Friday, August 26, 2011
Hiatus
I’ve just been tasked to a debris mission in North Dakota, so the blog is going on an extended (30 day) hiatus. I’m up to date on my tetanus shots (thanks to our demolishing of Stewart’s house in the greatest summer in Starkvegas history), so don’t worry about me stepping on a rusty nail from a less-than-reputable-establishment. I’ll be living in a tent outside of a town that just got completely flooded, so the blog entries may be few and far between, and possibly nonexistent. We will, however, be burning up a Groupon to Flaming Torch tonight, and I’m sure I’ll hit up Freret Street Po-boy and Donut Shop for a fried eggplant po-boy, so a few posts may get cranked out before I leave on Tuesday. Hopefully I’ll bring back some of that cooler North Dakota weather with me, so this Bovina Brewing project can get off the ground. See y’all when I get back.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Happy Hour at American Sector
Summer is still in full swing. Just a quick whiff of my soaked shirt from the Delcambre Shrimp Festival this past weekend is evidence enough. Even though there is no end to the sweltering temperatures, there is still a small flicker of hope. Fortunately there a few a few rewards for those tourists and locals that can stand breathing through a hot, wet towel during the middle of a southern summer day. The official COOLinary menus are in play right now, as well as a few other summer dining specials I’ve attempted to compile here. Last weekend we decided to take advantage of another perk for sticking out the unbearable summer heat- food-centric happy hours.
The bacon maple donuts from Blue Dot had held us over through lunch, so we were looking for an early, somewhat small supper before we went over to Royal Street for Dirty Linen Night. As usual, and almost on cue, we both concurrently thought about meat pies. That’s right, meat pies. I know it’s weird that we were both thinking about meat pies, but the savory, deep-fried, empanada-like pastries that Natchitoches, Louisiana has tried to lay claim to are irresistible. Almost telepathically, we knew exactly where we were going- American Sector.
A part of John Besh’s empire, American Sector is the ‘40s and ‘50s themed restaurant located on the sprawling World War II Museum complex. We walked through the large glass doors at the Magazine Street entrance to find a hostess, as well as the entire staff, fully decked out in the era’s attire.
Since we were here for happy hour, our Lucile Ball-like hostess seated us at the oval-shaped, industrial-looking bar located directly in the center of the restaurant. We took a quick look at the standard menu just to get a feel for the John Besh’s interpretation of this era’s food and found some seriously uncustomary dishes. There’s the down-home comfort food classics like meatloaf and chicken and dumplings on the menu. But the rabbit pate, a beef tongue sandwich, and pork cheeks with black-eyed peas will entice the more adventurous to this reinvented post-WWII -themed fare.
Before the bartender could even begin explaining the happy hour specials, we quickly placed our drink order. The draft list was fairly substantial, with all the local breweries, including the oft-overlooked Heiner Brau, well represented. I decided to go with a pint of Tin Roof Perfect Tin Amber Ale, and Erin jumped the border over to Texas like Slowpoke Rodriguez and ordered a pint of one of her new favorites, St. Arnold Fancy Lawnmower. Any bar/restaurant can throw out a drink special or two for happy hour, but the restaurants in the Besh kingdom trump all other happy hours by including some pretty ridiculous food specials (see the pizza at Domenica and oysters at Lüke). After all, that’s why we chose American Sector on this steamy afternoon.
Before we could even suck down a few sips or our pints, our food was delivered to the bar by a smaller Asian guy who still hadn’t mastered the English language. After a few incoherent mumbles, we ultimately figured out the order was ours. First up, meat pies. The crisp crust surrounded the savory meat filling, which was somehow creamier than any other meat pie we’ve had. I let Erin have the majority of them, not because they were terrible (we even placed a second order of them), but because I was a little more interested in the second part of our happy hour special.
Billed as a slider, these were more like mini sloppy joes than a sack of late night gut grenades from Krystal. These aren’t even your Warren Central Junior High cafeteria sloppy joes or you mama’s manwiches either. Slow-cooked, tender chunks of beef short rib, crispy fried onion strings, and sweet bbq/sloppy joe sauce replaced the customary ground beef and were sandwiched in between a miniature, soft bun. On their own, these tiny sandwiches from this nostalgic restaurant were awesome, but throw in the price of the draft beer ($2.50) and the price of the sliders and meat pies ($0.75/each), and I think we’ve discovered a deal that will aid in our ability to survive these last weeks of summer.
American Sector’s happy hour runs daily from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM and includes:
$0.75 sliders
$0.75 meat pies
$2.50 draft craft beer
$3.00 wells
$4.00 mint juleps
The bacon maple donuts from Blue Dot had held us over through lunch, so we were looking for an early, somewhat small supper before we went over to Royal Street for Dirty Linen Night. As usual, and almost on cue, we both concurrently thought about meat pies. That’s right, meat pies. I know it’s weird that we were both thinking about meat pies, but the savory, deep-fried, empanada-like pastries that Natchitoches, Louisiana has tried to lay claim to are irresistible. Almost telepathically, we knew exactly where we were going- American Sector.
A part of John Besh’s empire, American Sector is the ‘40s and ‘50s themed restaurant located on the sprawling World War II Museum complex. We walked through the large glass doors at the Magazine Street entrance to find a hostess, as well as the entire staff, fully decked out in the era’s attire.
Since we were here for happy hour, our Lucile Ball-like hostess seated us at the oval-shaped, industrial-looking bar located directly in the center of the restaurant. We took a quick look at the standard menu just to get a feel for the John Besh’s interpretation of this era’s food and found some seriously uncustomary dishes. There’s the down-home comfort food classics like meatloaf and chicken and dumplings on the menu. But the rabbit pate, a beef tongue sandwich, and pork cheeks with black-eyed peas will entice the more adventurous to this reinvented post-WWII -themed fare.
Before the bartender could even begin explaining the happy hour specials, we quickly placed our drink order. The draft list was fairly substantial, with all the local breweries, including the oft-overlooked Heiner Brau, well represented. I decided to go with a pint of Tin Roof Perfect Tin Amber Ale, and Erin jumped the border over to Texas like Slowpoke Rodriguez and ordered a pint of one of her new favorites, St. Arnold Fancy Lawnmower. Any bar/restaurant can throw out a drink special or two for happy hour, but the restaurants in the Besh kingdom trump all other happy hours by including some pretty ridiculous food specials (see the pizza at Domenica and oysters at Lüke). After all, that’s why we chose American Sector on this steamy afternoon.
Before we could even suck down a few sips or our pints, our food was delivered to the bar by a smaller Asian guy who still hadn’t mastered the English language. After a few incoherent mumbles, we ultimately figured out the order was ours. First up, meat pies. The crisp crust surrounded the savory meat filling, which was somehow creamier than any other meat pie we’ve had. I let Erin have the majority of them, not because they were terrible (we even placed a second order of them), but because I was a little more interested in the second part of our happy hour special.
Billed as a slider, these were more like mini sloppy joes than a sack of late night gut grenades from Krystal. These aren’t even your Warren Central Junior High cafeteria sloppy joes or you mama’s manwiches either. Slow-cooked, tender chunks of beef short rib, crispy fried onion strings, and sweet bbq/sloppy joe sauce replaced the customary ground beef and were sandwiched in between a miniature, soft bun. On their own, these tiny sandwiches from this nostalgic restaurant were awesome, but throw in the price of the draft beer ($2.50) and the price of the sliders and meat pies ($0.75/each), and I think we’ve discovered a deal that will aid in our ability to survive these last weeks of summer.
American Sector’s happy hour runs daily from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM and includes:
$0.75 sliders
$0.75 meat pies
$2.50 draft craft beer
$3.00 wells
$4.00 mint juleps
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Blue Dot Donuts
The lockout is over, and football season has finally arrived. Yeah, it’s just preseason, but the beginning of football means that I will slowly start regaining my household control over the remote control. At last, no more new episodes of Teen Mom, Toddlers and Tiaras, or reruns of Law and Order: SVU. It also signals the beginning of some serious hangovers and even more serious clog-your-artery-and-soak-up some-of-the-remnant-alcohol breakfasts lunches in the near future. Since I started the season by actually partaking in the Saints first preseason game Friday (thanks Pierre), I figured we might as well give the morning-after breakfast a little preseason run, too. After all, it takes a lot of offseason workouts and multiple preseason practices (and Bojangle’s chicken biscuits) to make it through a season of tailgating while running the 300 miles with a dog in the car (Griswold style) between tailgating in The Junction in Starkville on Saturday and the tailgate on Rampart in New Orleans on Sunday.
Even though it is over in Mid-City, I’m certain that we discovered a new early morning game day tradition for the upcoming season. As soon as we walked through the door into the small ex-policeman-owned shop that had been entirely painted in a baby-boy’s-room-light-blue, the smell of fried dough and molten sugar was enough to entice us to come back to Blue Dot Donuts every morning as part of our game week routine. It was a little later in the morning, so we had to anxiously wait a few minutes while a gaggle of customers frenetically flocked near the cases of donuts at the front counter.
They do have a paper menu, but once we finally got within reading distance of the cases, we realized that manuscript wasn’t necessary. Some of the donuts, like the glazed, chocolate iced, and lemon filled donuts, were easily recognizable. Some, however, were not your ordinary, everyday donuts, and reading the label at the front of the pile of doughy, sugary goodness was a necessity. There were red velvet cake donuts, German chocolate cake donuts, key lime pie crumble donuts, boston cream pie donuts, and even a donut filled with peanut butter and jelly. For those really feeling extra frisky, or most likely still drunk, Blue Dot even offers breakfast sandwiches. No McMuffins or Spam Croissan’Wiches. Here, they take your favorite New Orleans Ice Cream flavor and sandwich it in between the donut of your choice. I wasn’t in the mood for a bananas foster ice cream- blueberry glazed donut sandwich, but since it was just preseason, I took a gamble on the kickoff and went with the donut that brought us here in the first place- the Bacon Maple Long John.
Resembling piece of scrap 2x4, this elongated donut was iced with a maple glaze and then topped with what looked like 3 whole strips of crumbled bacon. The salty, sweet, and savory ridiculousness overloaded my taste buds. We had done it; we had found the perfect hangover remedy. This cure-all had all the essential food groups needed for football season- bread, sugar, and of course BACON. If only David Allen Coe had eaten here, all the kids at every karaoke bar in the SEC would probably be singing “The Perfect Hangover Remedy Song” instead.
Even though it is over in Mid-City, I’m certain that we discovered a new early morning game day tradition for the upcoming season. As soon as we walked through the door into the small ex-policeman-owned shop that had been entirely painted in a baby-boy’s-room-light-blue, the smell of fried dough and molten sugar was enough to entice us to come back to Blue Dot Donuts every morning as part of our game week routine. It was a little later in the morning, so we had to anxiously wait a few minutes while a gaggle of customers frenetically flocked near the cases of donuts at the front counter.
They do have a paper menu, but once we finally got within reading distance of the cases, we realized that manuscript wasn’t necessary. Some of the donuts, like the glazed, chocolate iced, and lemon filled donuts, were easily recognizable. Some, however, were not your ordinary, everyday donuts, and reading the label at the front of the pile of doughy, sugary goodness was a necessity. There were red velvet cake donuts, German chocolate cake donuts, key lime pie crumble donuts, boston cream pie donuts, and even a donut filled with peanut butter and jelly. For those really feeling extra frisky, or most likely still drunk, Blue Dot even offers breakfast sandwiches. No McMuffins or Spam Croissan’Wiches. Here, they take your favorite New Orleans Ice Cream flavor and sandwich it in between the donut of your choice. I wasn’t in the mood for a bananas foster ice cream- blueberry glazed donut sandwich, but since it was just preseason, I took a gamble on the kickoff and went with the donut that brought us here in the first place- the Bacon Maple Long John.
Resembling piece of scrap 2x4, this elongated donut was iced with a maple glaze and then topped with what looked like 3 whole strips of crumbled bacon. The salty, sweet, and savory ridiculousness overloaded my taste buds. We had done it; we had found the perfect hangover remedy. This cure-all had all the essential food groups needed for football season- bread, sugar, and of course BACON. If only David Allen Coe had eaten here, all the kids at every karaoke bar in the SEC would probably be singing “The Perfect Hangover Remedy Song” instead.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Black Drum with Creole Meuniere and Toasted Pecans
BLACK DRUM WITH CREOLE MEUNIÈRE AND TOASTED PECANS
(Yield: 2 Servings)
½ cup flour
1.5 Tablespoon, plus ½ teaspoon Creole Seasoning
black pepper
2 black drum filets, 4-6 ounces each
½ cup peanut or vegetable oil
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
¼ cup toasted pecans, chopped
2 Tablespoons shallots, diced
¼ teaspoon garlic
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
6-7 Tablespoons veal stock
Juice of 1 lemon
¼ teaspoon red wine vinegar
1. In a shallow pan, add the flour and 1.5 Tablespoons of the Creole seasoning and black pepper. Blend well and set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season both sides of the drum filets, lightly and evenly, with the Creole seasoning.
3. When the oil is hot, dredge the drum filets in the seasoned flour. Place into hot oil and cook until both sides are brown and crispy, 2-3 minutes per side.
4. Transfer the fish to a sheet pan lined with paper towels to drain. Set aside and keep warm in a 200 degree oven.
5. Discard the oil, reserving the flour in the bottom of the pan. Return the skillet to the stove over high heat.
6. Add 1 Tablespoon of butter and cook, stirring constantly, until the butter turns dark brown, 20-30 seconds.
7. Add the pecans, shallots, garlic, and ½ teaspoon of Creole seasoning. Cook, stirring, for about 20 seconds.
8. Add the Worcestershire sauce, 6 Tablespoons veal stock, lemon juice, and vinegar. Bring to a boil. (If the sauce is too thick, add an additional Tablespoon of veal stock.)
9. Reduce heat to low and add the remaining 3 Tablespoons of butter. Stir constantly just until the butter melts into the sauce and becomes fully incorporated. Remove from heat.
10. Top each filet with sauce and serve immediately.
*Note: Our version is definitely not a true French meunière (like the one at Galatoire’s); however, it does closely resemble the Creole version of meunière invented by Count Arnaud that is still widely used throughout New Orleans. Black drum can be replaced with speckled trout, or red fish. Almonds are a suitable (and delicious) substitute for pecans.
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