vinaigrette with a significant herb (particularly oregano) component. Dill is essential. And it should also include a significant amount of fresh lemon juice. All of this should be tossed with the salad ingredients, not served on the side or dumped over the top.
Our two Greek restaurants (Acropolis Cuisine and Mr. Gyros) both make good Greek salads. But the best in town is at the Maple Street Cafe (7623 Maple, 314-9003). There it’s served in a bowl made from a round loaf of crusty bread.
Deft Dining Rule #920
A really great Greek salad will still have a few chunks of feta cheese and a few olives remaining after all the greens have been eaten.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Olive, Montana is in the southeast corner of the state, not as mountainous an area as elsewhere in Montana. Although rock outcroppings are here and there, the land is flat enough to farm for wheat and for cattle to graze. The flat land is courtesy of the intermittent Mizpah Creek. When it flows, its water goes through the Powder River, the Yellowstone, the Missouri, the Mississippi, then right through New Orleans. A few farm headquarters use Olive, MT 59343 as their address. But it’s pretty remote. The nearest restaurant is ten miles south on MT 59 at Broaddus; the name of the place is Hawk Alley.
Edible Dictionary
Kasseri, Greek., n., adj.–A pale yellow (almost white) cheese made from sheep’s milk–although some Kasseri is made from goat’s milk, and sometimes the two kinds of milk are both used. In a way, Kasseri is an aged feta cheese, with the same tangy sharpness and bready texture. It’s good all by itself, or as a stuffing for cheese -filled pastries. However, you are most likely to encounter Kasseri in the flaming grilled cheese dish saganaki, a specialty of Greek restaurants.
Food And Drink In War
Today in 1862, in the midst of the Battle of Antietem, a sergeant and one other soldier pulled a wagonload of food and hot coffee through Confederate fire to nourish an Ohio Union regiment. It was the bloodiest single day of battle in the history of the United States, with at least 23,000 soldiers killed. The sergeant was promoted by his colonel to lieutenant for his pluck. The sergeant was William McKinley. The colonel was Rutherford B. Hayes. Each later became President. So, if you want to get ahead, bring the working people some food and coffee.
Eating Around America
Boston was founded today in 1630. It was a suburb of Salem, the original British settlement in the vicinity. Boston has contributed a good bit to American cuisine, although the dish referred to by its nickname — Beantown — is not one of them. Boston baked beans are navy beans baked with molasses, the latter a product that flowed in some quantity through Boston in the days when it was a port for sugar from the Caribbean. Seafood in Boston is much better, notably the lobsters, scallops, mussels, striped bass, oysters, and codfish–although the latter is much diminished now by overfishing. Know this about Boston seafood, however: they don’t fry with the lightness we do in New Orleans.
Music To Clean Your Plate By
Today in 1939, Frank Sinatra recorded his first big hit. Backed up by the orchestra of Harry James (the great uncle of Clark, the Gourmet Truck Driver, a frequent caller to my radio show), All Or Nothing At All didn’t hit the charts until over two years later, after Sinatra had become a star. Coincidentally, this same date in 1952, Sinatra’s career hit a low point. He recorded a little known but lovely song Why Try To Change Me Now? It was his last recording for Columbia Records. He’d reinvent himself and make a comeback the following year, and establish himself as the most-heard voice in Italian restaurants in America.
Winemakers On Television
The Smothers Brothers television show premiered today in 1965. Its satirical aspect made it controversial, and CBS got nervous and cancelled it, despite good ratings. Tom and Dick Smothers later opened a winery in Sonoma. Although the wines were good, their reputation as comedians hurt the image of the stuff. So they renamed it Remick Ridge, after their grandfather.
Food Namesakes
Today is the birthday, in 1907, of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger. . . Pro shortstop Bobby Wine hit the Big Basepath today in 1937.
Words To Eat By
“From my table inside I watch the glamorous women outside who are lunching on spa Cobb salads without blue cheese or dressing. The man with the bread basket wanders from table to table, lonesome as a cloud. When he comes to me his basket is full and perfectly arranged. He gives me a smile of sincere pleasure when I tell him I will take both the sourdough roll and the cheese stick.”–Ann Patchett, American fiction author.
Words To Drink By
“As you get older, you shouldn’t waste time drinking bad wine.”– Julia Child.
The Trouble With Cult Restaurants.
The customers are as weird as the wait staff. And vice versa.
Click here for the cartoon.