Huevos Brunch

Huevos Benedict.

A long, long time ago, before there was Crescent Pie & Sausage and Pizzicare, Bart Bell and Jeff Baron's first joint venture was Huevos. The breakfast specialist actually served as a Plan B strategy for the duo after Hurricane Gustav caused the collapse of the TV/VCR repair shop that they were renovating for Crescent Pie & Sausage. Featuring a creative menu that benefited from a judicious use of Bart Bell's charcuterie, Huevos was a hit from opening day, and rightfully so. But after a long renovation, Crescent Pie & Sausage eventually opened its doors and garnered the full attention of the two chefs. Then came Pizzicare and more responsibility. Eventually, it was decided that Huevos would close its doors and make way for a retail market.

But like Lazarus, Huevos has risen from the dead, popping up every Sunday for brunch inside Crescent Pie & Sausage. The menu remains much the same, except for one important addition: booze, a necessity at any proper New Orleans brunch. Try the house bloody mary - a concoction of Cathead Vodka, Zing Zang, and  a splash of Lazy Magnolia's Jefferson Stout.

On some days your meal may start with an amuse bouche of bite-sized beignets covered in powdered sugar. For those with a bigger sweet tooth, check out the angel food cake french toast or the chocolate and caramel covered turtle pancakes, an often recurring special. An incarnation of the Blue Jay Special, a/k/a the "Huevorito" is still on offer, but the best chorizo-filled dish on the menu is the Huevos Benedict. Triangular folded crepes filled with pimento cheese form the perfect landing pad for spicy pork sausage patties which are topped with poached eggs and then finished with a drizzle of red pepper sauce, a sprinkle of jalapeno-spiked pico de gallo, and a scoop of guacamole on the side. It's a hell of a way to start your Sunday, save for the fact that the entire plate is a bit small in terms of portion size for a hungry eater, so don't forget to add a side of black beans or potatoes.

Although the kitchen can run into trouble with consistency (over-poached eggs and a failure to season all components of a dish), the return of Huevos is a much appreciated addition to the Mid-City brunch scene. And with a 3:15 kickoff for the Saints-Giants game, Huevos fits right into this week's Sunday schedule.

Huevos - Par/Birdie
4400 Banks Street
(504) 482-2426
Sunday Only: 9am - 2pm

Weekend Breakfast at Huevos

It's going to be another beautiful weekend in New Orleans, and with the mercury rapidly dropping this may be one of your last opportunities of the season to enjoy one of life's great pleasures: breakfast outdoors. While a courtyard in the French Quarter or Garden District may be a quintessential New Orleans setting, the sidewalk on Banks Street is probably my #1 choice for a no frills, roll-out-of-your-bed-and-throw-on-a-pair-of-jeans kind of breakfast, with great food to boot.

What makes breakfast at Huevos special is that the kitchen utilizes the meats and sausage that Chef Bart Bell makes at Crescent Pie & Sausage next door. As such, carnivorous concoctions make regular appearances as daily specials. Take the Brisket Hash ($10.50), where chopped brisket, cubed potatoes, caramelized peppers and onions form a base for poached eggs and a drizzle of spicy aioli. The everyday menu features The Blue Jay Special (aka the “Huevorito”), which is the best $5 breakfast in town. A large tortilla stuffed with eggs, cheese, and spicy housemade chorizo, paired with a mug of Try Me Mills coffee. There is even a newly added Veggie Blue Jay Special for this who choose not to start their day with red pepper laden pork sausage. (Such a choice is incomprehensible to us, but we respect your decision.)
 

The Breakfast Sandwich has thick cut bacon and eggs on a crusty ciabatta roll. The accompanying hashbrowns are addictive with their crispiness from the flat top grill and sweetness from sautéed red onions. The namesake Huevos con Tamal is a trifecta of tamales stuffed with shredded pork, covered with a smoky, smooth tomato sauce, and crowned with two poached eggs and fresh pico de gallo.

Delicious.

As I have said many times before, weekend breakfast should involve great food without the pomp and circumstance. Huevos fits that description to a T. The menu is short, but there is enough variety to please a crowd. In my many visits, the only recurring hiccup that I have encountered is slightly overpoached eggs, though not to the egregious level of some other breakfast specialists around town. Even taking this into account, for my money, Huevos is one of the best breakfasts around.

Huevos - Birdie/Eagle

4408 Banks Street

(504) 482-6264

Open everyday from 7am till 2pm

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.

We Live To Eat Friday: Part II

The entries keep rolling in, so send yours along. This week we get a bite at Crabby Jack's, a one two combo of Cochon and Boucherie, and this weird, cryptic day. Vote away, pals. And hey, if you are in a voting mood, how 'bout voting us the #1 Blog in New Orleans?

The Turpenator

My ideal feasting day in New Orleans:
Breakfast - Manhattan Omelet at Camellia Grill (a/k/a the "Crack Omelet").

Lunch - Po-boys at Crabby Jack's.

Snack/Cocktail: Beers at Avenue Pub along with guacamole and chips from the restaurant within it, J'anita's.

Dinner: Any of the shredded meat delights at Cochon.

Brother O'Mara

I'd head out as early as possible to Huveos on Banks to get myself a plate of their huevos con tamal. Nothing beats pork tamales and eggs for breakfast, and their coffee's decent. However, even though they have a few sweets in the case there I'd have to go over to Angelo Brocato on Carrollton to get something truly tasty. No gelato, still too early in the morning, but something from their pastry case (like a prussian, mmmmm) and some espresso to wash it down would be fantastic.

For lunch, as soon as I would be able to eat again that is, I'd head down to Domilise's on Annunciation. There's a lot to be said in the debate about the best fried shrimp po-boy, but for my money nobody does it better than they. Obviously I'd have to have a Barq's to go along with it, because I think God cries if you eat a fried shrimp po-boy without drinking a Barq's.

After all this I think I'd have to go lie down for a while, but I would make certain to get up in time to make it over to Cure by 5PM, right as they opened. If I have time before my dinner reservations, I'd order a Ramos Gin Fizz, something soft to sit and sip for a minute. If things are rushed, I'd grab a Nervous Light of Sunday, the perfect palate-opening drink, a delightful combination of gin, grapefruit, and magic.

Dinner would have to be at Cochon, because their ham hock haunts my dreams. I find it almost impossible to visit and not order that incredible mass of soft succulent pigflesh. It doesn't appear on the table instantly, though, so the boucherie plate would have to hold me over until that ham hock graces me with its presence. The flavors are rich and slightly smoky and wonderfully complex, so depending on my mood I'd either get something from the southern Rhone or some fuller-bodied Pinot Noir to accompany it.

As if I hadn't put enough miles on my car already, I'd head out for a late-night dessert at Boucherie just off Carrollton. I know Cochon has some killer desserts but one thing they don't have is Krispy Kreme bread pudding, and that's what I'd be craving. I'd have to drive slowly, though, to make sure my stomach had time to deal with all that dinner.

To finalize the night I would honestly head home and pour a shot or two of Amaro on ice and sit and sip that while I waited for my body to stop hating me for all the abuse.

And Finally, a Rambling Entry from McLovin

5am snack: F&M's - The cheese fries and enough booze to kill a horse.

7am: Slim Goodies - I forget what it's called, but it's something like the Mexican Slammer.

Lunch: Radosta's - I usually get their catfish poboy.

Dinner: Crepe Nanou (if I'm paying) / Clancy's (if someone else is) - Crepe Nanou: mussels and/or the spinach and crabmeat crepe (i think those are the two most cliche things on the menu). I haven't been to Clancy's since before my brother-in-law became a part of the family so I'm not sure what I'd get. LOL...haha.

PS - My mom thought she was so cool that you wrote about Meauxbar and she saw you there!

PPS - I get free drinks at a bar up at school because the bartender actually thinks I'm McLovin... haha.

EDIT: Blogger Polls are down and working about as well as government. So for now, just leave your vote in the comments or come back later.

Da Incredible, Edible Egg

An egg is proof that animals and their embryos were meant to be eaten. Fact: did you know that the pleats in a chef's toque (50) signifies that the person wearing the toque knows how to cook an egg 50 ways? You can thank me later for this useless trivia.

Back to the star. Cooking with eggs requires nothing more than a heat source and an idea. One of my favorite ways to cook them is en cocotte. Which is French for "in the bathtub with a bottle of wine". It is a very simple way of cooking. Butter the inside of a ramekin, maybe sprinkle in some bread crumbs, crack an egg in the ramekin (do not whisk, just leave it be), top with some cream, and bake at high temperature for little more than10 minutes.

This simple presentation lends itself to thousands of variations (use left over red gravy and top with parmesan, ham and bechamel, etc...). For this version, the explosion of flavors from Huevos serve as the guidepost. But all of them, when cooked properly, turn out firm whites with gooey yolks that are perfect for scooping up with some toasted bread. Or serve it alongside a nice salad for a different midweek lunch.

Eggs en Cocotte with Green Tomato Salsa and Mozzarella

Preheat an oven to 400 degrees.

Butter the inside of a ramekin. Crack an egg and place inside ramekin. On top of the egg carefully spoon a layer of your favorite green salsa. Then place on top some torn fresh mozzarella. Finally sprinkle some oregano on top and a healthy pour of olive oil.

Bake at 400 degrees for around 12 minutes. Digging in with your fork, you get this delicious, herbaceous cheese layer, then the spicy salsa, and finally a perfectly cooked runny egg.

Enjoy. And we will see you around the bend. Have a good Easter.

Huevos

Usually when I go out for breakfast on the weekend, I have two criteria: 1) somewhere casual enough so that I can wear shorts and sandals, and 2) a menu whose ambitions reach further than something I could have easily whipped up myself at home. I'm not looking for Brennan's, but I don't want to be limited to egg and cheese on an English muffin either.

Huevos on Bank Street meets both of these criteria. This is the brainchild of the guys who are opening Crescent Pie & Sausage Co, one of whom also owns the Dough Bowl next door to The Boot. (Can I get an amen for 50ct. Night? Amen.) The above photo displays 75% of the menu, so if none of the above gets your stomach growling then you might want to try somewhere else. However, there are usually a few daily specials, one of which if you're lucky might be...

Angel Food Cake French Toast with blackberry/strawberry sauce and fresh whipped cream. This had everything in classic french toast flavor except in much lighter form. Great dish, and I hope for your sake they keep this special coming back.

The Folk Singer had the Huevos Rancheros with refried black beans, eggs, corn tortillas, sliced avocado, and an acidic laden fire-roasted tomato salsa. Not gonna lie, I would have liked more food on the plate for $7.75 (perhaps some chaurice), but I have been told that this opinion stems from my proclivity for gluttony. Next time I will go for the Huevos con Tamal, which looked right up my alley.

But the best option on the menu is perhaps the Blue Jay Special (aka "The Huevorito") filled with house made chaurice sausage, egg, and cheese wrapped in a tortilla. Unfortunately this breakfast on-the-go does not photo well, so I don't have a picture. But as the only published New Orleans food writers who are actual graduates of Jesuit High School, we could not leave it out. Grab your accompanying cup of Try Me Coffee Mills to go, put on your name tag, and you'll have enough fuel to make it through loading the coke machines during PH.

Huevos - Birdie