Month: December 2019

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I’m always in pursuit of a dish as rich and flavorful as the wonton soup I discovered in Hunstville, Alabama at Viet Cuisine. If I hadn’t seen an Instagram photo, I would not have thought to look at Rock-n-Sake. The Spicy Gyoza Soup is beef dumplings, many veggies, and crab stick in a hot beef broth. It has a lot of pop, but not really as much depth as Viet’s pork broth. I did enjoy it, and it was a lean meal for the holidays, pretty sure only the gyoza wraps contained any carbs. It would be hard to order again though, surrounded as it is on the menu with so many interesting small plates and rolls and sashimi inventions. But we live for the day, and this soup was a good warm up for checking out The Rise of Skywalker in IMAX 3D. Too soon to comment on the latest installment, but kudos to JJ Abrams for rescuing not one but two dying star stories, Star Wars and Star Trek. Very much a gift to those of us old enough to have seen the original Star Trek series when it first hit television, and later drove ourselves to University Cinema to see the premier of Star Wars. This movie brought back the excitement of seeing those two suns on Tatooine for the first time. I might have been much sadder during the movie if I hadn’t already started watching The Mandalorian on Disney+. The cinema is not only a good place to look back as you are waiting for the show to begin, but to look forward as you watch the trailers. Wonder Woman 1984 and Top Gun Maverick both look promising. And I noticed that Rock-n-Sake serves their fried calamari with a “spicy plum sauce” which is definitely a very good reason for another visit very soon.

I’ve had the Watermark Hotel downtown on my emergency list for quite some time. When I was recently screwed by Entergy, I put the plan in action and headed downtown for an emergency spa night at the nice hotel. Now I could have stayed super economical and practical when Entergy forced a stop on my gas service (no legitimate reason–and after phone conversations with over half a dozen agents-I still don’t know who instigated the shutdown, or if was just an internal Entergy screw-up that they refused to own) as I was saying before I digressed, I could have stayed practical and microwaved my breakfast and showered at the gym, but if there is one good thing to throw money at, I believe it is your worst moods. Rather than storm an office and find someone to scream at, why not treat yourself to a pleasant night on the town? Thus, I ended up checking in at The Watermark, put my overnight bag away, and returned downstairs for a long anticipated dinner at The Gregory. I was going to try breakfast at Milford’s on Third as well, but they didn’t open on time, and I refuse to visit a place that can’t even get the basics right. The Gregory goes well beyond the basics. Their menu is primarily steaks and higher end seafood, but I went with the baked oyster trio and the Foraged Flat flatbread made with locally grown mushrooms from Maggie’s Mushrooms with a good bit of garlic and olive oil and chunks of bleu cheese. I added a pint of Parish Envie, brewed in Broussard, Louisiana, and enjoyed dinner in the amped up decor celebrating Louisiana National Bank that built the building that houses the Watermark, The Gregory, and the wonderful bar tucked beside The Gregory’s open seating in the lobby. The oyster toppings were variations on Rockefeller, garlic/parmesan, and a house recipe of bleu cheese and hot sauce, so I guess you could call that one buffalo baked oysters. All quite good, but not really exceptional. I probably should have gone with the raw, half-shell oysters. But the flatbread made my night. Perfectly executed, really well balanced; it very much helped me past my Entergy issues, and any of you who have dealt with Entergy know that is no small feat.

I’m a big fan of lunch specials. Especially lunch specials that evolve over time into a thing. On Fridays, Merchant sets aside the business week plate lunch specials (which are all very good BTW) and set their sights on building the coolest, tastiest, most interesting sandwiches and poboys they can. I’d heard about their Fridays, and set aside a couple of weeks to run it down, but the first Friday I went for the special, it turned out to be their version of corned beef and Swiss on Leidenheimer rye bread when I had just had almost the same exact sandwich at Jed’s Local earlier in the week. I went for the Hot Lonnie instead, one of the many, many chicken sandwiches in Baton Rouge that blows the Popeye’s chicken sandwich out of the water. But since it had been awhile since I’d been to Merchant, I had to suck down some fried cheese curds first. These are amazingly light and do truly seem to melt in your mouth with such a rich flavor profile. Totally umami. The Hot Lonnie is a tea-brined chicken breast, fried crisp and topped with a sunny up fried egg with cheese and bacon to boot.

Finally I was able to get back around on another Friday and check out the fried catfish on a brioche bun they were running dressed with shredded butter lettuce and tomatoes and a wonderful aioli with spice and garlic that they called Hurricane Aioli and it really brought all the elements together and elevated them. I’m pretty sure they compete in that kitchen to see who can come up with the best specials, and they have the confidence to invite other chefs over for pop up parties as well. I’m also certain this fish sandwich ranks among their best efforts. Now I don’t think the photos come close to doing the hand-cut fries justice, but they are very, very good as well. This is one of those places that is good to hit whenever they’re open, brunch, lunch, dinner, late night, but they are really trying hard at Friday lunch to blow you away with their sandwich and poboy specials.

University Seafood is my go to for picking up crawfish on the way home from work. They’re hot, have a strong salt and heat base, and it’s a hell of a lot quicker and easier than cooking them yourself. I like my own crawfish best, Carlton LeGrange’s second best, and the old Drusilla Market (long gone) third best. University does a good job. I’ve also had their wings and fried rice, and they do a fine job with old school poboys like smoked sausage and ham and cheese. And the poboys without fries are under six bucks. Not a bad way to reel the lunch budget back in after a sushi run. Give it a try if you haven’t already, or look for something similar close by your place. It’s nice to have a go to you can call in an order and pick it up on the way back to the house after yet another long, long day. And yes, they sell beer as well.

This place reminds me of another that was nearby when I lived at 51 Rose Avenue in Venice, the old Castaneda apartments a block off the boardwalk at the Santa Monica end of the beach. Don’t remember the name, but it was on a corner right on the boardwalk and had ice cream and popcorn, shakes and malts and fountain drinks, hamburgers and hotdogs and broasted chicken and pizza by the slice, but no hoagies or tacos. It made me think at the time of carnival concession stands, or stadium concessions, or the little container building in middle school that sold blow pops and sweet tarts and frozen slushie drinks at recess. It also makes me think now of food courts in malls with independent kiosks serving limited menus from larger chains or local restaurants. All of the new bubble tea shops have that kind of feel to me. The inside looks like a tricked out ice cream parlor/study area with nothing really where you expect it to be except the booths. Exotic Sweets has sushi and hibachi on the sign, but no sushi bar or hibachi grill in sight. The menu has sushi rolls, but no nigiri or sashimi. There’s clear soup and miso soup and noodle soup but no ramen or pho. Dim sum and fried rice but no egg rolls. At least the food was okay. Supermarket quality instead of gas station. I suspect everything was instant or prepackaged or frozen but I couldn’t say for sure since I couldn’t actually see a place to prepare anything but bubble tea and rolled ice cream. I guess if you’re a fan of bubble tea and Cali rolls this would work for lunch if you’re in the area, but forty feet away is a good taco place and a half mile down the road is a great one. There’s a Whataburger across the street. China One in the same shopping center. Just not that into bubble tea bar food myself. The art fixtures were nice enough, and there were some interesting fish in the aquarium, but the water wasn’t clear enough to get a good shot.

Thanks to their Instagram account @courtstreetcafe I found out about this place and hopped across the river to check it out. It’s just off Hwy 1 in Port Allen with that vibe you find all over Louisiana of a diner crammed into an old house with ten tables in front of an eight stool bar with a kitchen window just behind the bar and more seating and bathrooms back down a hallway leading to the rear of the building. I’d say ubiquitous, but that’s a bit out of place in that space between city and country where almost everyone is wearing work boots and Dickies. I got there just before eleven thirty and the place was already half full of old timers and contractors with a server flitting between them with the first round of sweet tea and lunch time bourbon. As I sat I watched a lot of women come and go picking up carry out orders. Flat iron steak was the special of the day, but I wanted to check out their bona fides so I ordered the chicken and sausage gumbo and a blackened gator poboy. The gumbo was on the thin side but did not lack flavor. Very enjoyable in mid-December. I was intrigued by their decision to dress the blackened alligator and grilled onions with Zatarain’s creole mustard on a soft hoagie bun , but it didn’t really work for me. If I got it again I’d order it up with mayo or just the alligator and onions which would also be fine. I’m sure the blackened gator/creole mustard combo rocks some boats, just not mine. Besides, they gained enough of my confidence that I’d be more likely to try their crawfish étouffée or oyster poboy or maybe both next time. Maybe even the flat iron steak if it’s on special.

I have yet to make it all the way through the menu at Curbside or even try their chocolate shake because I am constantly distracted by their burger and shake specials. I am always interested in how the store reinterprets their inventory to come up with new dishes that might eventually find their way onto the main menu. I’ve had that responsibility/opportunity before, and it is exciting, kind of like posting a picture on Instagram looking for likes, except in this case, you are looking for purchases. I only wish that back then I had been social media savvy enough to post a picture of the double beef burger (regular burger topped with roast beef and gravy) or the surf and turf (all beef patty + one crab cake). It would also be nice to have pictures of some of those huge crawfish boils we use to cater for the valve companies in Baton Rouge. Five thousand pounds of crawfish, jambalaya for a thousand, and bars that started with a case of Crown Royal with our ex-Golden Girls turned Bud Girls bar tending. Maybe some of those are best kept as memories rather than photos–but I digress. I love the way Curbside digs deep into history like they did for the Oklahoma Onion burger a while back, or in this case deconstruct a French Onion poboy and remake it into the Naq Attaque, basically a French Onion burger with caramelized onions and lots of thick gooey Swiss cheese with a side of french onion soup for french dipping. And who could pass up a White Chocolate Peppermint shake this time of year?

There’s so many Serop’s Express buffets in town now that it’s easy to forget about Serop’s Cafe until the weather turns cold and windy and you get that Baton Rouge winter rain that feels like sleet even though it’s only forty degrees outside and your thoughts turn to lamb shank. Serop’s Cafe is the only place I know of in town that has lamb shank available night and day so that’s where I head. Everyone’s always nice at all the Serop’s locations, but the staff seems even more welcoming at the Cafe. With the recent demise of the last Arzi’s on Government (still don’t know the story, and we used to have such good times on Sundays at the one on Nicholson, ordering up the raw kibbi and downing bottles of Boutari Nemea) the Cafe jumps right in the mix with Roman’s. Really like Albasha too, so maybe I need to run over to Citiplace soon but this visit was all about the slow cooked lamb shank with brown gravy and a heap of rice pilaf with roasted green beans and of course Lebanese tea and hot pita and a feta salad with the garlic dialed all the way up. Some people will recommend honeyed tea with lemon or hot toddies or any number of treats to try to avoid the pitfalls of cold and flu season, but I say go with the lamb shank at Serop’s.

I’ve always had plenty of confidence in Jed’s, even before they opened, mostly because of my many visits to their other restaurant, Eliza, also on Jefferson, but a bit further down, between Essen and Drusilla. The owners know exactly what they want to accomplish and always execute top notch food. Doesn’t hurt that they knew enough to open up almost exactly where Joe D’s grocery once stood and served up the best poboys in Baton Rouge. On my very first visit a while back I noticed the grilled shrimp banh mi, the French fry poboy, and the Cuban on the menu and realized Jed’s definition of poboy was anything they could stuff inside a loaf of Leidenheimer French bread. That worked out well with this Reuben. A Reuben is kind of like a muffaletto in that with the sharpness of the sauerkraut and Russian dressing, you have to get the ratio of all the ingredients just right to make the sandwich work. Of course Jed’s pulls it off perfectly, and the French bread is an interesting twist on the rye bread most Reubens are made with. The pressed Reuben is not on the menu, though I suspect it might make it there in the future, but for now, it’s limited to the month of December. Also in December, Jed’s will be at the Mid City Maker’s Market on the 14th with their Grilled Shrimp Banh Mi and Eliza’s Gumbo Ya-Ya. More news, they’ve switched to table service at Jed’s which might alleviate some of the ups and downs of counter service when you go next time. And don’t forget to try the wings. Truly special.

Sometimes if you search the walls of a taqueria squeezed into an older, low rent Baton Rouge strip mall, you will find an image or two of who they wish they could be. Tables set outside on a cobbled alley overlooking the blue, blue sea, the slightly lighter shade of blue, blue sky, the wonderful greenery dripping from the whitewashed adobe storefronts with the owners living above their shops in a neighborhood of laughter and goodwill. Tacos lengua, carnitas, y camerone is fast becoming my new mantra and there is really no better place to say that to a server than La Tienda on Siegen Lane. Their tacos truly are a bridge between the sign outside with the sombrero’d chili pepper and the cactus and maraca emojis and the dreamy Baja village on the Pacific in the lovely painting on the wall within the taqueria. There are many among the it is what it is crowd who will insist that food is fuel, but I expect more than that when I visit a storefront offering breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Or high tea, or hot dogs, or someone invites me over to eat or I take the time to cook for someone. Food, human food, is meant to be a bridge between where we are and where we want to be. Always has been, always will be.