Month: July 2019

I know to some of you it may seem like Highland Coffees has been there forever, but way back when, that same cul de sac off Chimes St was occupied by The Gumbo Place and later The Mediterranean Café. There was a Marine recruiting center next door to a keg store (sorry, can’t remember the name) and back entrances to Godfather’s Pizza and Bank One? Bank of America? Clarke Cadzow, the owner/operator of Highland Coffees and a fervent Northgate historian, left this mural in what was once the patio of the Med Café and it is now part of Highland Coffees.

The patio itself is deep and shady and seems very much a natural extension of the LSU campus across the street. During each semester the place is full of students, staff, faculty and locals all day and well into the night. Highland roasts their own beans, creates all espresso drinks to order and brews small batches of the daily special blends throughout the day. They also have a granita machine which is a tremendous boon during the summer months.

The shop is very involved in readings and local art and music. Clarke usually rotates local artists’ work in the shop every six weeks or so, which makes it an even nicer place to visit–but of course, parking, the one inescapable issue around campus.

I’ve always viewed neighborhood coffee shops as secular churches. They are quiet. People are courteous. And everyone walks in wanting to be a better person. Highland Coffees also has cakes and pastries supplied by a local baker and an extensive list of loose leaf teas and natural waters. I’m a big fan of the iced mocha and granita, and occasionally I’ll get the ham and cheese croissant or break down and get a muffin or a slice of cake. Good place to bring the laptop to set up to surf or write or just answer email and listen to tunes while enjoying top of the line fresh brewed coffee.

I would really, really like to award Koi first place in the nigiri bento box competition because it has that dive vibe that I’ve always loved about sushi bars in Los Angeles and New Orleans (and NO bars in general) so everything seems like a hidden gem, but even though it’s a bento and not just a sushi lunch it doesn’t quite measure up to this year’s winner, Sushi Yama. I love the gyoza dumplings, I love the almost fried rice (bit of egg tossed in) and I like the five pieces of nigiri, but only two of them are high end additions, and Sushi Yama leads with a free cucumber salad and ends with sliced fresh pineapple.

Koi also has a “hidden” Chinese menu, but I’ve never really gotten past the bento box lunch there, or even tried one of the other lunch specials. Guess I need to put that on the list of things to do, places to be.

I didn’t really care much for Hello Sushi when it occupied this space, but Chef Cong has turned it around and made it his own. I usually visit Umami for my favorites and the specials, but sushi week is all about chasing down the best nigiri bento in Baton Rouge. Umami doesn’t have a bento box, but they do have a nigiri lunch special with your choice of miso soup or a side salad, chef’s choice of five pieces of nigiri sushi, and your choice of either a tuna, salmon, or yellowtail roll.

The addition of the octopus is a very nice touch and as always everything is perfectly crafted and just out the ocean fresh, but although Umami is my favorite Baton Rouge sushi bar these days, Sushi Yama still has the lead in the bento box competition, mainly because it is an actual bento and the cucumber salad before, the sliced pineapple after, and the shrimp tempura that comes with put it over the top. The bento is a mix of hot and cold mini dishes and this Umami plate, as lovely and delicious as it is, is still a sushi lunch, not a bento box. Here’s a parting shot to meditate upon. I am always filled with anticipation after I fill whatever container is provided with soy sauce and await the sushi. We all know that anticipation is often greater than the event itself or the resulting memory. Umami is good to me before, during, and after.

This place, along with Umami Japanese Bistro on Burbank, is a very dangerous place to do lunch. One reason for my obsession with the nigiri bento box is that tunnel vision focused on the lunch special is about the only way for me to avoid a $60 lunch trip without sake. There are a couple of other things here you can focus on like the Tuna Blossom and the Hawaiian Salad, but the bento is the best way to keep the cost down. Sushi Yama does amazing specials, as does Umami, and that does help them both to the top of my list of go to sushi spots. I had some Japanese oysters here once that are far and away the best I’ve ever put in my mouth. Sushi Yama starts everyone off with a cucumber salad and ends every visit with sliced pineapple which is a very nice touch.

The bento box starts with miso and features shrimp tempura to go with half a cali roll and four pieces of nigiri, along with house salad and sticky rice.

Another plus is the nigiri is all fresh fish. No shrimp or imitation crab or escalar. Of course you sacrifice half the cali roll for the all fish nigiri and the shrimp tempura, and fried rice would be more fun, but Sushi Yama has the lead in the nigiri bento box race, and also with wall art. These are just a few of the really nice prints and paintings and pieces that adorn their store.

Summer is good for a couple of things. Hunting down the best nigiri bento box in the area is one. Going on Netflix or Amazon Video and rewatching police procedurals is another. Alas, the best nigiri bento of years past will not take first place again. Waka House does still offer a nigiri bento, but it isn’t as well populated as it once was.

The white rice used to be house fried rice with chicken, pork, shrimp and egg. The potato croquette in the upper right compartment used to be two mini-yakitori skewers, usually chicken and shrimp. A sad day compared to what once was, but what has not changed is the wonderful atmosphere and the pot of loose leaf green jasmine tea.

We all want what we once had to be as good as we remembered it to be. We also want to be able to experience it again now. To me the only way to do that is to hunt for music on You Tube, reread classics, and binge old shows when they arrive on Netflix or Prime or some other video service. Two summers ago I went through all the old NCIS episodes. Last summer was NYPD Blue. Earlier this year I found old episodes of JAG (Harm and Mac showed up on the season finale of NCIS: Los Angeles this season) and now I’m digging deep into In Plain Sight, The Closer, and Rizzoli and Isles. One thing you gain from going back to the days of television before cell phones is more of a sense of how long we have been struggling with the same issues of inclusion. Television series have always poked and prodded at our shortcomings. Police procedurals have the advantage of being able to steer the narrative toward any class or subset of the populace. The push to accept non-straight, non-white, non-male people as human has been going on for quite some time. Old television shows illuminate both progress and the lack of progress in any number of areas. I’m pretty dug in with my watch list this summer, but I think next summer I’m going to try to hunt down All In the Family and Ally McBeal. I think that would be a really interesting pairing.

So now it is time to say goodbye to Waka House, perhaps for good. Sherwood Forest is a long trek to a non-scenic area (although Waka remains beautiful inside) and the astounding nigiri bento they used to serve was what always captivated me about the place. There are other places closer to me that I’m more likely to visit, but if Waka is in your area, you should slip in sometime. Enjoy a pot of jasmine tea, the nice wall art and unique furnishings, and top notch sushi.