Whew

Well, that was an interesting weekend.

Hopefully you had a great weekend filled with frivolity, relaxation, and remembrances of the veterans who make three day weekends possible. Our weekend mainly revolved around NOWFE, watching the Pope get grounded by Mary Magdalene, and a trip to La Boca that ended up rolling into a three hour wine fueled discussion on education reform. Or maybe it was Mario Kart.

Couple of weeks ago, prior to a Dorignac's shopping run, Lindsay and I ducked into Cyrus Restaurant for a quick bite to eat. This is always advisable before making groceries lest you come home with a strange assortment of hunger induced miscellany. We expected nothing more than basic Mediterranean melting pot cuisine. Instead we found a restaurant worth your time and marked by fresh ingredients, bold flavors, and exquisite technique. But don't take our word for it. Actually do.

Cyrus Restaurant - Birdie

612 Veterans Memorial Blvd.

309-2477

Lunch: Tues-Sun 11am-3pm

Dinner: Tues-Thur 5:30pm-9pm; Fri-Sat till 10pm

Sauced

Around this time every year, the cooks of the Deep South begin closing their kitchens for the summer. The majority of your cooking should take place over the slowly burning coals of your grill until the cold returns in October. You can use your kitchen to cut veggies, make a salad, or slice fruit, but other than that, abandon the oven.

As you grill, smoke, and 'cue this summer, keep in mind that no matter what anyone says, good barbecue sauce makes anything taste better. Uncle Lee Bird's Cajun Zing Sauce is great barbecue sauce, so do the math. What you will really like about the sauce is the heat from it blasts away the initial sweetness. So you get that heat creeping up the back of your throat thing, which is much preferable to say strep creeping up the back of your throat.

I've had this sauce on pork butt (made by Lee and Nikki Mouton) at Hogs for the Cause. The way the sweetness and heat played off the smoky, fatty meat and pungent blue cheese slaw was enough to make me a convert.

But then I tried it on a half chicken that I had marinated in yogurt, roasted in a smoking oven, and then placed on the grill. The resulting chicken had incredible tenderness, a skin that felt shellacked, and a juicy interior.

The sauce works equally well on burgers, but I would be careful to make sure you only baste it on at the last minute, or else the sugars in the sauce can cause it to burn quickly.

This is good sauce made right here and well-tuned to the New Orleans palate. Find it here, and let us know what you use it on.

Perfect Barbecue Chicken

For this recipe I borrow from the Indian tandoori tradition by marinating chicken in yogurt before blasting it in a super hot oven. Then place it over indirect heat on the grill and baste on some sauce. Cover and let the smoke do the work.

I have a simple Weber grill, so to smoke things I place the coals on one side of the grill and the food on the other. The vent hole on the lid goes over the food side and remains open. This causes air to move in a current (or something like that).

Take one chicken cut up. Rinse and pat dry. In a large bowl combine 2 cups of plain Greek style yogurt, a hefty pinch of salt, pepper, and paprika, and 4 minced garlic cloves. Stir to combine. Taste, adjust seasoning. It should be very aggressive. Into the bowl, add your chicken pieces and toss. Place in fridge and allow to marinate for 2-24 hours.

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Remove chicken from marinade bowl and place in a roasting pan. Do not remove the marinade. Place in oven and roast for 45 minutes. After roasting, place chicken on grill, baste with Zing Sauce, place cover on grill, and come back in fifteen minutes. Serve with cold beer (or if Mary Magdalene isn't around, rosé).

Fish Fridays - What to Drink

"Do you ever drink beer or real liquor?" Mary Magdalene asked, "'cause writing about wine is for pansies."

"Yes. I love beer and hooch."

"Ok. If you were going to have a cocktail what would it be?"

"Well, if it is cold maybe a sazerac, but if it is..."

"Ha. I knew it, you are a pansy. A sazerac, you believe that Cathy? That's not a real drink," Mary informed me.

Mary may have a point. Writing about beer or snorting vodka (an experience you only need to do once) makes the act and writer seem pretentious because (1) everyone knows how beer tastes and (2) if you need a recipe for a screwdriver that is pathetic.

In South Louisiana, boiled seafood is tailor made for beer. The spicy, fatty deposits of meat in crawfish, shrimp, and crab just make beer happy and vice versa. One of my favorite beers for this is just plain old Bud Light or Miller Lite. Low alcohol and cheap means that you can drink about a gallon of it before and after the cops show up.

Now if you want to go a little bit higher end, you should try the Southern Star Bombshell Blonde. First off, I love blondes. Secondly, this beer comes from Texas where they know a thing or two about craft beers and blondes. Also, the beer comes in a can and is unfiltered. So you get this yeasty, refreshing beer with a creamy body that is never skunky. Cork & Bottle has it for sale in a convenient six pack form.

Of course picking up a draft pack of NOLA Blonde, Brown, or (my favorite) Hopitoulas would make you the guest of honor at any crawfish boil.

Finally if you want to drink "a real drink" as per Mary Magdalene, pour yourself some gin into a tall glass with ice, top it with an orange twist, and enjoy.

What do you like to drink with seafood?

So. Many. Po-Boys.

We are still digesting the onslaught of po-boys that we consumed yesterday at the Po-Boy Preservation Festival, but a quick recovery is needed with the Thanksgiving marathon of eating coming up on Thursday. We ate A LOT of po-boys yesterday (too many to recount, in fact), and there was a whole bunch of non-po-boy related fun that is also worth mentioning. So here's a photo diary of our 7 hours on Oak Street. Pictures courtesy of The Folk Singer and Mary Magdalene's camera.

As you probably already know, we were asked to serve as judges for the po-boy contest. The luck of the draw sent Rene to the roast beef table and myself to the seafood (non-shrimp) table with Lorin Gaudin. I don't know if that gig qualifies as us "celebrity judges" per se, but at least one person didn't think so, as is evident from this conversation between a curious woman watching The Folk Singer snap some action shots:

'

Random Woman: What celebrity judge are you taking pictures of?

The Folk Singer: Haha, just my boyfriend.

Random Woman: (Silence evidencing disappointment.)

The Folk Singer: But Robert Peyton is up there.

Random Woman: Oh my God! I love him!

There were plenty of non-conventional po-boy options, including the sukiyaki po-boy from Little Tokyo.

Here we have the "Extra Special Peacemaker" from Palace Cafe. What made it "extra special" was the addition of brie fondue to the combination of fried oysters and shrimp. It didn't do it for me, but others liked it.

The lines for Dong Phuong's banh mi were some of the longest at the festival. After finishing our judging duties, I joined in the queue for one of my own. While waiting, a friend tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Man, you really love that Vietnamese, don't you?"

'

You know it.

The "Shrimpzilla" from New Orleans Hamburger & Seafood Company.

Crescent Pie & Sausage Company was doling out bratwurst po-boys with saurkraut. By the way, their restaurant is now open for business, so check it out.

Mrs. Clara Cvitanovich of Drago's fame was one of my judging partners for the contest, and then she was at her restaurant's booth passing out trays of piping hot chargrilled oysters. And in case you were wondering, Mrs. Clara's favorite po-boy is roast beef.

There was even a po-boy second line.

Here we have the shrimp caminada po-boy from Grand Isle.

There were two music stages setup as opposite ends of the festival. Here is a shot of NOLA's own MyNameIsJohnMichael performing on the Carrollton Stage.

Dessert: fried bread pudding po-boy from Ye Olde College Inn.

'

Does anyone have any antacid?

Oktoberfest

June 15, 2007: A group of law school friends and I arrive in Munich via overnight train from Paris. It just so happened that our trip coincided with what was purportedly "Munich's 100th Birthday" - though research has since disproved this fact. Anyway, that Saturday a festival was held in Marienplatz where rows and rows of picnic tables were set up, sausages were grilled, and many a beer was drunk from glass beer steins. The weather was beautiful, the beer was cold, and we were collectively introduced to the radler (a delicious combination of pilsner and lemon-lime soda). It was glorious.

Fast forward to last weekend when Rene, Lindsay, and I attended what could be the final Oktoberfest celebration held at the Deutsches Haus. The weather was a bit cooler than it was that June weekend in Munich, but the spirit of the celebration was much the same. Every man, woman, and child (and there were quite a few of the latter) seemed happy to be inside the Deutsches Haus celebrating for no reason at all, which may be the best reason. No radlers were available, but there was still plenty of beer, including this delicious Spaten.

The food was much better than that of the Hofbräuhaus. Sausages were a plenty, with the bratwurst being the obvious crowd favorite. Dinners include a main dish (stuffed cabbage above), your choice of sausage (there is a brat hiding back there), and 2 sides (potato pancake and sauerkraut). The food in the main dining room is served cafeteria style, so it may not be as hot as you would probably like it. But there's still no doubt that everything, save the sausages, are homemade.

Here is a plate of beef roulade, knockwurst, warm potato salad, and red cabbage. If you asked me what the best choices were, I'd say stick to the sausages, though the schnitzel would be great if you can get a fresh one from the fryer. (All photos courtesy of Mary Magdalene's fancy camera which I conned her into loaning to me.)

This weekend marks what could be the end of an era. Chances are that the Deutsches Haus will be gone by next October. As a tribute to the many men and woman who volunteer their time and make Oktoberfest possible, why not send out the grande dame on Galvez with a bang.

Like you even needed a reason to do the chicken dance.

P6

The summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school was one to remember. Armed with newly laminated drivers licenses, our "own" cars, and money from our first "real" jobs, we relished in an enormous sense of independence not yet seen before those times. But for me personally, those 3 months will forever be linked with the "Summer Slam."

The Summer Slam was an ongoing card game among a few friends at the home of The Pope and his parents, Mary Magdalene and The Bald Eagle. The game of choice was Shanghai Gin, a multi-player, every-man-for-himself version of your grandmother's card game, except that this variation encouraged outward disdain and ruthlessness among the competitors. We played for money, of course, because as Mary Magdalene so eloquently put it: "If you don't play for money, then why play at all?" We even had a "Summer Slam Standings Board" which was posted every week in order to facilitate ridicule of the biggest loser. The Pope always won. Shocking.

These card games would sometimes go for 3 or 4 hours, so naturally the players got hungry. Eating during the Summer Slam was an event in and of itself. We were ravenous in our teenage years. Typical snacks included: ice cream with crused Oreos and Hershey's chocolate syrup, Fritos Scoops with french onion dip, Chips Ahoy Deluxe cookies, gigantic bags of Ruffles potato chips, and much, much more. To this day, MM loves to tell how her grocery bill during those months was pushing $500 per week. It was gluttony at it's worst. Mary Magdalene would go to Meme's and request special orders of Blue Bell from Carlo the manager because apparently Triple Chocolate is a tough flavor to find.

Every week or two when The Pope's parents were feeling generous, they would spring for a massive takeout order from Chinese Tea Garden on Filmore Ave. As long as someone would fly, then they would buy. But there was one very important prerequisite for picking up the food: one had to be skilled in negotiating with the cashier for containers of the special house hot mustard and sweet 'n sour sauce (as opposed to the little packets). This was a huge ordeal at Chinese Tea Garden; you might as well have been asking if you could use Tiananmen Square as the site for your next beer pong tournament.

There were other rules surrounding this Chinese Tea Garden ritual. All of the food was communal and everyone was required to share except for The Bald Eagle, who was allowed to dine on his beloved tong cho pork without any risk of interference by others. Once The Bald Eagle was finished, the leftovers were up for grabs; and when this happened we would be stabbing each other with plastic sporks to get to the few remaining morsels.

I loved tong cho pork. On the menu, it was listed as "P6," and friends of friends who would visit our little card games started calling me "P6 Petie." (Some of them still call me P6 to this day. When one couple was pregnant, they joked that the newborn would be called P3, i.e., half of a P6.)

What was so great about P6? Well, the base of the dish is battered and fried chunks of pork, so that's a good start. But then the crunchy nuggets are coated in a sweet and spicy sauce flavored with onions and green peppers. From what The Bald Eagle tells me, the tong cho sauce recipe was developed by the Wong brothers at Trey Yuen.

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago. On a lonely night with no craving in my belly and no companion to eat with, I decided that the time had come for my reunion with P6. So I phoned in my order to Chinese Tea Garden - which was reopened by the same family after Katrina - and drove down Filmore to pickup my order. I neglected to ask for the large containers of sauce. When I got home and plunged into that styrofoam container of sweet/spicy/crunchy porkiness, it tasted just like I remembered, and I was 16 again.

Unfortunately, this time there was no Triple Chocolate to be found in the freezer.

For Lunch Today...

Foreword: I wrote this blog entry a while back, but Rene and I thought it best to delay posting anything on Mahony's until after our article in OffBeat was published. We made this decision in the interest of our newly found journalistic integrity. Whatever that means.


The Pope absolutely loves onion rings. I don't think that I have ever known him to pass up an opportunity to start a lunch with mile-high pile of those golden rings of goodness. But I never knew where his hankering for fried onions came from until a recent lunch date with La Papa's Mama, Mary Magdalene ("MM").

MM was kind enough to procure us a few extra tickets to the LRA Food Service Expo, and I offered to buy her lunch as a sign of gratitude. We decided to try Mahony's Po-Boy Shop on Magazine just off Louisiana. The place is run by former Rio Mar Sous Chef Ben Wicks, who obviously has had some great training under Adolfo Garcia.

The po-boys are solid, and you have a few unconventional options for fillings. The richness of fried chicken livers is offset well by the acid and crunch of shredded coleslaw. The meatballs are covered in fresh buffalo mozzarella (where else is that possible?), and the cochon de lait is porcine perfection on french bread.

But the onion rings alone are worth a visit - thinly shaved onions, lightly coated, and then fried crisp to order. MM proclaimed these rings as the best in the city, and she would know. The french fries are also fresh cut and fried to order. If I wasn't such a carnivore, I would get the french fry po-boy (with cheese and brown gravy, of course), and then ADD onion rings to the sandwich.