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Tuesday, October 14, 2014, Part 1.
Vincent Riccobono. Chef Willy. Wayfarer. R'Evolutionary Sommelier.
After two weeks of almost unmanageable crowds for the Radio Round Table, we're down to a calm four people today with a good assortment of interests. Two I had never met; two I haven't encountered in a long time.
I always like talking with Vincent Riccobono, the owner of the Peppermill. His father operated the extinct Buck Forty-Nine chain of local steakhouses from the 1950s until the 1980s. The Buck Forty-Nine was the first real restaurant I dined in frequently-in my teens, when I didn't know any better. What I didn't know until today is that it was Vincent's grandfather, not his dad, who got the family into the restaurant business. I did know that it was his mother who persuaded his dad that times had changed, and to keep up they needed to invent a new concept. That was the Peppermill, New Orleans's first fern restaurant.
The other long-time, no-see restaurateur is Willie Haddad, the proprietor of La Rosetta in Slidell. This is his fourth? fifth? sixth? Italian restaurant, three of which were in Slidell. Chef Willie and Vincent Riccobono have a spectacular dish in common: baked oysters Italian style, with shrimp and mushrooms under the bread crumbs and garlic.
I meet Kevin White for the first time. He's the chef at Wayfare, one of the most interesting eateries on the Freret Street casual-gourmet strip. The place is hard to describe without reverting to the obvious: a big and crafty bar, a long list of sandwiches, and an equally long list of bar food (or appetizers or small plates; all those qualify). Mary Ann is especially fascinated by all this, and we've had a few remarkable meals at Wayside.
She is intrigued by Kevin, but she didn't tell me why, except to say that I should ask about his background. Turns out he's been about everywhere, working in numerous major restaurants here and elsewhere. He certainly has his menu calculated out to a dozen decimal places.
Finally, we have Molly Wismeier, the director of wine for Restaurant R'Evolution. The restaurant is serving a Krug Champagne dinner tonight, and they thought Krug would be worth a few words on the radio. Indeed it does. It's been a long time since my last taste of the high-end bubbly. It sounds good enough that Mary Ann decides to go to the dinner. She says I may be her date.
The dinner is so interesting that I must defer my report on it until tomorrow, when I have enough time to do it justice with words and pictures.
That's Amore
Metairie 3: Houma Blvd To Kenner Line: 4441 West Metairie Ave. 504-454-5885. Map.
Casual.
AE DC DS MC V
WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
Deep-dish pizza is controversial. You either love it or you hate it, because it makes a big statement. Taking forty-five minutes to prepare, a deep-dish pizza has a crust built more like that of a cheesecake (but not sweet) than that of a classic Neapolitan pizza. The crust fades into the background, overwhelmed by the inch-and-a-half mass of tomato sauce, cheese, meats and vegetables. It's almost a casserole. This kind of pizza has only rarely been available around New Orleans. That's Amore has a monopoly on the style at this writing.
WHAT'S GOOD Those who like deep-dish will love the ones they make here. Having recently come back from Chicago-the home of this style of pizza-I can say that it compares favorably with the Windy City's version. On the other hand, I must admit to not being a fan of this kind of pizza. For me and others who prefer thin-crust pizza, they also have the full menu of those. It's well above average and certainly better than what the chains deliver. Also here are poor boy sandwiches and a few pasta dishes, all of which are decent, if not in the top ranks.
BACKSTORY
That's Amore originally opened under a different name in 2006. Sandra Terminie bought it 2009, and set about adding to the menu, making it much better in the process.
DINING ROOM
The dining room is Basic Pizzeria: pleasant enough to eat in, but clearly a neighborhood cafe. Lots of the customers get take-out. It helps to know that the restaurant is behind the new Walgreen's on Clearview at West Esplanade when looking for it.
DOZEN BEST DISHES, DESCRIBED
Spinach and artichoke mini-pizza
Italian salad
Lasagna
Roast beef or barbecue beef poor boy
Italian sausage or meatball poor boy
Muffuletta
Chicago style deep dish pizza
New York style pizza
Calzones
FOR BEST RESULTS
Give the deep-dish pizzas plenty of time for preparation. You can't come in here right before they close and get one of those. Get it once if you never had one, but know that eating a deep-dish pizza can be messy, and that the thin crust job is better. The large pizzas are a much better deal than the small ones. Apparently no math majors work here, so the biggest thin-crust pizza costs three times as much as a small one, but is five times as large.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The thin crust lacks crispness. The sauce's flavor could be sharper.
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
- Consistency +1
- Service
- Value +1
- Attitude +1
- Wine & Bar
- Hipness
- Local Color
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
- Open Sunday lunch and dinner
- Open all afternoon
- Unusually large servings
- Quick, good meal
- Good for children
- Easy, nearby parking
- No reservations
How To Complain About Restaurant Problems
Q. I had lunch with a friend last week, and she treated. We got a lunch plate of fried shrimp, hush puppies, cole slaw, and some boiled potatoes. Everything was fine until I cut into one of the potatoes and saw that it was bad on the inside. The waitress never did come over and ask how everything was, and I was too embarrassed to tell my friend about it, so I didn't say anything. How can you fix a problem like this without making your host feel you're not enjoying the treat?
A. Congratulations on your sensitivity. But there are ways you can remedy a problem in restaurant food or service without your dining partner's having to know about it. And you certainly should have let the restaurant know about big shortfalls like this. A good restaurateur, chef, or waiter would want to be alerted about that. Deficiencies can sneak into even the best kitchens buying the top-quality foodstuffs. If you don't tell them, they have know way of knowing. Inform them discreetly, and they can fix the pestilence for you and others.
Here's how to do it without embarrassing your host. First, excuse yourself from the table. (The others at the table will think you've gone to the restroom.) As soon as you're out of sight, ask any service person to call for the manager. Tell him that you don't want to embarrass anyone, but that you think they ought to know about the wasp larva inside the grape. Unless the manager is a jerk (there are a few of those, but not enough to worry about), he will likely take care of it without the host being any the wiser.
And if he's really smart, dessert will be on the house. But don't bring up any kind of tit-for-tat demand. It's hard to believe, but true: there are people who carry roaches or loose teeth around, insert it into the dessert (always at the end of the meal), and demand to have the check picked up. Restaurateurs get enough of these weirdos to be on the lookout. But you don't sound like that kind of person.
Trout Eugene
It's pan-sauteed speckled trout with a lemon butter sauce with crabmeat and shrimp. Not a rare dish in white-tablecloth restaurants around town. It became famous under the name trout Eugene at the Caribbean Room at the Pontchartrain Hotel. I have never discovered who Eugene was, but I'll bet he was a waiter who could jack up the size of his checks by offering to top a good piece of fish with crabmeat and shrimp. How could anyone with a healthy appetite resist?
- Sauce:
- 2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 Tbs. French shallots, chopped
- 12 medium (20-25 count) shrimp, peeled
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 3 Tbs. lemon juice, strained
- 1/2 cup shrimp or crab stock
- 1 stick butter
- 8 oz. lump crabmeat
- 6 sprigs flat-leaf Italian parsley, leaves only, chopped
- 4 fillets of speckled trout, about 6-8 oz. each.
- 1 cup flour
- 1 Tbs. salt
- 1/4 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 stick butter
1. Make the sauce first. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and the shrimp and cook until the shrimp turn pink. Lower the heat to medium.
2. Add the wine, lemon juice, and stock, and bring to a boil. Reduce the liquid to about one-fourth the original volume, then lower the heat to as low as it will go.
3. Cut the stick of butter into pats and whisk them in to make a creamy-looking sauce. Add the crabmeat, and agitate the pan until the crabmeat is heated through. Cover the pan and turn off the heat.
4. Mix the salt and pepper into the flour. Dust the trout fillets liberally in the seasoned flour.
5. Heat the 1/2 cup of butter over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Saute the trout, two fillets at a time, until golden brown-about three minutes per side.
6. Place a trout fillet on each serving plate and top with the sauce.
Serves four.
Raw Oysters On The Half Shell @ Red Fish Grill
The four blocks radiating from the corner of Boubon and Iberville deserves the nickname Oyster Square. Here is the densest concentration of oyster bars in the city, ranging from the ancient Acme and Felix's to the more modern Bourbon House and Red Fish Grill. The latter is the least famous of the group, but my pick as the best. The Red Fish serves P&J oysters exclusively. Even during this time of stress caused indirectly by the oil spill of 2010, P&J has kept its standards up enough that it's the best-known brand of oysters you can find. The cool weather brings better oysters still.
Red Fish Grill. French Quarter: 115 Bourbon. 504-598-1200.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
October 21, 2014
Days Until. . .
Halloween 10
Restaurant Anniversaries
NOLA opened today in 1992. Two years after opening Emeril's-still well before his national fame had heated up-Emeril Lagasse struck up a partnership with Hicham Khodr (the owner now of the Camellia Grill) to open a hip, casual restaurant in the French Quarter. NOLA went long with its food, implementing a host of unique ideas. The most famous at first was its cedar plank fish, in which fillets were roasted on the wood-burning oven on lengths of siding bought from Home Depot. Warm shrimp remoulade on pasta and jambalaya pizza were other NOLA originals. Many of Emeril's best cooks and managers started at NOLA and moved up. It still plays that function today.
Today's Flavor
This is Apple Day in England, and we see no reason why we shouldn't adopt the observance in this country too. Apples are being harvested right now throughout the Northern Hemisphere. And, as always, avidly eaten. Apples originated in Central Asia, in the area where Kazakhstan and China meet. They spread widely, with the tremendous assistance of humans, who had to learn a new skill to take advantage of these highly edible fruits. They found that seeds from an apple would not grow into trees with the same kind of apple. Somewhere along the way, somebody figured out how to graft stems from a tree with good apples onto the roots of a seedling. A major advance, that was.
Still, some good apples cane from seeds, which is why we have so many different kinds of apples. Even limiting oneself to the varieties in supermarkets, you could eat a different kind of apple every day for a long time without duplicating.
But, with Thanksgiving in the near future, remember this: cut an apple and stuff it into the cavity of the turkey along with the celery, onions, rosemary, and other flavor helpers. The apple flavor is great with poultry.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Peanut, California is up in the Coastal Range in the northwest part of the state. It's 99 winding miles up CA 36 from Eureka. It's at 2500 feet in a canyon formed by Salt Creek, at a spot where that mountain stream is joined by several tributaries. The mountains have growths of sequoiahs and pines, but it has been pretty heavily forested. There are a few houses and other buildings there, but nothing much. The nearest restaurant is Irene's in Hayfork, six miles north. Try their peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then, report back.
Edible Dictionary
crab fat, n.-This is exactly what it sounds like, but some explanation is necessary. Crabs don't have a lot of fat-not enough to worry about in terms of your diet. But in the best part of the season the biggest crabs are often found with a great deal of the orangish fats throughout the body. It sticks to the meat and makes it taste better. But after a crab has been picked, if you simmer the shells, crab fat will be dislodged and will float to the surface. This can be collected and used to improve the flavor of a stuffing, sauce, or soup. Indeed, crab fat is considered by many to be among the most delicious stuff in the world.
Deft Dining Rule #511
Always order made-in-house apple pie if you see it on a dessert menu. It's become rare.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
I learned this trick directly from Chef Jacques Pepin, in person. To core an apple, insert the paring knife into the stem depression at a forty-five degree angle to the vertical. Then rotate the apple to remove a cone-shaped chunk of the apple. Do the same thing at the bottom. Then cut the apple in half, and perform the same cone-ectomy to the seed cores on each half. The result is an absolutely clean apple in two hemispheres, ready for anything else you plan to do.
Music To Eat Fried Chicken By
This is the birthday of Dizzy Gillespie, one of the great jazz trumpeters of all time, and a man with a unique presentation. The bell of his trumpet was bent up twenty or so degrees. And his cheeks ballooned out distinctively. Wayne Baquet's two Li'l Dizzy's restaurants feature his likeness on their menus. (One of Wayne's nieces or nephews has "L'il Dizzy" as a nickname.)
Tips For Great Servers
Glasses and cups-full or empty-should be held by the bottom half when delivered to the table. Most customers who see your hand anywhere near the rim will immediately register that you were touching the areas where their mouth will be.
Annals Of Processed Food
William A. Mitchell, a food chemist working for General Foods, created some of the most successful products in food marketing history. Tang, for example. A powder that you mixed with water to make a drink that tasted vaguely like orange juice, it actually replaced juice for a lot of people, who considered it (as we say around New Orleans) "modren." But who ever drinks it now?
Mitchell moved on. He next patented Pop Rocks candy in the 1950s, but had to wait until the 1970s to see it explode-literally. Pop Rocks contain bubbles of pressurized carbon dioxide, and they pop when the candy dissolves in your mouth. After that, his next hit was Cool Whip, the non-dairy whipped cream substitute, sold in a plastic bowl with a tight-fitting lid. Many containers of Cool Whip were no doubt bought for the container. I wonder whether Mitchell made anything that was real or tasted good. Well, you can't knock his success-seventy patents. Mitchell was born today in 1911.
Food And Drink Namesakes
British actress Vivian Pickles was born today in 1931. . . Canadian hockey pro Carl Brewer hit the Big Ice today in 1938.
Words To Eat By
"All millionaires love a baked apple."-Ronald Evans, British novelist of the early 1900s.
Words To Drink By
"I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,
And putting apples wondrous ripe,
Into a cider-press's gripe."-Robert Browning.
The Stars In The Sky
Ratings of everything are everywhere.
Click here for the cartoon.
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