Guest Bloggle

At the Blackened Out Hedge Fund Annual Planning meeting, a decision was made to use today to write a menu for the Saints second Super Bowl. Instead of that joyous post, here is a guest blog from Bloggle. 

The amuse bouche from Meson 923, which opened in 2010 as a highly ambitious restaurant.

I've eaten in plenty of restaurants. To bastardize an already cheesy phrase from Jon Bon Jovi (or is it Plato) "I've seen a million (restaurants), and I've rocked them all."  I've seen the highest of highs and the lowest of lows and every time I leave a restaurant I feel that I've learned something new as a diner, a new experience to file in the catalog of a gustatory hobby.  However, this past Saturday night all of that came to a screeching halt when I had the most confusing and bewildering restaurant experience of my life.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, whether to run screaming or look for the hidden cameras.  Indeed it was an experience that made me question what makes a restaurant and why we in the hell we even dine out.

Meson 923 began a few years back as one of the most exciting new haute cuisine restaurants in the city, with a sleek modern look and a menu to match.  I dined there maybe a half-dozen over their existence and was duly impressed by the effort of the chef each time.  Sadly, though, those days are gone, those chefs have moved on and the issues behind the scenes over there are now well documented.  Meson 923 had its run, but now it's over.

Or so we thought.  It appears as though the building's owner has decided to take the reins and run the restaurant on his own.  I've seen that movie before and it never has a happy ending My wife and I went on the suggestion and invitation of some friends, with a warning of what we might be facing.  Experienced diners all, we said "What the hell, what's the worst that can happen?"

We walked into the still tony dining room, still with its sparse minimalist tables, sharply designed chairs, and noticeable lack of wall coverings (we did not, however, fail to notice the addition of a brilliantly lit pair of neon signs in the window, one reading "Open" the other, "Steaks").

It still looked like Meson 923, until we realized there was no one to greet us, other than a pair of people at the bar who looked more like they had gotten lost on their way to the Corporation Bar on the opposite corner than they looked like they worked in this (or any) restaurant.   Confusion on this staff's part ensued when one of them tried to sit us in the dining room,  the other insisted instead on separate tables in the bar area. The brief tete-a-tete thankfully had swift and happy ending when we were finally sat all together at the same table.  Unfortunately, it was the last moral victory of the night.

Some places have servers with bling, others have service with a smile.  Understandably, not every restaurant has the happiest of servers, some places even pride themselves on the rudeness of their staff.  This place however, eerily had none of the above.  A third staff member emerged after we were sat and approached our table.  When we asked if he was our waiter he said in his best Steven Wright deadpan "I can be."

Immediately came the question "What kind of dressing would you like on your salads?"  We  asked about things like, say, menus and a drink list, he brushed that off by saying they don't have a menu and the chef is going to cook whatever he wants to anyway.  He then followed up his question again a little more brusquely "What KIND of DRESSING would you like on your salads?!"

That night, Thousand Island, Blue Cheese, Ranch and Oil/Vinegar (at right) were the institutionalized choices you got on a bowl of very roughly cut, sub-par Romaine lettuce that looked like it was purchased from the ill-fated Suda Salvage Discount Grocery Store and chopped with a pocket knife by Cub Scout Troop 1923.  I nibbled on a sad, flavorless tomato and wept inwardly thinking about the succulent Barrileux Farms creoles I had picked up that morning at the farmer's market.  It may have crossed my mind to ask if the restaurant had a corkage policy for tomatoes.

The salads are not your only pre-entrée choices.  Immediately upon us sitting down we were bombarded with a plate of thickly buttered and grilled hamburger bun bottoms that looked like they were buttered by Paula Deen having a biggest dick contest with the American Heart Association. (above)  It was explained to us that this amuse-bouche was on the house.

Thankfully we were well stocked with wine in tow, and as luck would have it someone suggested we bring our own glasses, since the place didn't seem to have any of those either.

Now it was time to order.  The roadie crew from the Molly Hatchet '83 World Tour that sat us was gone, as was our original server.  A fourth staff member emerged to inform us the menu choices were three cuts of steak and two types of fish.  The steaks were to be grilled with salt and pepper, the fish only with lemon and salt.  No sauce, no alternative preparations.  Nothing.  When asked if my redfish would be grilled the answer was "I'll tell the chef, but he's going to cook it however he wants to cook it."  She repeated that same answer when one of our party ordered their Rib-Eye cooked medium.

We asked about sides and the answer was "we'll send out what we have", which turned out to be black-eyed peas (undoubtedly stirred with a salt-lick), plain baked potatoes, and a bowl of spinach and mushrooms.  If the array of sides weren't all canned then whoever thought to present these items as fresh needs to be beaten with a rolled up copy of Gourmet magazine and have his nose shoved in that insipid bowl of salty mush parading as black-eyed peas.

Entrées arrive and unfortunately my fish was poached, but then again, fortunately it wasn't redfish.  I thought about inquiring further about what happened to the redfish but backed down when I saw the chef appear to be yelling at someone in the kitchen.  To the kitchen's credit the fish was fresh, and a dining companion said the NY Strip was well cooked, but so what?  I can grill a steak and boil a piece of fish with lemon and salt at home.

As we trudged on, we began to discuss the thorough lack of anything that resembled a structured staff combined with such a rudimentary menu.  We pondered that maybe the "secret" menu was an attempt to duplicate a Charlie's Steak House.  This was when I when I started questioning what makes a restaurant.

By this point we were all deep in the glass and the effort to suppress our giggle reflex became increasingly moot.  The suggestion by the server that they were washing some more silverware so we could eat drew snickers, the serving of side dishes on tea plates drew slight chuckles, after asking for a napkin and seeing the arrival of a roll of paper towels a full guffaw ensued.

Thinking we were on the finish line of paying and getting out of there alive three very large pieces of pie showed up.  Apple, something else, I'm not certain.  To be frank, I did not eat the pie.   It could have been the best pie ever made by the hand of man, but I sure as hell wasn't touching it.  The claim was the pie was made in house.  Actually that's unfair, it could have been made by mom, if mom works at Sysco.

By this point I was so bewildered and so beside myself that I was going to have to pay money for this train wreck of a meal, to pay for such an unmitigated disjointed experience that was so disproportionate in its ineptitude to the beauty of the room in which it happened, to pay money to someone that so obviously could not care less about the experience he provided that I began to question I put forth earlier.

The experience of art is unique and singular.  Maybe the experience I had last Saturday night at the former Meson 923 is a grand joke, an artistic statement against the mores of fine dining, a voice behind the curtain telling us that we're full of shit by taking restaurants too seriously.  If that were the case it would be the finest example of performance art I've ever seen.  Unfortunately there was obviously no intent for it to be.  Whether this new owner is trying to create the next Crescent City Steakhouse or just trying to keep the doors open until he can offload the place to the next wide-eyed entrepreneur remains to be seen.  Either way it was a miserable failure, intended or not.

Trip Report: French Quarter Fest '09

Editor's Note - Both Rene and I were out of town last weekend and thus had to miss out on all of the fun. But because she had volunteered at FQF all weekend, The Folk Singer offered to give us a full report on her experience. Below is her guest review. We thank her for picking up our slack. WARNING - This post is very looooooooong. Our guest bloggers sometimes get overexcited when making their debut.

Saturday

My friend Tay and I had the pleasure of volunteering* at French Quarter Fest this past weekend, selling booze. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it. Since neither of the BlackenedOut guys made it to the Fest, we decided to hijack the blog and tell you about what we ate.

On Saturday, we were assigned to the Abita Beer booth at the Old U.S. Mint. Live zydeco music and beer, what more do you need in life? We showed up an hour before our shift and picked up our food tickets. The volunteer coordinator was eating some SERIOUS spring rolls, which immediately grabbed our attention because we all know it's tough to find stellar Vietnamese “east" of Gretna. But we both knew there was a lot of beer drinking in our future, so we decided to start off with something a little more substantial.

Enter The Joint. After hearing Peter talk about the Joint so much, I have been dying to try it out, but haven’t made it over to the Bywater just yet. Thank God for festival food. I decided on the pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw...and proceeded to smother it with The Joint’s slightly spicy red BBQ sauce. Perfection. The coleslaw provided a crisp and refreshing crunch to the sandwich, but the size left me wishing The Joint had offered up its mac & cheese or potato salad too.

Tay decided on the Roast Beef Debris po-boy from EAT. This was a winner in our book, not only because the beef was both incredibly flavorful and perfectly cooked to a tender texture, but also because the French bread added the perfect amount of crunchy exterior and soft interior to soak up the beef juices.

We then realized that we had arrived at French Quarter Fest just in time to catch Acme's Oyster-Eating Contest before our shift started (pictures and video of the contest coming soon). Some of the world's most accomplished oyster-eaters came from far and wide to see who could devour the most gelatinous raw oysters in 8 minutes. Nothing like some good ole beef and pork sandwiches to complement this seafood spectacle. While watching one woman putting a dozen oysters in her mouth at a time before swallowing and another man actually sweating and gagging his way through 15 dozen mollusks in the warm Louisiana sun might not SEEM appetizing, you should know-the beef debris po-boy would not be denied. With creole mustard and horseradish mayonnaise as the condiments of choice, Tay finished the soft French bread and juicy beef debris in an impressive time herself. And did we mention the HORSERADISH MAYO?? It doesn’t get much better than that.

After serving (and drinking) ice cold delicious Abita for about 4 hours, we decided we might be hungry again and those spring rolls were still on our minds, so we checked out Amy's Vietnamese Cafe. The plan was to order two crawfish eggrolls and two spring rolls to split between us, but the crawfish eggrolls were long gone. Not being known for our ability to exercise moderation, we quickly recovered by ordering 4 spring rolls instead. They did not disappoint. The plump and delicious spring rolls were double the size of some of the "recession spring rolls" we've eaten lately and the fact that Amy and her crew were able to pump out spring rolls all day at an outdoor festival was downright impressive.

Standing in (the very very very long) line gave customers the opportunity to watch Amy and friends dip each piece of rice paper into a bowl of water, fill it with pork, shrimp, cabbage, vermicelli and fresh herbs. No premade rolls here and the line was certainly worth the wait. The warm peanut sauce was ladled into a cup and added to the plate as a finishing touch. And a damn good one at that, this was FRESH peanut sauce. It was served warm- not because they were working outdoors in Louisiana in April, but because the peanut sauce was being made fresh on site. You could eat this stuff straight up with a spoon. And of course, in honor of Peter, a glob of sriracha.

A quick conversation with the cashier (Amy’s son) revealed that Amy’s Vietnamese Café is not actually a café at all. Apparently Amy sets up in the French Market on the weekends, and doesn't actually have a restaurant. Which means, next time we are in the Quarter, we will be checking out Amy's Vietnamese “Café” - I still can't stop thinking about how good the crawfish eggrolls looked.

Sunday

Sunday we were assigned to the wine/frozen Southern Comfort booth at Woldenberg Park. While we would love to entertain you with stories on the differences between festival beer drinkers and festival liquor drinkers, that is a topic for an entirely separate post. On our way to check in, we passed the Gelato Pazzo booth (which we all know is my new favorite) and decided Tay needed to be introduced to a little cup of heaven. One chocolate and one strawberry later (which were devoured too quickly for us to get a picture), we were probably the happiest volunteers at the Fest.

Once we arrived at the booth, we realized we didn't have to venture far...or even use our free food tickets...to test out some delicious food. Frank's Restaurant was set up in the booth connected to ours and the minute we saw chocolate covered cannolis, we knew we were right where we needed to be. Luckily, the people from Frank's love Southern Comfort, and we were able to make some trades throughout the day.

Muffulettas (again, we ate the actual muffuletta too fast to get a picture, but the stacked up bread made for an interesting subject and you can see a few muffulettas in the background)...

... and cannoli covered in chocolate and oozing with deliciously creamy ricotta/chocolate chip filling. Taylor has already declared cannolis will be served at her next birthday. And you’re all invited.

We didn’t get a chance to check out their meatball subs because we were completely stuffed, but trust us when we say those things looked and smelled AMAZING. Next time you are in the Quarter and looking for a (very filling) snack, we highly recommend that you check Frank’s out. And tell them the SoCo girls from French Quarter Fest sent you….maybe they will give us free cannolis for life or something.

Last but not least, the gastronomic highlight of the day came when Frank's made a trade with Flour Power. Strawberry Creole Cream Cheese Cake. Imagine angel food cake, layered with creole cream cheesecake, more angel food cake, fresh halved strawberries, topped off with a thin layer of frosting. The level of sweetness was just enough to pique your interest, but never cloying and the sweet fruit really hit the spot. If Tay is getting her dream cannoli birthday cake, mine would be made of this stuff.

All in all, the weekend was a complete success. From now on, volunteering at festivals will be the way we go. Because there are few things we'd rather do on the weekends than drink great beer, eat great food, meet great people and help bring the city of New Orleans back.

'

*A well-deserved plug for the FQF Volunteering Crew. Volunteering might have been the best idea we've ever had--free food, free Abita, free t-shirts and free conversations with wildly entertaining with people who come to New Orleans from all over the country for FQF.

This Week's Guest Judge...

Is Section123 Saints Fan who related to us this morning this disappointing experience. This guest review reveals a number of interesting things. First, the absolute disappointment and anger that results when dining out goes awry. And also, how waiters sometimes suck.*

Had to drop you an email about a very disappointing Bogey last night. Maximo's Italian Grill
I have heard such good things about this place recently, same chef as pre-K, great atmosphere,service, etc.... Maximo's did not live up to any of that

First and Foremost, Service: Double Bogey
We had a group of 8 people and wanted some wine, so I asked for a suggestion.

The waiter responded by asking me how much I wanted to spend. Now, I don't want to go on a long rant about this, but as someone who waited tables and bar tended for 5 years, that's not an appropriate question. You should be able to recommend an Italian red in each category, cheap, moderate, pricey, you're an Italian restaurant after all.

Anyway, I tell him that since we will be having 3 or 4, let's go with something under 50. His response: I have something okay for 50 and something great for 60.

Look, I'm here to have dinner, not be treated like someone trying to buy a used car. You don't have a single decent wine under 50 bucks? There are at least 10 bottles in that price range, do they all suck? Why are they on your wine list then? Are you kidding? I end up ordering the cheapest Chianti on the menu (cheap Chianti is kind of a guilty pleasure for me anyway) just to spite the guy.

Throughout our dinner, the waiter is rude and not attentive. He occasionally fills wine glasses, a role which I eventually relegate myself to because we' didn't come to play around and have a glass or two. He begins to hover over us around 10:00 PM, making it very obvious he is ready to go whenever we leave.

Then, in a final act of indifference and poor waiting skills, he adds a 20% tip to the entire check, including the price of wine (which was about 150 bucks). First of all, if you're a good waiter, you rarely ever do this - I know, from experience. And if you have done a good job and your table leaves drunk and happy, you may get well over 20%. But fine, if you want to do it, play by the rules at least. 18% is acceptable, and typically, you do not add it on the price of wine. Again though, all of this would have been fine if he had, at any point in the evening, acted like he gave a damn about us, but after the service we got, it was the last straw. I will never return.

Food: Par
I got the rack of lamb and the sauteed calimari. It was unremarkable. Girlfriend got the Veal Noci, and it was decent, although much too sweet. The waiter recommended the special risotto of the night, and one in our party got it - it tasted like overly buttered grits. Not good either.

For some reason, the waiter also suggested we get an order of this entree to put in the center of the table and all share (in addition to our other entrees - I guess he had already decided he was slapping the 20% on) As far as Italian joints go, I would take Venezia's and Vincents over this place any day. not to mention any other Italian place worth a damn.

Value: Bogey
If I pay 30 bucks for lamb, I expect it to be pretty damn good. It was blah.

Atmosphere: Par
Wants to be fine dining. Suffers from poor service. Many of the dishes were buried in sauce. The presentation on all but one of the salads was very weak.

All in all, it got a bogey from everyone I dined with. Unimpressed.

* The views of our guest reviewers do no neccessarily reflect the opinions of the Blackened Out Editorial Staff. However we do appreciate the use of the Blackened Out Scoring System.