Date Night: Lee Circle Edition

Please welcome the newest series on Blackened Out: Date Night. Should be pretty self-explanatory.  We all get stuck in ruts and end up going to the same three places, but every now and then it is time to do something different. Hence the need for another soon to be abandoned series. 

A hotel has anchored the French Quarter segment of Lee Circle for years. Recently, the space was re-anointed as the Hotel Modern. But this time the ownership group had the good sense to bring in some bait for locals and tourists alike. That bait takes the form of Bellocq and Tamarind from Neal Bodenheimer & Co. and Dominique Macquet, respectively.

A good date night usually starts with drinks at the bar. Bellocq's sumptuous lounge has a timeless quality with thick fabrics, rich colors, and subdued music. The drink of choice here is the cobbler, an old standby from the days when Lee was on horseback. The concept of a cobbler is simple: crushed ice, fruit, booze, and a touch of sugar. The result is a refreshing and near perfect drink for food. The two cobblers we sampled were both made with fortified wine, but the standout was a sip of spring with Lillet, strawberries, lemon juice, and sugar. These drinks could become habit forming.

After a few cobblers and conversation, head over to Tamarind. The room is divided into an upper and lower section. The lower section is where the action is at with large windows that look out onto likely the only traffic circle with stop lights. Avoid the upper unit (where we were seated) as the traffic from the kitchen and hotel becomes distracting.

Kimberly Patton-Bragg has resurfaced at Tamarind and she is mixing her unique cocktails into the fabric of French-Vietnamese cooking emerging from the kitchen. Witness her take on the Vietnamese staple soda chanh. Bragg tones down acidity by using preserved lemon, highlights the sweetness with a shot of lavender simple syrup, and ramps up the kick with Plymouth gin. Come summer, this drink should be in your steady rotation.

The vittles at Tamarind will be familiar in scope to anyone who has delved past pho at Vietnamese restaurants. Take for instance, their version of banh xeo. At Tamarind, tucked into the thin, crispy crepe are layers of lamb confit and and stewed mustard greens. The greens heighten the natural grassiness of the lamb which creates the sensation of eating not just lamb, but what a lamb would eat. Crispy pork belly could have gone overboard but the supply of just pickled vegetables balanced the dish out. Tamarind's take on an Asian Shrimp remoulade, was a clunky mess with a puck of tempura kohlrabi that was too thick by half and a remoulade that was used twice as much as it should have been.

Plump scallops found a welcome companion alongside butter beans, garlicky noodles, and lemon beurre blanc. The resulting dish wasa harmony of the pungent flavors of Eastern cuisine, gilded slightly by French technique. The duck entree would have been in the same playpen, had it not been for a flaccid skin. The one dessert we sampled was fantastic, a cinnamon chocolate molten cake whose temperature and spice was well deserving of its name. It came with a scoop of Vietnamese coffee ice cream. A welcome end to a great date.

Notorious B.T.G.

Culinary innovation is nothing new in New Orleans. Places like Antoine's and Galatoire's are credited with inventing Oysters Rockefeller and the six hour lunch that turns into dinner, respectively. Later, Paul Prudhomme's blackening technique would cause more than one legislative body to pass a law or two limiting fish counts. And now New Orleans, while not the first to embrace the fervor of the trend, has run towards the temporary eatery in a permanent space.

Until now the pop-up restaurant's gracing New Orleans's streets have focused on specific foods. There is the original and still the best, Pizza Delicious. There have been noodle joints, barbecue bivouacs, pie purveyors, Asian vegan ventures, and even one inside of F&M's- a spot more known for coeds dancing on pool tables than fine food. Now in a reversal, a restaurant will turn into a bar. 

Tonight at Company Burger, Joe Briand turns Company Burger into his Platonic wine bar. There will be food as well from the capable, studied hands of Adam Biderman; but make no mistake the focus is on wine. "Doing it for fun really. Adam is excited to cook something other than burgers and I just want to showcase some wines by the glass that aren't on lists at the wine bars in New Orleans," Briand said by email. 

The explosion of Freret Street has been well-documented and a great boon to the city. B.T.G. hopes to capitalize on what has become a consumer magnet. A magnet that attracts a specific diner, "Look at what's going on on Freret Street.  You've got Cure doing amazing cocktails, Ancora with an wine list that's all from Campania, just people doing new things.  Our ideal customer wants to drink something new and different." says Briand. 

The wine menu - and it is only wine - is a romp through the offbeat wines of the Old World. Things begin with a Manzanilla Sherry and a Patrick Piuze Chablis, that speaking from experience is an incredibly focused white wine, with lemon and stone flavors (see With Oysters below). There is an Italian white and Gewurztraminer from Abe Schoener, who is such an eccentric wine maker he might as well be European. The darker side features a Tami Frappato, a Nuits St. George from Domaine Faurey and an '89 Cornas from Robert Michel. At $10 a glass, that last red adjusted for inflation is basically free. 

Also, featured will be a selection entitled "The Best $5 Glass in Town" highlighting a Gruner Veltliner from Stadt Krems and a Cab/Syrah blend from Provence. If you are a fan of wine bars that actually charge a fair price for an interesting glass of wine, this is going to be your ChristmasKwanzaKuh. With wines by the glass (get it now?) ranging from $5 to $16 (a Cramant sparkler), you don't have to break the bank to sip a glass of wine. Which is the way it should be. 

As for the food, raw Blue Point Oysters ($1 a piece), deviled eggs, chicken liver terrine, sweetbreads, and seared scallops should provide all the ballast to what is sure to be a night of indulgence. About that, but Joe I thought you left the restaurant biz to get away from the insanity of that lifestyle? "My wife calls it restaurant A.D.D.  There is an immediate gratification in the restaurant biz that is kind of addictive.  We will see how this goes. Again really doing it for the fun of it," Briand explains.

Well, this should be fun. B.T.G. is cash only and starts pouring at 7 p.m. See you there. Need more info? Hit Joe up on Twitter @cartedesvins.

The Post-Katrina Top 20: #20 - #16

No one will argue that the game was forever changed on August 29, 2005. As we approach the five year anniversary of that fateful day, no small number of scribes will dare to put paper to pen and describe post-Katrina existence. Over the next month you will read hundreds (if not thousands) of articles on the recovery of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Most will be well-written pieces focusing on how far we have come, how much further we have to go, what is better, what is worse, and what ain't dere no more.

We could wax on poetically about the casualties of the storm, but we have never been known to cry in our beers. An equally emotional tale could be written about the restaurateurs who rebuilt and persisted through the recovery, but that's a whole other task to which we will leave for the professionals. Instead, we want to focus on the enormous growth of the New Orleans restaurant and beverage scene over the last 5 years. So each Monday over the next four weeks, we will be counting down our favorite additions and improvements to the New Orleans food and drink scene since Katrina. Better than before? You tell us.

#20: Cure - Our first brush with Cure posed some... ahem... challenges. It occurred about one month after the amber-hued apothecary opened. After waiting at the bar for fifteen minutes, Peter tried to order a vodka tonic and was told, "We don't serve that here." What he got instead was a sweet drink topped by a cute umbrella. But both Cure and our experiences there have changed for the better. The converted firehouse now dispenses one of the city's best cocktail experience. Neil Bodenheimer consistently pushes his staff, led by Kirk Estopinal, to develop new cocktails incorporating long forgotten elixirs. Plus, the bartenders at Cure have gotten over their original celebrity cache and now focus their energies on just getting you a drink. All this makes Cure one of the most delightful places in the city to grab a cocktail.

#19: Stanley - While the concept was born pre-Katrina, Chef Scott Boswell first opened his upscale diner only out of necessity when renovations to sister restaurant Stella! were derailed by the levee failures. After a year-long run in an adjacent space on Decatur, closing down for the reopening of Stella!, and moving to a prominent location on Jackson Square, Stanley is now one of the most popular breakfast spots in the French Quarter, where the Breaux Bridge Benedict has diners craving boudin first thing in the morning.

#18: Huevos and Crescent Pie & Sausage Co. - Disaster beget a second restaurant for Bart Bell and Jeff Baron as well, when the building which was originally supposed to house Crescent Pie & Sausage Co. collapsed during Hurricane Gustav. In serious need of cash flow, the duo began serving breakfast next door at Huevos while the new home of Crescent Pie was being constructed next door. Patrons still flock to Huevos for tamales and chorizo in the morning; but when the sun goes down, the shift focuses to the offbeat pizzas and flaky crusted handpies at the quirky restaurant on the corner.

#17: The Meteoric Rise of Tales of the Cocktail - Tales of the Cocktail began before Katrina, but perhaps no festival better showcases why people love coming to New Orleans. People travel to the Big Easy to have a good time, explore, and drink. Tales does all of this and more. Led by the charming Ann Tuennerman, her husband Paul, and a team of Angels, everyone from cocktail geeks to beach bums, industry vets to molecular mixologists can find a seminar, tasting or party to their liking. Just the sheer volume of people, brands, and PR gurus who show up to pitch the latest rum or new cordial make Tales an indispensable item on any cocktail aficionado's calendar. As one brand rep told us, "If your product isn't at Tales, you lose an entire year of revenue, recipes, and respect." Plus, any festival that can draw almost twenty thousand people to New Orleans in the middle of July deserves a hearty cheers from us.


#16 Food from South of the Border - Every cloud has a silver tequila lining. The Mexican and Central American food scene in New Orleans has never been greater, and it started with the humble taco truck. Originally these Mexican meals-on-wheels catered specifically to the growing number of laborers who flocked to the city for recovery work, but soon people of every creed and color could be seen standing in line for affordable lunches of barbacoa and carnitas. Several vendors have capitalized on their success by moving into permanent spaces, but others like Taqueria D.F. continue on as modern day chuck wagons. With newbies like Taceaux Loceaux catering to late night crowds around town, the taco truck looks to be a delicious fad which will be sticking around for the foreseeable future. The scene has further grown as places like Restaurante Telemar, Taqueria Guerrero, and Pupuseria La Macarena have set up shop all over town showing that the food of Central and South America is as varied and interesting as the countries themselves. We look forward to watching these cuisines establish a permanent foothold in the New Orleans scene.