New Orleans June 2008

New Orleans June 2008

With the help of Ms. H. Celeste, some really great eating on a short three day work/vacation trip to the Crescent City.

From top to bottom, here's the 411.

UPDATE: Chef Rene is 86
http://blog.nola.com/brettanderson/2008 ... a_pro.html

La Provence Lacombe LA
http://www.laprovencerestaurant.com/index.html

Where Chef Rene Bajeaux (formerly of Rene's Pavillion in the Renaissance) alighted when in the aftermath of Katrina he was ready to forsake New Orleans. Instead, enticed by John Besh's recent purchase of this historic restaurant east of Mandeville on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain, Mr. Bajeaux now serves superb straight ahead food that I would make the 41 mile drive from downtown through any weather to eat. Especially for the Friday $25 prix fixe lunch. Nice wine list with some good moderate choices. We drank a Roux Pere et Fils Chardonnay non-appellation 12.5% alcohol Burgundy that was very good; by the glass $8 or $40 the bottle.

View from the Mandeville Causeway (24.1 miles across Lake Ponchartrain)


La Provence, entrance



Amuse of pate, a dry crumbly delicious pate.


Olive bread


Olive bread served with fragrant olive oil with 'herbs, garlic and red onion'. Make that basil, and addictive. I used my spoon to go after the solids.


Salad with heirloom tomatoes and intoxicating bacon smoked on premises.


Trout, panko breadcrumbs, blanched peeled asparagus slivers, lump crab meat and napped with just a bit of sauce. Provence meets the bayou, on one plate. The star plate at lunch, it probably not hurting the freshness of the sea trout that the kitchen was preparing a dinner party for 90 all to be served sea trout.


Boullabaise 'Ma Facon'. Excellent rouille, croutons, deep flavor of braised celery. If the mussels, clams etc were local, this would have been stellar instead of merely very good. Nonetheless, we mopped and spooned up every drop.


Peach almond cake.


Creme Brulee with tart compote




Chocolate Pave (camera shy)

The bar and casual area.




The classic French kitchen. Sigh, I want this very badly, together with the staff to clean it each night.









The barnyard out back





The smokehouse.



More barnyard



The patio





The party room


........................

Angelo Brocato's Ice Cream
214 N. Carrollton Avenue
New Orleans, LA
http://www.angelobrocatoicecream.com/

The sign.


Camera shy: the house made crisp cannoli shells stacked on the back counter filled to order and dipped in crushed pistachios. The superb ice creams. The extraordinary tart lemon and peach ices. Camera shy not once, but twice in one day, as Brocato's is around the corner from Mandina's, both accessible from either Canal St. Streetcar from downtown.


Cochon
http://www.cochonrestaurant.com/
Warehouse district.

This was a place that normally I would pass by. Trendy, loud beyond unpleasant, barely ok service. But I have to admit that as antithetical as the ambience was to enjoying dinner, the food was very good to excellent. Beware, however--in keeping with its 'small plates' concert of the menu, by the time we got a full dinner with a moderate bottle of wine, we were at $80 per person with tax and tip. If you are a 'grazer' you could get out for $30 I bet. But as many things as I've ever been accused of, being model thin has never been one of them.

Fried Rabbit Livers (without their 'toast points and pepper jelly' which was my fault as I don't like nor have ever understood the south's fascination with pepper jelly). Good livers though, just not much to eat.


Black eyed peas, okra and corn spoon bread. Excellent.



Soft shell crab atop sliced cukes and salad. Very good. I suspect the crab was frozen, however, as it lacked the vibrant fresh flavor of fresh soft shells. This did not bother me for a larger crab for less money and no pretense at Mandina's the previous night, but here--at $24.95 and the pedigree of Herbsaint, it should have been disclosed. Very good technique and non-sweet flavor profiles, however.



Gulf fish (redfish, I think--or one hell of a big drum which is a first cousin to a redfish but one fifth the price) served with pickled onions. Near excellent. And pricey at $22 for what you get.



Side dishes. Smothered greens, Dirty rice and Mirliton Crawfish dressing. All excellent. Had we not ordered these we would have been pretty hungry after the main course.







Camera shy. A good bottle of Spanish Albarino $34. Soft, dry it went well with this food.

Desserts: Camera shy. But they were really really good. They took forever to arrive, and the noise and objectionable music was really getting to us, but we were glad we waited.

So would we return? I don't think so. Too loud, I mean really loud. Lax service. Well performing kitchen. Just not a place that I enjoyed--but the food was great.

..............

Mandina's
http://mandinasrestaurant.com/second%20page.htm

Take the Canal st streetcar to Scott a few stops north of Jefferson. It's one stop south of Carrolton, where Angelo Brocato's is a block and a half away to the right.



Soft Shell crabs, onion rings and Abita amber. Good crabs, probably frozen, huge, $19. Cash Only. Much better onion rings than Crabby Jacks.


....................

Crabby Jack's
Jacques Imo's fish purveyor in Jefferson.

I dunno, this didn't work for me. I read about the Duck Po Boy and kept chanting to myself that it would be good. That it wouldn't taste like what it looked like, i.e. potted meat.

But guess what--it tasted like what it looked like, like potted meat. Blindfolded, I don't think anyone could pick it out of a group as duck. I was dreaming of duck confit like flavor, and I got, well, potted meat. Brrr.



Drum fish in chipotle hollandaise with salad and dirty rice. Good fish, ok sauce but ten times too much, ok salad by also ten times to much dressing.



Onion rings. Hard shell encrusted, not so good.



Gumbo. Camera Shy. Burnt roux. Not browned, burnt. Not so good. Would not reorder.

It was reported to me that the bathroom was outside.

Since we went to Crabby Jack's, my better half has stopped mentioning that we should go to Jacque Imo's. An unanticipated silver lining to a dark chow cloud.
....................

Unrated.

Coops, on Decatur St two blocks east of the foot of Frenchman St nigh by all the music bars. Small, locals bar with about 30 cramped seats, superb New Orleans classics and a staff from central casting for the pierced, give a &uck yet unpretentious heart of gold service industry riff raff risen up from adolescence, still renting not yet settled enough to own a loft to renovate. Supper after La Provence. Excellent gumbo--best of the trip, intensely flavored perfectly balanced sausage, rabbit and chicken jambalaya, the best red beans and rice I have ever eaten--including when I worked offshore out on the rigs in my mis-spent youth down south of Venice in Plaquemines Parish. Skip the fried chicken though. Would return in a heartbeat.

Harbor Seafood, Kenner. I 10 East, exit 223A north five minutes from the airport.
We go here for oysters, $3 a dozen before flying home. But this isn't oyster season. Abita amber on tap, boiled 9-12 count jumbo shrimp $8.95 per pound. Always good blackened red fish. There's a fish store attached, I always go in there first to see what's fresh.

Dickie Brennan's Red Fish (in the Chateau Sonesta in the French Quarter, enter from Bourbon St).
A business lunch. Surprising edible. Shrimp and bean soup, Crabcake, Shrimp Remoulade salad. Pricey, service beyond lax. Would not return though, I am uncomfortable with give a $hit service, lack of management and overpriced menus.

Funny -- I was in New Orleans in April -- and of all the places you list, the only overlap was Coop's. I'd been headed for Tujague's, but it wasn't open for lunch. There was a woman nearby selling maps, and I asked her what was good, not touristy, and not too far away, and she sent me to Coop's. You're right -- fabulous seafood gumbo. Rest of the food was good, too. The blue cheese salad dressing had big chunks of cheese and was made with wine instead of vinegar. The blackened redfish was excellent (not the best in NOLA, but mighty good), but the Cajun beans served with it were outstanding -- tender green beans with tomatoes and tons of spice. Sensational.

And you're right too about the staff. What characters. When I arrived, the waitress greeted me with, "The service may be slow, but the food rocks." A couple at a nearby table seconded her comment about the food. If there was any delay in service, it would probably have been because everyone in the place seemed to be a regular, and the waitress usually stopped to chat. In fact, however, the service wasn't really slow -- but neither was it paced. As soon as something was cooked, it was served. But the food rocked. And it was definitely not touristy.

Steve Drucker wrote:
Angelo Brocato's Ice Cream
214 N. Carrollton Avenue
New Orleans, LA
http://www.angelobrocatoicecream.com/

The sign.

Wow. That sign brings back memories. Brocato's makes excellent Italian feast day cookies too. The specialty is a cookie pronounced phoentically like "svingee" that my Staten Island raised Italian roommate would lose his mind for. Does anyone know the proper name of the cookie im thinking of. It is lost on me.

New Orleans food critic Tom Fitzmorris has resurrected his New Orleans - centric food board after a years' hiatus.
In the past I have found it to be a very good source of detailed informantion on local restaurants & food related events.

Check it out at:

http://www.thefoodalmanac.com/community/

I think you mean sfingi, pronounced as you typed it. The way I have had it prepared it is a much richer version of a doughnut hole. The taste of Melrose Park is next weekend, and the Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo will be preparing sfingi on site, which is fantastic. They have take home containers in egg boxes.