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.

Weekend Breakfast: Stanley

After less than a year in the working world, I have officially morphed into one of those people. You know, the ones who say, "My body is so accustom to waking at ___a.m. during the week, that I can't sleep late on the weekends anymore." I used to loathe these individuals, interpreting their early-to-rise ways as underhanded disapproval of my wasting away the weekend in bed. And now, I have becomes one of them.

In the words of Michael Scott: "If that's not poetic justice, then I don't know what is."

One of the few benefits to waking up early on the weekend is beating the brunch rush. Let's be honest: If you are expecting to waltz into Russell's Marina Grill or Surrey's at 11:00am on a Sunday and immediately be seated, then more likely than not you are still drunk from the night before. But at 9:30, usually the wait for a table is minimal (if any at all).

Such was the case at Stanley (on Mother's Day at that), where the Folk Singer and I stood outside in Jackson Square for a brief 5 minutes before our name was called for a table. We wrote about Stanley for OffBeat a while back, but it's been that long since I have eaten there. Not much has changed, and that's a good thing.

I'm still partial to the Breaux Bridge Benedict ($12.50), as the combination of boudin and hollandaise is just too rich to pass up. Poached eggs are orbs set high atop french bread rounds, and a stroke of a knife sends yolk slowly oozing downward like lava from a mountain top. The thin squares of smoked ham scattered around the plate raise the pork quotient even higher, but they're relegated to an afterthought.

The cornmeal crusted oysters in the Eggs Stanley were excellent - golden brown and crunchy on the outside, with a soft interior that exploded with the taste of the sea. Luckily for me, The Folk Singer does not eat oysters, and there is no "classic" benedict on the menu - though I'm sure you can order one by special request.

But you know what I like most about Stanley? The location and windows onto Jackson Square allow you to sit back and watch the Quarter slowly arise from its slumber. You will see everything from tourists rushing to catch an early morning flight, Captain America on his way to Royal Street, and a morbidly obese man sitting shirtless on his Royal Street balcony and drinking a cafe au lait.

Hopefully your eyes avoid that last image until after breakfast.

A Different Kind of Diner

In this month's issue of offBeat we reviewed Stanley, Chef Scott Boswell's "traditional" diner in Jackson Square. Our latest visit was much improved from our first back in February, and the menu is pretty solid from top to bottom. The gumbo is a hybrid version full of oysters, shrimp, andouille and chicken. A perfect start to a meal now that the weather has begun to turn.

For everyone out there who has trouble deciding which sandwich to order, I give you the po-boy sliders. From front to back: Club Stanley, Korean BBQ beef with kimchee, and fried oysters with remoulade and cole slaw. Who cares which one is best? You get to eat all three.

Half of the menu comprises breakfast/brunch dishes which are served all day long. The above Breaux Bridge Benedict could also be dubbed "The Hangover Cure" - toasted french bread topped with boudin and cheese, perfectly poached eggs, and a generous ladle of hollandaise. It almost makes that 6th hand grenade sound like a good idea.

Prices are in line with the French Quarter, which is to say higher than you would expect. But the food which comes forth is well polished and has an attention to detail often absent from similar establishments. Some might call Stanley the "poor man's Stella!" We just call it good.

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Stanley - Birdie

Stanley?

Let's get one thing straight. It was not an easy decision by Peter and I to write this piece. We went to Stanley recently with the intention of writing about it for OffBeat. However after our meal at Stanley, Scott Boswell's tribute to the American diner/lunch counter, we were left with more questions than answers. Stella! certainly deserves that exclamation point, but Stanley is just a conundrum. So here goes our attempt at some constructive criticism.

To start the space is beautiful. Exposed wood beams, white walls, marble table tops, a white tiled soda counter blocking an exposed kitchen all make for a pleasant environment. Plus, it is right on Jackson Square which heightens the ability to people watch and gaze.

From left to right a Pomegranate, Blood Orange, and Blackberry Italian Sodas. They tasted like a melted snowball, which was passable for the citrusy blood orange and the tart pomegranate, but cloying for the blackberry. A little less syrup and a bit more of the soda could turn this into quite a refreshing drink, especially come summertime.
A kitchen sink gumbo with andouille, shrimp, and oysters. Believe it or not, you can make a roux too dark. And the oyster and shrimp both suffered the same fate as the roux. Gumbo served in such a beautiful location by this talented of a kitchen staff should not suffer from these errors. Addition by subtraction here: less time cooking the roux and ditch the seafood unless you can add the oysters mere seconds before the dish is served.
An Eggs Benedict Poboy. This dish tasted fine, it tasted great actually. And the concept sounds Einstein-esque in theory. But then you realize you can't eat a po-boy with a poached egg on top of slippery ham lubed up with hollandaise. So you are forced to eat it with a knife and fork. The top of the bread becomes useless and you are left wondering, "Why make it into a po-boy? This would be better served as Eggs Benedict on Rounds of French Bread rather than an English Muffin..."Which brings us to our next dish.
The Breaux Bridge Eggs Benedict. French bread rounds topped with boudin, a poached egg, and hollandaise. A very rich dish, but if I was hungover this would hit the spot. Good level of spice offset some of the heaviness of the (over) poached egg and the hollandaise. We liked this.
This is almost a travesty. A $17 Korean Bar B Q Beef Po Boy with Housemade Kimchi. The beef is just more scared by the flame than cooked by the heat. Also, there is more meat on a supermodel than on this sandwich. The kimchi is spicy and flavorful, but paying $17 for preserved cabbage on a piece of French bread seems well, silly.
Delicious. An old fashioned, perfectly made, thick as thieves strawberry milkshake. And I think this is where Stanley's market should be. As we ate we saw a few burgers and reubens pass by the table. They looked delicious and well made. We also ordered some fries-albeit frozen-and onion rings that were very good, if not addictive. A remark about the fries. Herbsaint, Luke, La Boca, Boucherie, etc... all make house cut fries. We, as diners, have been spoiled. Stanley should offer house cut fries.

Service is not very fine tuned, but it is the first month. However, if you are going to have an ambitious menu the service needs to be better prepared to deal with customer questions. Also, it should not take fifteen minutes to get a credit card slip returned.

We really hope Stanley takes off. But there is no need to reinvent the American Diner. Serve those seemingly delicious burgers and fries, some patty melts, and cheese fries. Keep the egg dishes, but don't feel the need to add po-boy to the end of them to make them authentic New Orleans. If you want a beef po boy, than give my old friend Roast a call. Make this place seem like a French Quarter version of Camelia Grill. You do that and a customer base will never be a problem.

Let's face it, this spot is a perfect location for both locals and tourist alike. If you can offer a few solid classic New Orleans dishes for the ambitious traveler or devoted local and a good burger for the boring conventioneer from Beaumont and the picky kid, how do you lose?

Or just ignore everything we have said as at the end what the eff do we know?