depth first search

A beautiful view of Pattaya from my parent’s condo:

My brother has put up a bunch of pictures here.

The best way to describe this dining experience, is that Dick and Jenny’s is the gateway drug of gourmet establishments. The unassuming atmosphere and ambiance, the low key wait staff and locale, the unassuming place settings (half the silver of Commander’s Palace), all contribute to a feeling that an entrée of fries and a hot dog will be just as likely to come out of the kitchen as the upscale creole fare that actually does. If you are not a gourmet, and typically shy away from upscale culinary experiences, you might find yourself becoming hooked by the end of a meal here.

The surprise star of the meal was the wine, a 2007 Grüner Veltliner that we chose since they ran out of our first choice, and favorite white varietal, Viognier. Anastasia and I often battle over sweet versus dry whites, and both of these types of wine provide an elegant compromise between both flavors.

We ordered the appetizer sampler of fried oysters (somewhat pedestrian), BBQ shrimp cheesecake (a delight!) and fried tomatoes (mostly sweet with a hint of sour, a classic I’ve never had before). I ordered the duck duet, which was initially off-putting given the smokiness of the duck breast, a preparation I normally associate with hardier cuts of beef. I grew to like the dish, which paired nicely with both the wine and our other entrée, shrimp with scallops, an entirely lighter approach to food, and a welcome balance to the flavor heavy creole cuisine elsewhere in the meal.

The desserts were the weakest part of the experience. We finished with an entirely uninteresting banana-misu and chocolate moose cake. Good, not great, but at that point the place had already won us over.

Bayona, Susan Spicer’s French Quarter establishment, was the most polished, complete-in-concept meal of our gustatory vacation. The restaurant is a block north of Bourbon St. on Rue Dauphine. Having arrived to the Quarter early by streetcar, we decided to walk down Bourbon during the rather tame 7 o’clock hour. Only a block north, Rue Dauphine is both socially and societally different from its lower neighbor. Gentleman’s clubs and bars give way to an almost classically serene French Quarter community in the span of only a few feat.

Some gradients in New Orleans are sharper than others.

We were still early for our 7:30 seating and waited momentarily in a sitting room to the side of the maître d’ station, among wine racks, cookbooks (including the proprietor’s own) and various other volumes on food and wine. This is where they choose to stash the four star award from Mobil Travel Guide. I still find it strange how rating services like Mobil or Michelin exist in some kind of synergistic brand space with automotive related companies, though I suppose the automotive revolution made modern notions of travel and tourism possible. To live in the day when restaurant and lodging recommendations ran along side instructions for car maintenance…

The Zagat recommendation was more prominently displayed.

We began our meal with two appetizers, the oyster and Italian sausage gratin and the sweetbreads with sherry mustard butter sauce. The sweetbreads were flirting with over-salted, but were deliciously balanced with beets and potatoes.  The oyster gratin was well seasoned, with layers of complex flavor and an easy, approachable texture. I do wish that the Italian sausage was more pronounced.

I had a glass of Cabernet/Merlot blend. A forgettable wine, but the choice of a blend moderated the heftiness of a normal Cabernet and made for a nice pairing with my entrée, peppered lamb loin with a sweet potato puree. Anastasia ordered a special entrée, pork chop with mangoes, pineapple and coconut wild rice. My dish was technically sound, cooked to a perfect medium-rare, and complete in concept if lacking in some inspiration. The pork chop was a bolder stab at something new, with shades of Asian influence in the flavors. The dish was somewhat undone by the ratio of chop to other elements.

For dessert we had chocolate vacherin, a meringue crust filled with crème Chantilly and fruit, along with pistachio pot de creme with phyllo wrapped pear and pomegranate sorbet. The chocolate did not do quite enough to moderate the acidity and fruity sweetness of the vacherin, resulting in a flavor that was very single note. It was a nice single note, just not the one I was looking for. The glass of port I finished the meal with (Dow’s LBV 2001) served as a better endnote than the dessert itself. The pistachio pot de creme was quite good, particularly paired with the pomegranate sorbet. The pear was the least convincing element of the trio.

Our room at the Lamothe House was pleasing with an interesting layout and an amazingly squeaky king size bed and microscopically small sink. Our enviable location at the edge of the French Quarter had easy access to all the more low key (and more interesting) places and events, and more importantly Frenchman Street. We ended up at Snug Harbor for lunch the other day, followed by a detour to some place called The Orange Couch (everyone’s heard about it [they serve mochi], everybody thinks they know almost where it is, nobody really does — the lost coffee shop of coffee shops). On our roundabout semi-lost way to this mysterious establishment, we ended up at the Iron Rail Book Collective, an anarchist establishment operating out of a warehouse. Definitely not on the tourist map. The collective seemed to specialize in far left pamphlets and zines, the sort of subversive literature that persists more through photocopies than file sharing. Interestingly enough, we were able to finally locate the mochi-selling Orange Couch by collectively querying the customers of the coop (actually the owner did it for us).

The Orange Couch, as most everybody could recall, really does have an orange couch inside an impressively and otherwise white decor. The mochi (ice cream wrapped in dough), came in several flavors. We tried pistachio, blueberry, and mango. This coffee shop was decidedly west coast, run by a former bay area émigré. The kind of non-local establishment that locals (who are probably somewhat tired of all things Cajun and Creole) would desire to frequent. Pictures of Banksy’s New Orleans series hung on the walls. The mochi were delicious.

We’re now staying at Creole Gardens, a bed and breakfast with about 18 rooms located in the transitional neighborhood between the garden district and the warehouse district technically called the lower garden district. We’re one block from the St. Charles street car and two blocks away from Emeril’s Delmonico — a joint we are avoiding assiduously. The notable feature of this establishment is the hot breakfast (this morning – eggs, bacon, sausage, and grits) prepared to order by Ms. Annie, a polite short order cook working out of the small kitchen next to the dinning hall.

We ate at Lüke last night. A pleasing brasserie with better appetizers and desserts than entrées. Anastasia tells me that a brasserie is roughly the French equivalent of a grill, and that the primary requirement is that fries must appear on the menu. Clearly I was predisposed to liking the place.

Anastasia had the prix fixe special with a cup of crawfish bisque (pleasingly seasoned and authentically crustaceous) to start. I ordered the rabbit and duck liver pâté, served with cornichons, a wonderful marmalade, mustard, and a kind of pickled fruit (apple?). The presentation was delightful.

Our main courses (shrimp stuffed with crabmeat, pasta with veal cheeks and mushroom sauce) were unremarkable except for the deliciously prepared vegetable sides. The green beans were particularly delightful. We ended the meal sharing (to Anastasia’s later regret considering how surprisingly good it was) another order of (this time chocolate flavored) crème brûlée.

We started the meal with two sazerac cocktails. Obviously well made, and entirely outside the flavor range with which I’m comfortable. I’m a long way from my younger years, when I had the taste for flavor adventure, ingesting such indescribable bitters as straight shots of unicum. We ended the meal with half a bottle remaining of pinot noir, which, this being New Orleans, we were able to bring back with us.

To some extent, locals must be in on the joke. Commander’s Palace is something of an iconic local establishment, but the things it’s known for tend to be just slightly over the line of good taste. We attended their jazz brunch on Saturday and were greeted by something approaching nine pieces of silverware — yet no butter-knife. The decor was pleasing, if not as convincingly attractive as we were led to believe, but the party balloons at each table (I’m assuming part of the brunch theme since they were repeated on the back of our menus) gave the slight impression that we had crashed a seven year old’s birthday party. The jazz trio (a guitar, bass, trumpet) were capable, obviously familiar with the particular acoustic requirements of the venue, and generally charming.

The meal was mixed. My seafood gumbo was authentically dark (as Top Chef taught). Anastasia’s turtle soup was appropriately flavored with sherry, though I found the turtle meat to be entirely too gritty. My entrée, braised short ribs, hash browns (they had a fancier name on the menu) and hen’s egg was a delicious play on the steak and eggs standard. Anastasia ordered the sportsman’s breakfast, which was a clearly an overreach in terms of concept (shredded under-seasoned duck meat, shredded carrots, underwhelming pancake with walnut glaze, poached egg) and technically flawed to boot (the egg was badly under-poached, bleeding not a satisfying yolky yellow but a milky white on puncturing). We sent it back in exchange for fried red fish in bechamel, a simpler and better tasting alternative.

We also ordered bloody marys, after seeing other guests with these intriguing red cocktails finished table side with a generous pour of iced vodka (the bottle itself was encased in ice, a theatrical touch considering that our drinks were appropriately close to room temperature). We didn’t so much drink these cocktails, as eat them, or rather let them, with their Cajun kick, eat us. Highly recommended, but perhaps too robust to finish.

Our waiter provided complimentary cocktail samples prior to desert, a kick of acid and alcohol that mingled pleasingly with our bloody marys and entrees. I ordered the bread pudding soufflé with white whiskey glaze. Superb. Anastasia ordered the crème brûlée served in a wide shallow dish instead of a deeper ramekin. This is an ideal preparation for those of us who enjoy extended caramelized crusts.