The Incredible Edible Egg

One of my best friends from college always told me that there is but one principle to live one's life by:

"If one is good, then two MUST be better."

In regard to food, many chefs have tried to uncover all-encompassing augmentation which will improve almost any dish. Unfortunately for them, I have never come across a sushi roll which benefits from being deep fried in tempura batter, a dip in a chocolate waterfall cannot mask the texture of less-than-fresh fruit or dry pound cake, and a heavy shower of creole seasoning or Tabasco only overpowers a flavorless pieces of meat.

But if you add a fried egg to just about anything, you have increased the odds of me ordering that dish by about 50%.  And I must not be the only one easily persuaded by the temptation of a rich, flowing yolk because lately chefs have been supplementing all kinds of dishes with a fried egg. Perhaps it's the inner stoner in all of us that craves some combination of breakfast with just about any other food, but no matter whether I am completely sauced or stone cold sober, the phrase "add a fried egg" is as strong a call for me as the song of the sirens.

Below are four of my favorite dishes in the city which feature an addition of a gratuitous egg*:

• Bayou Banh Mi Special (Geaux Plates) - Owners Henry Pulitzer and Andrew Gomila take their version of the Vietnamese po-boy to another level by adding a fried egg to the combination of lemongrass grilled chicken and boudin.
• Tutto Carne Pizza (Domenica) - The staff favorite features four house cured meats - fennel sausage, bacon, salami, and cotechino - plus a fresh egg cracked in the center of the pie.
• Breakfast Burger - I remember when the waiter used to have to check with the kitchen before he let you order your burger topped with a fried egg, but now everyone's doing it. Capdeville, The Company Burger, Cowbell, and Tru Burger all feature a fried egg as an optional add-on to your burger.
• Pork Lovers Rice Plate (Tan Dinh) - How do you improve on a plate full of chargrilled pork, pork pate meatballs, pork chop, and shredded pork? Top the whole shebang with a couple of fried eggs, of course.

Did I miss out on any eggscellent dishes?  Let's hear about them in the comments.

*There, of course, other dishes in which the egg yolk plays an integral (if not) essential role.  The spaghetti with guanciale and deep fried poached egg at Herbsaint and Green, Eggs, & Ham at Vizard's are two which immediately come to mind. But here I am focusing on those dishes which are great on their own but taste even better with a gilding of the golden lilly.

Winesday

Rene: Rich spice on the nose; get some coffee and dark berry flavors. The tannins are tight and restricted, wound up like a kid on Halloween. This wine screams out for something like rich duck with crispy skin or maybe lamb braised. Let's split the difference and go with the roast quail with steamed buns from Nine Roses. They also have it at Tan Dinh if you cross the bridge today and find Nine Roses closed.

Peter: This baby needs to open up for a bit to let the peppery flavors mellow out. Not much dryness going down the throat from the tannins. I'm thinking something gamey like venison. How about the wood fired goat at Domenica or the lamb neck from Herbsaint.

Joe the Wine Guy: The Numanthia 2007 is made from 100% Tinta de Toro and is both intense and complex with several layers of aromatics in the lively nose: red and black fruits first, then sweet spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and then vanilla and toasted black pepper. On the palate, this wine is expresses dark fruits with concentrated and velvety tannins. This full bodied wine shows exceptional acidity revealing some chocolate, toasted, and spicy notes. The juice was aged in new French oak Bordelaise barrels for 18 months. The 2007 Numanthia retails for $59.99 and you can find it at Emeril's and Cork & Bottle.

Winesday

Peter: Good juice. Easy drinking, with not a lot of tannins. Want to take this to the East, via the West Bank so thinking the Korean style short ribs from Tan Dinh.

Rene: This wine has a deep rich flavor with a strong but not overbearing background of tannins. I get loads of cherry flavor and the richness makes me want something dark, salty, and...why am I thinking chocolate. For that, the Grilled Cheese Sandwich with dark chocolate ganache and triple creme cheese at Stella! will hit the mark. And shoot, why not?

Joe the Wine Guy: The Lost Grape returns! This wine is a 2009 Lapostolle Casa Carmenere, the Casa designation denoting exceptional quality grapes from the Rapel Valley in Chile. The wine is mostly all Carmenere (85%) with a small amount of Merlot from Apalta to bring red fruit flavors in harmony with the spiciness of the Carmenere grape. The nose starts out with black and red fruit mixed with some spiciness and white chocolate aromas. On the palate, great acidity blends with juicy red fresh fruit. This wine is perfect with pastas, pork, and grilled red meat. It retails for $15 and you can find it at The Wine Seller, Oak, and Jackson.

Porktastic

A few months ago, the Parisian Princess forwarded me this article on the 35 best pork dishes in New York. Seeing as the Gulf South's premier porkapalooza will be held this Saturday, I thought that today would be the best day as ever to take stock of some of my favorite pork dishes served in New Orleans restaurants.

Often times we incorrectly connote "best" with "over the top."  Restaurant A's well executed braised pork cheeks can be just as satisfying as Restaurant B's pork tenderloin stuffed with head cheese and topped with cracklins. Bigger is not always necessarily better.

Three weeks ago at Rue 127, I had a juicy double cut pork chop that made me a believer once again in the power of simplicity. Still, I can't deny that I am enamoured with a dish that features pork in multiple iterations, such as the above rice plate from Tan Dinh - pork chop, chargrilled pork, pork meatballs, and the gratuitous fried egg. (Note this dish is not on the menu and was created on the spot as a necessary form of hangover relief.) And the first time we met Chef Mark Falgoust from Grand Isle, he blew us away with his PorkBomb.com, a sampler of so many different cuts of pork that the only thing missing was the oink.

Perhaps I'm just a sucker for overindulgence?  The jury is still out on that one.  But in the mean time, if you ever sit down for lunch at Herbsaint and the waiter tells you about the off the menu special sandwich of a paneed pork cutlet topped shaved ham, please order it without hesitation.

What are your favorite pork dishes around town?

Beef Stew (Bo Kho)

When the weather turns a bit chilly like it is today, my stomach and soul immediately begin to crave a hot, comforting bowl of beef stew. Last year, Cochon Butcher stole my heart on multiple occasions with its version of tender, bite size morsels of beef and potato in a rich, smooth stock with just a hint of red wine in the background.

Unfortunately, I have not once seen Butcher offer its beef stew as a special during this winter season. WTF?!?!

Vietnamese restaurants serve their own version of beef stew, and it's called bo kho. While bo kho includes both beef and carrots just like your momma uses, the beef stock and tomato base is augmented with Vietnamese spices like clove, anise, and ginger. The starch component of bo kho comes in the form of either noodles in the bottom of the bowl or a couple of toasted loaves of banh mi to be dunked into the stew. The finest exemplar of bo kho that I have tasted comes from Tan Dinh, which uses multiple curries to create an intoxicating and delicious gravy. I used to be high on Pho Tau Bay's version, but I was served a tepid and watered down bowl on my last visit.

Unfortunately, the stew meat in Tan Dinh's bo kho is frustratingly tough and served in large chunks which cannot be pulled or bitten off into more manageable pieces. If the gravy was not so delicious, I wouldn't bother. Your best solution is to not be shy and take advantage of the fork and knife graciously brought out by your server.

I have requested a substitution of duck for beef in the past, but the waitress shot me down. One augmentation I have been allowed though is to add beef tendon to the stew, which may have been the greatest idea since Al Gore invented the internet.

Tan Dinh Style Oysters

Well, the first swing at the 2010 Challenge completely fell on its face.

Tan Dinh's chicken wings have a lot going on. There is the crunch of the crust, the garlic infused butter, the juice of the chicken, and the acidic pop of the lime, salt, and black pepper sauce. The combination of flavors works so well on poultry, that I wondered how it would do on other foods. I needed something crispy, and immediately fried oysters came to mind.

The results however looked and tasted more like failure than success. First off, the 50-50 blend of all-purpose flour and cornmeal did not create the thick crust the oysters needed. The oysters were soaked in buttermilk for a few hours prior to dusting them in the mixture, but alas, still not a thick enough crust to block the sauce from invading. Secondly, using coarse ground corn meal proved to be a huge mistake. The hope was to create a thick, crunchy crust, but the grind on the cornmeal just made it seem like you were eating pebbles.

To make the sauce, I juiced four limes, mixed in some salt and pepper. To this, I added some clarified butter that had simmered with crushed garlic to make a butter sauce. It didn't really work - the sauce separated, and despite being cut with sugar, the limes were too acidic.

After frying the oysters, the drizzle of sauce over them caused the oysters to become a soggy flabby mess. Next time, instead of a loose sauce, perhaps a thick lime and garlic aioli would work.

Back to the cutting board. So armchair cooks, what would you have done?

Chicken Wings

I have a secret that I am going to share, but you must promise not to tell anyone. The best chicken wings in the New Orleans area can be found at Tan Dinh. Just look at these beauties. Here's how they do it. First, the wings are dusted in flour and fried golden brown, which produces a thin but crispy coating. Then as soon as the wings come out of the fryer, they are sprinkled with minced garlic. Lastly, you choose your dipping sauce: a thin lemongrass syrup or (our favorite) a tart mixture of melted butter, salt, lime, and crushed black pepper.

If I were Buffalo, I would be very scared.

You can order the wings either as an appetizer or your main course, but I strongly suggest sharing a plate of them to start the meal. That way you still have room to sample the remainder of Tan Dinh's extensive menu. For a superb version of a classic, try out the extra thick egg rolls, which are the antithesis of the frozen ones found elsewhere. For something new, how about the shrimp paste wrapped around sticks of sugar cane. Get both on top of a bowl of vermicelli, add fish sauce and sambal, and thank me later.

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Tan Dinh - Birdie

Tan Dinh

The Westbank is the best bank when it comes to Vietnamese cuisine. Last weekend The Folk Singer and I tried out Tan Dinh for the first time. Located on Lafayette Street just off the Expressway, Tan Dinh confirms the centuries old belief that only good things are found in strip malls.

We started with the requisite shrimp and pork springrolls, which were HUGE.

Then the offbeat grilled pork paté rolls with "crab sauce" in the background (an order inspired by the dread pirate). When these arrive at your table, you might think, "That paté looks a lot like SPAM." It's not. I did not think that grilled flavor came through, but I did like the little hidden strip of fried goodness which provided a nice contrast in texture. The crab sauce is different. It is sweet, but not in the same way as peanut sauce. Looking back, maybe the sweetness comes from the "crab" aspect.

I had the Korean style short ribs with sticky rice and kimchi. The ribs were slightly sweet and fatty and tender. The was my first experience with the sticky rice - mixed with coconut milk, pressed into patties, and then fried till crisp. "Vietnamese hashbrowns" as TFS likened them to. The kimchi was fine but nothing special.

TFS had pho with brisket and pork meatballs (which we could not really capture a decent picture of). The meats fished out of the large bowl were perfectly fine, but the broth was pitifully bland.

Tan Dinh - Birdie overall, but avoid the pho.