Restaurant August, New Orleans

For our Thanksgiving dinner I picked one of the most highly reviewed restaurants in New Orleans that was open that evening. Restaurant August is a John Besh establishment located on Tchoupitoulas Street in the warehouse district.

The building is a historic, 19th century French-Creole landmark. The inside is laid out at three distinct rooms. The main dining room shown below, an upstairs wine room for private parties and an intimate little room off the kitchen called the Gravier room. This is where we sat with only five tables, exposed brick walls and darker decor, it was romantic and cozy. All of the tables in our room were booked this evening with folks celebrating the holiday.

In addition to their seasonal menu, August was also offering a price fixed Thanksgiving tasting menu. We opted to order ala carte off the regular menu. Having had a pretty good amount of food at Manning's during the afternoon we decided to go toned down this time and just order a single appetizer and our entrees.

 

Our dinner started off with an amuse bouche of egg custard with creme freche, truffle, caviar and brioche. We've had similar looking eggs at places like Jean-Georges that made me think I'd gone to heaven. This one was unique in that it was chilled. The flavor profile was nice - you just can't go wrong with truffle and caviar and the custard proved a nice, smooth balance.

The bread they served us was wonderful - really. I don't usually take pictures of bread because, let's face it, it's bread. But these warm little baquettes with whipped cream butter were so, so good.

Our appetizers were the trio of foie gras and the handmade potato gnocchi with blue crab and black truffle.

The foie gras was disappointing. We both expected that "three ways" would be a torchon, a pate and most likely a pan seared or other hot preparation. That wasn't the case. The first one on the left was a classic torchon and very tasty with it's apple marmalade and toasted hazelnuts. The middle was a pate wrapped in an odd choice of layer cake with gelee. It didn't work for me. And the final preparation was a mousse of sorts layered with a custard and crunchy, toasted hazelnuts. This was was an out and out miss. The nuts were way to hard and the custard didn't add anything. The foie gras itself was so far on the bottom that it was difficult to manage to get any bite that incorporated all the flavors.

In contrast, the gnocchi was heavenly. Plenty of crab and lots of cheese and truffle over perfectly made gnocchi and a wonderful cream. Alan didn't love it - he's not a fan of gnocchi usually and calls out obvious flaw - - it's super rich. It's hard to eat a plate even of this modest size. I didn't see that as a problem and powered through. Yummy!!

I should note that with dinner Alan ordered us a bottle of J. Dumangin non-vintage Brut champagne that I really, really liked. It's not one we have often but it's really nice with a classic acid profile that goes nicely with things like bread, truffles, caviar and foie gras.

For our entrees we had the grilled Chappapeela Farms duck breast with gratin of covey rice yams and mustard greens along with a Two Run Farms bone in rib-eye with progress whipped mozzarella potatoes, gremolatta and marrow crust. The potatoes were really interesting if a little hard to deal with since they had that stringy quality of melted mozzarella. My rib-eye was grilled to a nice medium-rare with good flavor. Not exceptional, but what restaurant steak ever is? Alan's duck was just okay though he did like the accompanying side dishes.

Upon reflection, we both thought this was going to be The meal for us on this trip and it didn't turn out that way. Service was okay, not great. We waited far too long with empty champagne glasses - something that doesn't often occur. The food was good (gnocchi, outstanding) but not great across the board. I'm wondering if it had anything to do with being a major holiday? Anyway, we wouldn't put this one high on the list of places to go back to.

Jenn's Rating: 85
Zagat's Rating: 28-28-27

Manning's New Orleans

When you are traveling over a major holiday there won't always be a lot of open restaurants or bars. This was the case for us on Thanksgiving Day. After waiting a stupidly long time at one of the only open places serving breakfast (Camillia's in the French Quarter) for simple eggs & hash browns (never got our order of toast), we scoped out a place to have drinks and watch the afternoon football games.

Lucky for us our first choice, Manning's on Fulton Street was open. If you haven't been and love sports, this is a pretty awesome bar. A big place with tables along one side, more tables in the center of the restaurant up half a level, a few dozen recliner seats down in front of a massive, full wall TV screen (13 feet by 7.5 feet), huge bar and an impressive outdoor patio with another incredibly large TV screen. Besides the two big ones, there are another 30 or so flat screen TVs along every available inch of wall space showing all broadcast games.

The menu is a mix of southern comfort and Creole dishes in the spirit of bar food. We settled into a table with great views of the big screen to catch the second half of the first game -Houston vs. Detroit. We ordered fried, hot chicken wings and the blue crab and spinach dip served with baked focaccia chips. The wings were really good served with a traditional crumble of blue cheese and blue cheese dressing for dipping. Alan's only comment regarding the half a dozen wings on the plate is that he wished there were twice as many. I liked the crab and spinach dip but we were mixed on the focaccia chips...they were in between soft and crunchy which made for an odd texture.

We kept the drinks coming through the first game and by the start of the Dallas vs. Washington match we ordered round two of appetizers. This time I went with a classic Caesar salad of romaine, organic chicken, romano cheese, house-made croutons, olives and a creamy, thick Parmesan Caesar dressing. Excellent salad - great flavor on the dressing! Alan picked the corn-fried Des Allemands catfish chips served with a ravigote dipping sauce. These were fantastic! Perfect little fried bites and a sauce that was thick and flavorful. The catfish was moist and flaky and really good.

We killed about three hours at Manning's that afternoon and the crowd swelled, calmed and swelled again with lots of groups coming in wearing their team jerseys and ordering beer by the bucket. The only downside was that the restaurant seemed understaffed and the service was sketchy. Our empty glasses were not cleared away even as new drinks were being brought out and a general sense that you needed to actively seek out your server if you wanted something. We chalked this up to it being Thanksgiving Day and wouldn't hold it against the restaurant. Definitely a fun place to hang out if you're down there looking for a place to watch sports.

GW Fins, New Orleans

Our first dinner in New Orleans was at a little place on Beinville Street right in the middle of the French Quarter called GW Fins. With a new menu every night to take advantage of the freshest available catch, this is a fish lovers dream come true.

We started off there early to have a drink at the bar. Alan had a Tanqueray martini and I a glass of Belle Glos pinot. My wine as a little too warm but nice flavor. The bartender was a fun, upbeat lady with enthusiastic recommendations about the menu. I knew it was going to be a special evening when she said that whatever I ordered I could ask them to put a sauteed soft shell crab on top!

As you can see from this picture, not a large place. There are less than twenty tables in the dining room (you can also eat at the bar which has about eight seats) in a semi-circular layout. Calm colors, upbeat staff and a comfortable feel, this seems to be both a tourist and a locals hangout.

To start off, I ordered the soft shelled crab done with a simple butter and lemon. The batter was light but with distinctive tastes. The crab was phenomenal - tender and perfect...not too crunchy. I loved, loved, LOVED this dish.

Alan ordered the blue crab pot stickers with country ham and creamy pea shoot butter. YUMMY!! Nicely prepared, lots of crab...awesome sauce of butter and pea. Really, really good!!

Next round, I went with the house specialty, the smoked sizzling oysters served simply with butter and lemon. These enormous shells are heated up to over 500 degrees and the raw oyster put back on the shell right as they are served. This means there is an interesting conflict of raw and partially cooked. Super fresh, excellent texture and clean. Other than leaning too far over the plate and getting a nose full of sizzling smoke (oops) this was a great course.

Alan tried the Louisiana yellow fin tuna tartare appetizer with watermelon relish, avocado, mango, pine nuts and Wasabi cream. Very fresh with a nice combination of melon to offset the fish but also not a knockout dish. A little expected; bland.

For our entrees we both ordered fish. I went with one I'd never heard of before - Drum fish. It was lightly battered and served over creamy, whipped potatoes in a simple butter, lemon style sauce. Drum is a delicate, white fish much like flounder and local to the shallow Gulf waters. It was a nice dish - not earth shattering but good.

Alan tried the sauteed red snapper with shrimp etouffee, Louisiana jasmine rice, lobster butter. This was superb. Great flavor and the combination of etouffee gave it that Creole spin that is different from anything we get at home. I really like his dish a lot.

This was a wonderful dinner - great dishes, fun bar and the service was great (something we'd remember not to take for granted over the next few days). Alan had a cocktail with dinner called a Cancun cooler that he enjoyed quite a bit while I paired up with a Plowbuster Pinot. If we were going back this one would be on my must list. Truly enjoyable evening all the way around and not to be missed.

Zagat rating: 28-26-27
Jenn's rating: 90

Emeril's Restaurant, New Orleans

Alan and I just got back from a four day, Thanksgiving holiday trip to New Orleans. The focus was food & exploration of a new city. The weather was gorgeous and we were able to fit in a lot of dining experiences all around The Big Easy.

The first one, lunch at Emeril's original namesake on Tchoupitoulas Street, was right in the middle of the Warehouse district; just a few blocks up from our hotel. The space used to be a pharmacy and has an odd, interesting decor of exposed metal beams, brick walls, bowed wood ceiling and lots of glass & mosaic work around the open air kitchen.

This was the meal I was the most wary of. We've only eaten at one other Emeril restaurant (Emeril's Fish Restaurant in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas) and it was SO bad that we'd almost written off his places all together. But a strong recommendation by Paul and a desire to see how different (and hopefully better) the original might be, we took a chance.

The menu is a nice size - not so small you feel cornered and not so large that it's like being in a Cheesecake Factory. We were mostly interested in appetizers and small plates and wanted to try a few different things. Along with my sangria and Alan's Creole Collins, we ordered the crawfish pasta and gumbo of the day. The fresh angel hair pasta with Louisana crawfish tails in a Creole cream sauce was fantastic! Rich, full of flavor, unique with the distinctive taste of crawfish generously strewn about - this turned out to be one of the best dishes we'd have on this trip.

Alan's gumbo of the day was chicken and andouille sausage; thick with plenty of rice and smokey flavors. Alan thought this one was the best of the gumbos he tried while we were in New Orleans.

The next course was a salad for each of us. I tried the truffled Gulf shrimp "Louis" with  iceberg lettuce, asparagus, smoked bacon, chopped egg and Louisiana citrus. This was a pretty nice dish...I really liked the creamy, citrus dressing and the mixture of the bacon for salt and vegetables. Where I did myself an injustice was thinking I was going to magically start loving shrimp just because it was in lovely salad. I had a few bites of the shrimp and it was fine, but I'm the first to admit that it's my least favorite food that comes out of the ocean. If you are a shrimp lover, you'd probably really dig this dish.

On the other hand, score a big win for Alan's yellow fin tuna and bacon in butter lettuce wraps with plenty of jalapenos, grapefruit, citrus hoisin and crunchy Asian noodles. This dish offered a fresh bite with a clean flavor and lots of kick thanks to the peppers.

To end the meal we split a sandwich...the BLFGT. Benton's bacon, butter lettuce, fried green tomatoes on brioche with boiled shrimp and a mustard aioli served with sweet potato chips.

This dish didn't do it for me. There was an interesting blend of flavors and textures - the fried green tomatoes are a little crunchy with a significant bitterness; the mustard aioli was up in your face; the bacon was barely there and the lettuce was (not being iceburg) on the wilted/soft side. I'm not saying it was bad...it was just a combination of flavors and textures that I didn't appreciate. It didn't fit my palate well. I'm also not a fan of sweet potato anything and there was a awful lot of the boiled shrimp which as we've already covered, not my favorite thing. So this was just ok.

Our conclusion - Emeril's New Orleans, pretty good! Loved the pasta and the yellow fin tuna wraps and the gumbo was good. The other dishes we'd pass on next time in favor of trying something else.

Zagat's Rating: 26-25-25
Jenn's Rating: 84

Are We Too Cynical?

While this blog was created only eighteen months ago, the fact is I've been tracking restaurants and assigning a personal rating for 15 years now.

Looking back across those ratings I have to ask, have we gotten too cynical? It's been six years since the last time I graded a restaurant experience as perfect...is this because the quality has decreased over time? There was a major recession in there. Is it because we've gotten worse at picking restaurants? Perhaps we've already been to those that are capable of giving patrons a perfect evening of food, wine, ambiance, service and excitement. Or is it in fact that we've grown harder to please over the years of eating at America's greatest establishments. Has the bar been set so high now that perfection is like chasing the impossible dream? I think perhaps, yes.

While I believe we're pickier in selecting restaurants that are supposed to possess the potential to serve up a great meal, there are still so many that just fall short (see blog post for Annisa in NYC). I guess that means the game is changing. Now maybe it's time to stop letting Michelin, Zagat, and the NY Times choose where we eat and start looking in the nooks and crannies of this country for the truly unique, unforgettable dining experiences. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives anyone?

			RATINGS
Year	Reviewed	Michelin	100s	90s	80s	70s	Other
1998	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
1999	8	3	1	4	2	0	1
2000	11	3	0	4	2	3	2
2001	15	7	2	6	6	1	0
2002	13	3	0	3	6	4	0
2003	16	2	0	3	2	5	6
2004	20	5	0	4	3	8	5
2005	44	6	1	5	10	21	7
2006	42	4	2	7	13	12	8
2007	49	3	0	4	25	11	9
2008	101	5	0	8	40	28	25
2009	60	2	0	9	35	12	4
2010	54	7	0	6	23	13	12
2011	68	7	0	9	30	17	12
2012	52	7	0	9	25	17	1
	554	64	7	81	222	152	92

 

RESTAURANT	DATE	LOCALE	CHEF	JENN	ZAGAT	MICHELIN
Daniel	11/6/2006	NYC	Daniel Boulard	100	28-28-28	««
Les Crayeres	10/6/2006	Reims, France	Didier Elena	100	Not Rated	««
Per Se	3/22/2005	NYC	Thomas Keller	100	28-28-28	«««
French Laundry	9/12/2001	Yontville, CA	Thomas Keller	100	29-26-28	«««
Alain Ducasse	6/1/2001	NYC	Alain Ducasse	100	29-28-28	«««
Daniel	8/15/1999	NYC	Daniel Boulard	100	28-28-28	««

Annisa, NYC

For our Manhattan Ladies Dining Club in October we picked Anita Lo's West Village restaurant, Annisa. If you watch food shows on TV you might recognize the name - she's been on Iron Chef America and on Bravo's Top Chef Masters. Between those and knowing that she's got a Michelin star, we figured this was going to be a meal to remember.

The restaurant is small, located on Barrow street. We got there when it opened to be able to have a drink before dinner at the tiny bar. I started with a glass of the Marie-Noelle Ledru Ambonnay Brut Grand Cru as we waited for everyone in our party to arrive.

The bar is on the street level with great views out of full length windows but with only four stools. It's pretty inside with blond woods and soft orange accents. The tables are up a half flight of stairs and there are only about twelve of them so reservations are a must.

We were seated the middle of the dining room at a square table though I liked the looks of the big booths on walls and bet they are more spacious and comfortable. We had a a bottle of sparkling wine off the tiny list ("J" Winery in the Russian River Valley, Brut Rose) that was acceptable but not noteworthy. The wine list has only bottles from female producers which is quite limiting.

We all ordered two appetizers and an entree. It's a small, seasonal menu and with four people we pretty much covered the entire thing. We inquired about the tasting menu but the entire table commits and it's still dishes from the menu so we figured we'd get more coverage by doing it ala cart.

To start off...the amuse bouche was a tartlet with parmesan custard, chives, mushroom and cauliflower puree. A nice first bite; warm and salty and it paired well with sparkling wine so we were off to a good start!

First round of appetizers: two of us ordered the seared foie gras with soup dumplings and jicama served with a reduction. When our polite, attentive server described this dish to us I was intrigued. She said the dumpling held a warm liquid center that would burst with flavor in the mouth and therefore was best experienced as a single bite. Ok...I've got practice eating complex concoctions in a fell swoop so you'll probably be surprised to hear that in this case it was so not worth it! First off, the dumplings were entirely too big to be shoved into the mouth at all once. Secondly, there was no exciting, satisfying burst of liquid or flavor. Mine were on the dry side and very bland. I was disappointed to say the least. But the far worse part...the foie gras was tasteless. Seared foie gras - no taste! How is that possible?!?

Mary & Patty both ordered the crispy tofu dish shown below. Their review was similar, bland. Pretty, but bland.

For our next course I had a simple field green salad with fresh herbs that was fine. Nothing unexpected. I love salad so simple was perfectly ok.

Mary tried the fluke crudo with black lime and radishes. I thought this was the most interesting course of the evening. The fish was fresh and thinly sliced; paired well with the citrus of the lime and the bitterness of the radish. A very nice dish.

Gianne had the barbecue squid with basil and peanuts. A visually appealing dish, the squid was presented in both a battered and un-battered form. When I tried a bite though was when it became impossible to ignore that everything coming out of the kitchen this evening lacked any Oomph. The texture change was the only differentiator in the dish and the peanuts weren't infused in any way. Another miss in my opinion.

Patty ordered a tomato, burrata and onion salad with citrus dressing that was nice. It's impossible to mess up tomatoes if you just leave them alone when they are ripe. This dish was good...simple and good.

 Onto the final course. Someone other than me tried the pork tenderloin with Guanciale, figs and Oca Yams. I don't remember trying this dish or the comments surrounding it.

In a leap of faith moment I tried the frog legs and lobster with white speckled grits and seared okra. I don't know what possessed me to order this dish - something about the grits and okra caught my attention and I haven't had frog legs in a really, really long time. Turned out to be a pretty good call. One of the best dishes of the night. The meat from the frog legs was sparse but tasty in a fried chicken sort of way. The lobster was basically nonexistent but the grits were fantastic. So overall, good...not great.

The final dish is a bit hard to see in this picture (sorry - we did this without a flash so we wouldn't bother fellow patrons). If memory serves me correctly this was the sauteed filet of Copia with caviar, cauliflower and capers.

We skipped dessert, called it an early evening and went uptown to have drinks at a bar near Port Authority. While discussing the meal in the taxi the overall consensus was that we were disappointed. Bland was too common a phrase used to describe the dishes and not at all what we were hoping for. We were turned off enough that we advised the group of guys that were supposed to go there the following week to pick another place - and that's what I'd tell all of you. I'm not sure how our experience was so out of whack with both Michelin & Zagat but there's no way this meal deserved a star or a 28 food rating. You'll do better elsewhere.

Michelin Rating: One star

Zagat Rating: 28-24-27

Jenn's Rating: 76

Portofino, Tinton Falls NJ

Most days Alan and I can't think of anywhere in our area to eat out that isn't take-out pizza. For the most part we drive to Red Bank, Sea Bright. Montclair, Princeton or Bedminster. So it was a nice change of pace to actually remember that there is a small little Italian place nearby that we went to years and years ago and actually liked. Located in Tinton Falls, Portofino Ristorante is a tiny little thing with less than 15 tables and a itsy-bitsy bar in the front.



We picked this one to go to after golfing with Kristie & Mike. We had a reservation and they seated us right away. The menu is fairly standard with antipasti, salads, pastas and entrees - a pretty big selection. But don't get too attached to the menu...one of the amazing things about Portofino is their seriously long list of nightly specials. It's hard to fathom how these attentive and upbeat servers can remember the twenty plus extra dishes that change constantly. But they do! Keeping track of them while you're listening to her rattle them off can be a challenge but our waitress was more than happy to repeat a few for us.

We started off with salads & appetizers that ranged from caprese to steamed little necks in white wine sauce (yummy) and a rolled eggplant in red sauce. Very tasty. We all ordered pasta as our main dish. I selected a very basic penne alla vodka in a light tomato cream sauce that was al dente with a flavorful sauce. Enough garlic and seasoning to be interesting but not so heavy that you felt like you couldn't walk.

Alan ordered a take on carbonara with rigatoni, pancetta and a light cream sauce. Again, not too heavy with nice flavor.

Kristie & Mike ordered a pappardella pasta and what I believe is a veal scaloppine with mozzarella, tomato sauce and prosciutto.

The wine list isn't huge but has some nice selections on it for reasonable prices. The food was quite good - especially for a tiny, local place. We'd recommend it if you're in the area and looking for a casual place.

Zagat: 24-17-20
Jenn's Rating: 82