YatCuisine

www.zearestaurants.com

I had a craving for a red-beans-and-rice Monday, and since I was in Metairie, I went for my fave in the neighborhood, Zea Rotisserie and Grill.

The best red beans I've ever eaten in my life were from Buster Holmes' place in the French Quarter. They were what the late Dr. Collin described as "platonic"-an example of a dish that is as close to perfect as you can get. Chef Buster's red beans were sold as a full-blown meal, with a piece of fried chicken, or a pork chop. Just wonderful.

Zea's red beans plate (platonic), with a link of andouille sausage and a fried chicken breast are the closest to Buster Holmes' that I've found. Yes, others make great red beans, but Zea approaches platonic. Apologies to the kitchen for modifying the plating of the dish. They didn't set it up so the chicken looks like flapping wings. The chicken was nicely tented over the beans. While it was practical for getting the dish from kitchen to table, the arrangement blocked the beans.

That's not your ordinary Hubig's pie. Look closer:

HU-DAT!

(h/t to Ryan for finding this first)

The backstory:

Last week, I was working on a poll, "who has the best king cake." A couple of folks pointed me at previous polls, and one thing I noticed was that one of the choices was regularly "Randazzo's." Now, back in the day, you either had to work with a Chalmatian, or you were making a pilgrimage down to Da Parish to get a Randazzo's king cake. These days, it's a bit easier, since there are four bakeries claiming a piece of the Chalmette legacy. So, I through the issue out to Da Twittah: Is there any significant difference between the Randazzo's king cakes?

The response was immediate and passionate--YES. On that note, I added the four places as individual poll choices. About this time, Chris Johnston (TechChris.com) suggested we do a blind taste test of the four to see what people really think.

Wow, that was almost a serious analytical task. Can't be too serious, of course, since it involves king cake, but Chris was on to something. Tweet-up!

Since this was a serious, analytical, scientific task, we needed a serious venue. So we gathered in a comic shop. Thanks to Jason and his staff at BSI Comics for letting us use the upstairs! This area is where BSI has Friday Night Magic and other tournaments. In fact, three of our tasters were the guys already up there, playing a board game.

We had four king cakes in the taste test. I picked up three of them, and Greta got the fourth.

The four king cakes were from:

Manny Randazzo's in Metry
Dianne Randazzo's in Harahan
Nonna Randazzo's in Covington
Randazzo's Camellia City Bakery in Slidell

The three from Metry, Harahan, and Slidell looked almost identical. The fourth, from Nonna Randazzo's in Covington, had those little round, hard-candy sprinkles on it rather than the purple-green-gold sprinkles the other three had.

Before anybody got there, Kev (my kiddo) and I got our three unwraped and set up. When Greta got there, I made everyone turn around as we slipped it into position.

King Cake #1 was Manny, #2 Camellia City, #3 Nonna and #4 Dianne.

The comments were interesting! The general consensus was that there was little difference between #1 and #2. The Nonna Randazzo cake was the obviously different one, because of the sprinkles. The main difference observed between the Dianne Randazzo cake and #1 and #2 was that Dianne cake had a more profound cinnamon taste.

Of course, there was one comment that all four king cakes had too much icing. This is a common complaint about Randazzo-recipe cakes, and one that we fans of the recipe immediately reject.

The results:

The only person that knew the order of the cakes was my son.

Thanks again to Jason for hosting the gathering. It was fun to meet a bunch of y'all!

And don't forget to get your 'DATMAN shirt:

Lucky Dog wagon on Bourbon Street

Lucky Dog stand at MSY, Concourse "B" (home of Southwest Airlines in NOLA)

Nonna Mia Cafe & Pizzeria
3125 Esplanade Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70119
+1.504.948.1717

nonnamia.net

Nonna Mia Cafe and Pizzeria, site of our most recent tweet-up, is participating in tonight's "Night Out for Haiti" in New Orleans.

You can start out with a Limonata Iced Tea - a glass of Iced Tea with a scoop of Italian Ice. I had Raspberry, and @bsicomics had the classic lemon.

While making your choice of entree, you can munch on Bruschetta Bella Napoli (left), or Nonna Mia's Divine Portobello (right). If you're lucky, you'll get a photo of the dishes before someone like @NOLAnotes devours them. :-)

For your entree, enjoy the Manicotti Quattro Formaggi (my choice)

or perhaps the Lasagne (@NOLAnotes' choice)

Or maybe you can talk them into making the Four-Cheese Ravioli that was the special when we went (@bsicomics' choice)

Not looking for a big pasta plate? @charlotteAsh will gladly recommend the "Prima" panini, containing artichoke hearts, goat cheese, caramelized onions, fresh spinach and mozzarella cheese with garlic sauce.

You'd prefer a pizza, you say?  Check out the pizzas me and kiddo had on our first trip to Nonna Mia.

Be sure to bring someone with you for dinner--the Tiramisu is a big portion for dessert!

Go out, enjoy a fun evening on Esplanade Avenue, and support Haitian relief. Tell Kathleen and Marsha the #nolatweetup gang sent you :-)

Not craving Italian?  Check out the New Orleans Night Out For Haiti page on Facebook for some other possibilities.

by way of full disclosure, we'd like to thank Kathleen (@nonnamiaNOLA) for treating us to the Limonata Iced Teas and the starters. Grazie! :-)

Cafe Navarre
800 Navarre Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70124-2708
(504) 483-8828‎

Heather Riccobono calls Cafe Navarre "a po-boy sandwich place, but a little nicer,"* and that's a great description. For years prior to the storm, 800 Navarre was Weaver's, a classic New Orleans po-boy place. It's where you stopped on the way to a high school or Legion ballgame around the corner at Kirsch-Rooney ballpark. Weaver's didn't come back after the storm, and Riccobono (who her dad Vincent considers to be an unlikely restaurant owner), along with a couple of partners, opened the place as Cafe Navarre.

Cafe Navarre is becoming one of my regular spots. It fits well with my schedule and middle-of-the-day plans. I fully expected to get a roast beef po-boy on my first trip there, but ended up getting a Cuban sandwich, on pressed pannini bread. It was wonderful! Got the roast beef on the next trip, and this most recent outing was the cheeseburger po-boy you see above.

There are mixed opinions on the hamburger/cheeseburger po-boy. Some folks will argue that there are enough good burger places around (Bud's, Lee's, Port of Call) that there's no reason to get a burger po-boy. I see it a bit differently. Even some of the best burgers are served on boring buns. A burger on French bread is a tasty experience.

And Cafe Navarre does it well. In addition to a good po-boy and pannini sandwich, I love their fries. They're shoestrings, of a quality on par with the Plastic Arches. Hot, crispy, and tasty.

Cafe Navarre is on Navarre Avenue, between Canal Blvd. and Marconi. If you're out near WYES or City Park, consider them for lunch.

*Read Da Paper's 2007 profile of the Riccobonos here.

UPDATED: Changed time to 6PM on Wednesday. Response for lunch was too weak.

I was reviewing the results of an on-line poll taken last week about king cake bakeries. The poll offered a number of choices, but only one that said "Randazzos." So, when working up the Yatbazaar King Cake Poll today, I put the question to my Twitter followers, was it OK to just lump them all together?

I got resounding NO answers from partisans of the four bakeries:

Manny Randazzo's in Metry
Dianne Randazzo's in Harahan
Nonna Randazzo's in Covington
Randazzo's Camellia City Bakery in Slidell

So, I listed them all.

This prompted Chris Johnston to suggest that we should have a blind taste test to see which is best. Never ones for passing up an opportunity for a "Tweet-up" (much less king cake), the idea rapidly caught on.

So, here we go:

Twtvite Info Here.

Who: The NOLA-Tweetup bunch
What: Blind Taste Test of Randazzo-recipe King Cakes
When: Wednesday, 3-February, 6pm - 8pm
Where: BSI Comics, 3030 Severn Avenue, by Da Mall in Metry
Why: c'mon, it's king cake, need you ask?

Teriyaki chicken or pork is tasty, but the New Orleans palate often looks for that little bit of kick, even in Asian/Asian-fusion dishes. I've often put down a good coating of Creole Seasoning on chicken breasts prior to browning them, then applying a teriyaki sauce. No more of that with Prudhomme's San Francisco Teriyaki sauce. It's got that little extra spicy to it. My kiddo has fallen for it totally.

Green Goddess
307 Exchange Place
New Orleans, LA 70130-2224
(504) 301-3347
www.greengoddessnola.com
Foursquare: http://foursquare.com/venue/166983

I made a lunch date to meet a friend last week. Friend lives in Da Quarter, so they picked Green Goddess, in Exchange Place. I'd never been, but had heard about Chef Chris DeBarr's place for months, so it was a great idea.

Exchange Place is a neat little three-block alley between Rue Chartres and Rue Royale that connects Canal Street with Rue Conti. It's quite romantic and relaxing.

(more after the jump)

This is an event sponsored by Brother Martin High School--eat, enjoy, support!

Click the link above to download the PDF of the invitation. Bring that with you to Semolina on Monday so BMHS gets credit for your meal. Thanks!