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At the Blackened Out Hedge Fund Annual Planning meeting, a decision was made to use today to write a menu for the Saints second Super Bowl. Instead of that joyous post, here is a guest blog from Bloggle. 

The amuse bouche from Meson, which opened in 2010 as a highly ambitious restaurant.


I've eaten in plenty of restaurants. To bastardize an already cheesy phrase from Jon Bon Jovi (or is it Plato) "I've seen a million (restaurants), and I've rocked them all."  I've seen the highest of highs and the lowest of lows and every time I leave a restaurant I feel that I've learned something new as a diner, a new experience to file in the catalog of a gustatory hobby.  However, this past Saturday night all of that came to a screeching halt when I had the most confusing and bewildering restaurant experience of my life.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, whether to run screaming or look for the hidden cameras.  Indeed it was an experience that made me question what makes a restaurant and why we in the hell we even dine out.


Meson 923 began a few years back as one of the most exciting new haute cuisine restaurants in the city, with a sleek modern look and a menu to match.  I dined there maybe a half-dozen over their existence and was duly impressed by the effort of the chef each time.  Sadly, though, those days are gone, those chefs have moved on and the issues behind the scenes over there are now well documented.  Meson 923 had its run, but now it's over.  


Or so we thought.  It appears as though the building's owner has decided to take the reins and run the restaurant on his own.  I've seen that movie before and it never has a happy ending My wife and I went on the suggestion and invitation of some friends, with a warning of what we might be facing.  Experienced diners all, we said "What the hell, what's the worst that can happen?"  


We walked into the still tony dining room, still with its sparse minimalist tables, sharply designed chairs, and noticeable lack of wall coverings (we did not, however, fail to notice the addition of a brilliantly lit pair of neon signs in the window, one reading "Open" the other, "Steaks").  


It still looked like Meson 923, until we realized there was no one to greet us, other than a pair of people at the bar who looked more like they had gotten lost on their way to the Corporation Bar on the opposite corner than they looked like they worked in this (or any) restaurant.   Confusion on this staff's part ensued when one of them tried to sit us in the dining room,  the other insisted instead on separate tables in the bar area. The brief tete-a-tete thankfully had swift and happy ending when we were finally sat all together at the same table.  Unfortunately, it was the last moral victory of the night.


Some places have servers with bling, others have service with a smile.  Understandably, not every restaurant has the happiest of servers, some places even pride themselves on the rudeness of their staff.  This place however, eerily had none of the above.  A third staff member emerged after we were sat and approached our table.  When we asked if he was our waiter he said in his best Steven Wright deadpan "I can be." 


Immediately came the question "What kind of dressing would you like on your salads?"  We  asked about things like, say, menus and a drink list, he brushed that off by saying they don't have a menu and the chef is going to cook whatever he wants to anyway.  He then followed up his question again a little more brusquely "What KIND of DRESSING would you like on your salads?!"  


That night, Thousand Island, Blue Cheese, Ranch and Oil/Vinegar (at right) were the institutionalized choices you got on a bowl of very roughly cut, sub-par Romaine lettuce that looked like it was purchased from the ill-fated Suda Salvage Discount Grocery Store and chopped with a pocket knife by Cub Scout Troop 1923.  I nibbled on a sad, flavorless tomato and wept inwardly thinking about the succulent Barrileux Farms creoles I had picked up that morning at the farmer's market.  It may have crossed my mind to ask if the restaurant had a corkage policy for tomatoes.


The salads are not your only pre-entrée choices.  Immediately upon us sitting down we were bombarded with a plate of thickly buttered and grilled hamburger bun bottoms that looked like they were buttered by Paula Deen having a biggest dick contest with the American Heart Association. (above)  It was explained to us that this amuse-bouche was on the house. 


Thankfully we were well stocked with wine in tow, and as luck would have it someone suggested we bring our own glasses, since the place didn't seem to have any of those either.   


Now it was time to order.  The roadie crew from the Molly Hatchet '83 World Tour that sat us was gone, as was our original server.  A fourth staff member emerged to inform us the menu choices were three cuts of steak and two types of fish.  The steaks were to be grilled with salt and pepper, the fish only with lemon and salt.  No sauce, no alternative preparations.  Nothing.  When asked if my redfish would be grilled the answer was "I'll tell the chef, but he's going to cook it however he wants to cook it."  She repeated that same answer when one of our party ordered their Rib-Eye cooked medium.


We asked about sides and the answer was "we'll send out what we have", which turned out to be black-eyed peas (undoubtedly stirred with a salt-lick), plain baked potatoes, and a bowl of spinach and mushrooms.  If the array of sides weren't all canned then whoever thought to present these items as fresh needs to be beaten with a rolled up copy of Gourmet magazine and have his nose shoved in that insipid bowl of salty mush parading as black-eyed peas.


Entrées arrive and unfortunately my fish was poached, but then again, fortunately it wasn't Redfish.  I thought about inquiring further about what happened to the Redfish but backed down when I saw the chef appear to be yelling at someone in the kitchen.  To the kitchen's credit the fish was fresh, and a dining companion said the NY Strip was well cooked, but so what?  I can grill a steak and boil a piece of fish with lemon and salt at home. 


As we trudged on, we began to discuss the thorough lack of anything that resembled a structured staff combined with such a rudimentary menu.  We pondered that maybe the "secret" menu was an attempt to duplicate a Charlie's Steak House.  This was when I when I started questioning what makes a restaurant.


By this point we were all deep in the glass and the effort to suppress our giggle reflex became increasingly moot.  The suggestion by the server that they were washing some more silverware so we could eat drew snickers, the serving of side dishes on tea plates drew slight chuckles, after asking for a napkin and seeing the arrival of a roll of paper towels a full guffaw ensued. 


Thinking we were on the finish line of paying and getting out of there alive three very large pieces of pie showed up.  Apple, something else, I'm not certain.  To be frank, I did not eat the pie.   It could have been the best pie ever made by the hand of man, but I sure as hell wasn't touching it.  The claim was the pie was made in house.  Actually that's unfair, it could have been made by mom, if mom works at Sysco. 


By this point I was so bewildered and so beside myself that I was going to have to pay money for this train wreck of a meal, to pay for such an unmitigated disjointed experience that was so disproportionate in its ineptitude to the beauty of the room in which it happened, to pay money to someone that so obviously could not care less about the experience he provided that I began to question I put forth earlier: 


The experience of art is unique and singular.  Maybe the experience I had last Saturday night at the former Meson 923 is a grand joke, an artistic statement against the mores of fine dining, a voice behind the curtain telling us that we're full of shit by taking restaurants too seriously.  If that were the case it would be the finest example of performance art I've ever seen.  Unfortunately there was obviously no intent for it to be.  Whether this new owner is trying to create the next Crescent City Steakhouse or just trying to keep the doors open until he can offload the place to the next wide-eyed entrepreneur remains to be seen.  Either way it was a miserable failure, intended or not.

Despite a premature end to the Saints season, the Super Bowl is still being played on Sunday against our protesting. Not only does the day feature a contest between the two best teams in the NFL, armchair quarterbacks all over the country will be competing among themselves as to whom gain the most weight during the game. The annual clash on the gridiron demands that you consume copious amounts of processed cheese food, an entire bag of Fritos Scoops, a 12 pack of beer, and half of a king cake, all while patiently waiting to see if any of this year's advertisements will eclipse the genius of the E*Trade monkey commercial or if Madonna's top will fall off during the halftime show.
Photo by renee b. photography.Or, instead of eating your weight in French Onion dip, you can live large by grilling up a selection of the finest meats from Rare Cuts. Hell, open up a nice bottle of wine and make a wager on the coin toss while you're at it. The end of carnival is just around the corner, and as we discuss in this month's Dining Out column in OffBeat Magazine, there is no better time to indulge in a premium cut of meat, and no better place than Rare Cuts to find that perfect piece of beef... or lamb... or pork... or veal... or chicken... or duck... or quail... or lobe of foie gras. They even have 100% all beef hot dogs for the kiddies.

Photo by renee b. photography.We promise that Owner Henry Albert is much less menacing than he looks in this picture. Just don't touch his meat clever. (No, that is not a euphemism.)

Rare Cuts
801 Nashville Ave.
(504) 267-4687
Mon-Sat: 10am-7pm; Sun: 10am-5pm

NOLA Brewing will unveil its 2012 edition of its spring fling seasonal beer, Flambeau Red Ale this Saturday. To do so, NOLA has organized a bar crawl through the French Quarter. And hey, if you are going to pick a weekend during Carnival to go into the French Quarter and drink, this is it. The festivities kick off at 1 p.m. at the R Bar. Then at 2:30 the Krewe du Brew heads over to Balcony Music Club; at 3:45 they head next to Turtle Bay before finishing up at Molly's at the Market.

Of course, that should leave you good and lit up for the Krewe du Vieux parade, which rolls through the Quarter Saturday night. This being New Orleans and Carnival, this is a costume party. The theme is Mardi Gras on Fire. To help you with your costume selection, here are some fiery suggestions:

• Fire on the Mountain
• Fire on the Bayou
• Its Like Sex on Fire
• Fire and Rain
• Set Fire to the Rain
• Slutty Nurse on Fire
• Naughty Santa on Fire
• Slutty Catwoman on Fire
• Slutty Devil on Fire
• Fire Ant
• He's on Fire, for you NBA Jam fans
• Presidential Candidate on Fire, for you political junkies
• Future Plastic Surgeon on Fire, for the Pre-Med in your group (Tip: have a sign offering free breast exams)
• Robert Peyton on Fire, for the Pre-Law or Pre-Blog in your group
• Fire Fighter, for the MMA fan
• You're Fire'd , for the annoying guy who thinks he does a great Trump imitation

Feel free to leave your favorite fire related costume in the comments.

a heavy bottle of red wine brought up from the cold basement in a basket of white laundry William Carlos Williams

Welcome to the last Cooking With Wine. Studies have shown that people with the name Anonymous absolutely hated this series, while the rest of you just seemed to tolerate it. But that is ok. I enjoyed it and until and unless this jobby starts making us some serious money, the guiding principle around here will be if we enjoy it, we do it.

Mad Max's last selection is another from the Highway 12 portfolio, this time the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine is 100% Cabernet, with a dark, intense color providing the foreshadowing for dark berries and soft French oak nuances. The silky mouthfeel gives way to aggressive tannins - this is a big, bold wine. Which is why, with final chill of winter in the air, it seemed the perfect time to make a hearty beef stew. The wine retails for around $20, and you can find it at Swirl, Sylvain, Theo's, Dick and Jenny's, and Elio's.


Oxtail and Beef Stew

Braising gives the occasional cook a margin of error wider than he headwaters of the Mississippi. For this beef stew, I like to use two cuts of beef- the gelatinous, sticky oxtails and what is commonly sold as beef stew meat. The oxtails allow a rich, lip smacking sauce to develop while the beef stew meat provides enough tender, shredded meat to go around the table. I like to use bacon grease as my lipid of choice, mostly because bacon is the new black this award season.

Preheat an oven to 300 degrees.

In a large dutch oven, heat enough oil or bacon fat to coat the entire pan in a quarter inch layer of lipid. Meanwhile, pat the oxtails and beef stew meat dry with a paper towel. The dryer you get the meat, the better the sear. The better the sear, the better the stew. Coat the meat with salt and sear in batches until well browned. Once browned remove from heat.

After browning all the meat, toss in an onion, two celery sticks, and two carrots, all coarsely chopped. Sweat for around eight minutes. Then add, a tablespoon of tomato paste. Let this color - you are looking for a dark rust color. Once the roots are rusted, add some salt and pepper, a bay leaf, and a few sprigs of thyme. Now add one whole bottle of decent red wine. Bring to just under a boil, return the meat to the pan, cover, and pop in the oven.

You want to cook this for about three hours or until the meat of the oxtails falls off the bone easily. It is better to overcook here (hardly possible) than undercook. Meanwhile, trim a two cups of green beans, cut them in half, and blanch in boiling, salted water. When done, plunge in ice water. Once cool, drain, and dry on paper towels. Now, peel and slice two carrots into half inch thick rounds and treat just like you did the green beans. Finally, slice some mushrooms of your choosing and saute on high heat in a well buttered pan. Once browned, add in some chopped garlic, salt, and pepper. Stir and remove from the heat.

I want you to remove the meat from the braising liquid. I realize this is sort of time intensive, but it is worth it. Then strain the braising liquid and reserve. (The leftover detritus of carrots, celery, onion, and shreds of meat is best with a sprinkle of chunky sea salt and eaten on crisp rounds of crusty bread or by the spoonful.)

Now, combine the meat with the strained sauce, the green beans, carrots, and mushrooms, and warm through. Taste. Adjust seasoning and serve in a big wide bowl. I topped mine with a gremolata - a fine dice- of preserved lemon, parsley, and garlic.

The moment of reckoning finally arrived in sixth grade. The science fair. Every grammar student's (and parent's) worst nightmare. In the world which existed before wikipedia and google provided the solution to every problem, choosing a science fair project took hours of thumbing through encyclopedias and multiple trips to the public library to browse through periodicals for ideas to steal. And to raise the level of competition just a bit higher, the science fair was the only school project where it was both acceptable and expected for the parents to actively participate. Figuring out who had a doctor for a parent was simple - just look for the kid whose science project was entitled "A Thesis on the Causes of Chronic Pulmonary Problems in the Post-Industrial Era."

After 4 months of painstaking research, internal debate, and much procrastination, I finally decided on the subject of my science fair project approximately 36 hours before the deadline. "Natural Dyes" was the title. Basically, I made coloring agents out of different plants and wrote up a few blurbs about how the natural stuff was just as effective as synthetic paints. Remember what I said about parents assisting children with their projects? Yeah, well when I was in sixth grade, my Mom worked in sales for an upholstery cleaning company. A PhD was not required to understand that a coffee stain is, for all intensive purposes, a stain for life.

I never cared much for science class, and I did not win an award for my opus on the power of natural dyes. (I  believe that the first place ribbon went to 1 of the 15 geniuses who discovered that baking soda + vinegar = volcano eruption). However, one factoid I will always remember from my science project is this: Beets will stain your fingers for about 8 days if you are not careful. But it never really occurred to me that those blood red root veggies might actually be worth eating.

My first experience with beets as food occurred on a trip to Piccadilly, an episode which caused me to suffer with PTSD for the better part of a decade. In the last few years though, I have come to appreciate beets as a delectable delicacy, and lately there has been no shortage of opportunities to indulge. I would guesstimate that close to a third of the ambitious restaurants around town serve a dish which matches sweet roasted beets with a salty cheese. There is the roasted beet bruschetta with goat cheese at Sylvain, the burrata and beet salad at Herbsaint, and the beet and ricotta ravioli at Meauxbar. The popularity of the combination is a testament to it's success, and all of the above are delicious and worth ordering.

One of my favorite uses of beets was at La Petite Grocery, where Chef Justin Devillier used chilled roasted beets and thinly sliced pickled onion as a foundation for cold crabmeat salad spiked with horseradish. Just a phenomenal dish, whose flavors touched upon sweet, sour, spicy, and richness. Unfortunately, that dish is not a part of the current menu at La Petite, but I see that you can still get your beet fix with a salad also featuring arugula, toasted pecans, local citrus, and cane vinegar.

It probably comes as no surprise that my current favorite beet dish in the city comes from the kitchen of Alon Shaya at Domenica. The winter vegetable pizza: roasted yellow beets and carrots scattered with a little goat cheese upon that ethereal crust which just keeps getting better every time I try it. Simple and sublime.

So where are you getting your beet fix?

French fries at The Delachaise.Wine bars are an anomaly to many people, including myself. We want our lives to be easily defined and compartmentalized, and most wine bars are neither. So when deciding where to go for dinner on a Friday night and someone suggests The Delachaise, the next question is usually: "Is that a bar or a restaurant?"

To me Delachaise is a bar, although one that serves excellent french fries. The long, narrow space which widens as it progresses further away from St. Charles streetcar tracks reminds me of a wine bar on Isle St. Louis or in the Marais. The decor is raffish - stools and benches with unsecured cushions, plywood underneath the bar, and stacks of wine crates impeding traffic to the restroom. On the wall behind the bar are chalkboards listing every food and drink offering, while Christmas lights illuminate the rest of the room. It's charm is in its imperfections.

The Boz sandwich. Most are familiar with the story of how Chef Chris Debarr gained a cult following for serving creative and unexpected dishes from the tiny kitchen at Delachaise. Chef Chris has of course moved on to The Green Goddess, but his legacy is still evident in the eclectic menu where Moroccan chicken tagine lives comfortably alongside smoked Salmon johnny cakes and an upscale grilled cheese sandwich.

Even though the Delachaise is a bar, you can still eat dinner here, and I almost always do. The most daunting task between you and dinner may be securing a table when it's crowded, and it almost always is, as I learned on a recent Wednesday night. The best strategy is to divide and conquer. Dispatch one or two members of your party to the bar to secure a bottle of wine and glasses while the rest scope out the lay of the land and try to figure out where to sit. Once you have secured seating, head back to the bar to order food. After taking your order, the bartender will ask where you are sitting, you will point to a general area, he will nod his head in affirmation, and somehow your food always safely arrives at your table. I am always paranoid that instead of table numbers the servers employ colorful descriptions such as "guy in blue oxford who outkicked his coverage."

Flank steak bruschetta.The menu offers plenty to snack on if your main motivation is imbibing. I thought the $16 cheese plate was a tad expensive but really enjoyed all of the selections in the trio as well as the accouterments of spiced pecans and thinly sliced apple. The french fries really are excellent. Fried in goose fat (though that flavor was lost on me), the crispy fries of medium thickness and varying length are served with a malt vinegar aioli and spicy satay for dipping. Don't be surprised if you find yourself digging into the bottom of the wax paper cone to fish out the last one. For carnivores, the trio of flank steak bruschetta ($10) is a good choice, though the quality has varied. On one visit, we were presented with overcooked beef overpowered by the Peruvian garlic sauce. A week later, the same dish featured perfectly cooked wide, rosy red slices of beef double stacked upon bread smeared with the perfect amount spread.

Gnocchi with pork ragu.Those hungrier souls can partake in more conventional menu selections. Perhaps a daily special of large, soft (maybe too soft) gnocchi was topped with an acidic pork ragu and griddled manchego, which was an unnecessary addition. An everday choice of twice cooked pork was crispy, but a little dry, which made the orange mojo sauce a nice touch. Sandwiches include the Boz, a rich trio of St. Andre cheese, Tuscan ham, and arugula on ciabatta. The Anabella grilled cheese is even richer, but a dip in the tomato soup - not too sweet or too spicy, with a mellowed acidic taste - helped balance the flavors.

The bar has a very deep wine list, including 58 selections by the glass and $5 daily wine specials - 1 red, 1 white, and 1 sparkling. Unfortunately, none of the reds offered by the glass and very few of the reds sold by the bottle are temperature controlled. This is a personal crusade that I will continue. If you paid $55 for an entree, would you be mad if it was served luke warm? The same standard should apply to wine.

Service is usually a point of contention when discussing The Delachaise. I will admit that the manager/bartender with the French accent can be rather brusque and unpleasant, although I have not seen him express that attitude toward patrons who lack a Y chromosome. All of the other staff though have always been friendly, helpful, and accomodating. And after a rather snarky exchange at the bar one night, Frenchie and I shared gratutious words on the patio as he helped bus our table. Forgiveness is a virtue.

While rereading this post before publishing, I asked myself: "It seems that you could not say one good thing about Delachaise without mentioning an aspect which you did not care for." And that may be true. But the most important question is this: Do I enjoy myself while there? And when it comes to grabbing a glass of wine, a bite to eat, and maybe sitting outside when the weather is nice, Delachaise is one of my top choices in the city.

The Delachaise - Par/Birdie
3442 St. Charles Ave
(504) 895-0858
Open Daily 5:00pm till

 Or something like that.

For a while there, a visit to the Crescent City Farmer's Market at the American Can Company was a mainstay on my weekly calendar. Usually by Thursday, the cupboards and fridge were running a little bare, and a quick trip to the market to pick up something to cook and a bottle of wine made perfect sense. For one reason or another, those visits waned in frequency before ultimately stopping. Which reminds me, I need to start doing that again.
Tomorrow at the Mid-City location of the Crescent City Farmers Market, Andrew Zimmern and Poppy Tooker will be demoing shrimp etouffee. Their delicious dish will be available with a donation to the Crescent City Farmers Market Community Programming Fund. The fun starts at 3 p.m. More info in an officially looking statement. 

• What: Join James Beard Award-winning TV food personality Andrew Zimmern of the Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern" and MSN's new "Appetite for Life with Andrew Zimmern," and WWNO "Louisiana Eats!" host Poppy Tooker as they cook up shrimp etouffee for the crowd at the Mid-City location of the Crescent City Farmers Market (3700 Orleans Ave, in the parking lot of the American Can Apartments) Thursday, January 26, beginning at 3pm. Tastes of the authentic New Orleans dish will be given in exchange for contributions in any amount to support community programming at the Crescent City Farmers Market. Watch Zimmern and Tooker shop for ingredients directly from local farmers and fishers at the market, then learn how to make the iconic dish. The free event will be recorded for an upcoming episode of the new MSN web series "Appetite for Life with Andrew Zimmern" and Poppy Tooker's "Louisiana Eats!" radio program on WWNO 89.9FM.
• Who: Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern" & WWNO's "Louisiana Eats!" Poppy Tooker
• When: 3:00-5:00pm, Thursday, January 26th, 2012
• Where: Crescent City Farmers Market, 3700 Orleans Ave., in the parking lot of the American Can Apartments
• What: a cooking demonstration and sampling of shrimp etouffee during a taping for MSN's new web series "Appetite for Life with Andrew Zimmern" and WWNO "Louisiana Eats!" interview with Zimmern and host Poppy Tooker; samples will be given in exchange for contributions in any amount to support community programming at the Crescent City Farmers Market.

The dish which made Paul Prudhomme a legend: Blackened fish, here drum, with crabmeat. 
The first cookbook I ever received was Chef Paul Prudhomme's Pure Magic cookbook. It came, as I can remember, in a box with a set of four Magic Seasonings Blends. This may seem like a strange Christmas gift for a twelve year old, but I was a strange twelve year old. That cookbook got a heavy workout for the next few months and the Magic Seasonings went on everything. As you are no doubt aware, Prudhomme is a giant in the American food world. He is largely responsible for making the cuisine and techniques of Southwest Louisiana household recipes. It is to his credit, or blame, that restaurants around the world serve Cajun chicken breasts and blackened tofu.

The restaurant which vaulted him to fame, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, is located on a hidden-in-plain sight block of Chartres Street, across the way from the Louisiana Supreme Court. A call last Friday afternoon, yielded a table for two in the upstairs of the restaurant, tucked away into a corner, and located near one of the large windows. The menu is large, a relic of culinary history, with descriptions that run longer than a Kenyan marathoner. The room is largely brick and ornamented with the artwork of George Rodrigue. There is a well-studied wine list and a good vibe in both dining rooms, as comfort and dining meld together.
First up, the bread basket. Yeast rolls, a cornbread, a jalapeno yeast roll, and a molasses corn bread were sufficient, but the molasses one was difficult to chew- either stale or overcooked, we couldn't discern which. Chicken and andouille gumbo is as good as you would imagine: dark, rich, and chock full of the namesake ingredients. Perhaps better was Lindsay's greens and ham soup. The broth had ceased to be liquid and transformed into a thick porridge of delicious greens. The hambone brought to the soup a well-needed dose of salt. This was delicious soup - too bad we have only had three days of proper soup weather this winter. 
If time machines were legal, I'd like to travel back in time and stop whoever convinced fine dining restaurants to serve salads with dressing on the side. This is such a waste of lettuce and more importantly, their creamy, potent green onion dressing. Until Congress makes time machines legal, restaurants please stop doing this. It kills the salad, resulting in greens that are either overdressed or underdressed. And finally, anyone who orders dressing on the side ends up eating the whole damn ramekin anyway.
After a wait long enough to notice that enough time had elapsed between courses, a runner ran out two plates of food to the table next to us. They looked suspiciously like our order. After a few moments, the couple remarked to one another, "This doesn't look like what we ordered." Sure enough they had received our order. Imagine two tables in a restaurant furtively looking for a waiter or bus boy to alert them to a mistake. Then imagine about five more minutes elapsing before someone comes over. Than imagine, a waiter simply taking the plates off one table and putting them onto your table. If that happens at Parkway, ok. But with entree prices in the mid thirties, there is a level of service one expects. Unfortunately, these sort of things can derail a meal.


As for the entrees, nothing was bad. Except the mashed potatoes on Lindsay's plate, which had the texture of wallpaper paste. They had cooled by the time they got to our table, the butter and starch of the potatoes turning into glue. Lindsay's blackened drum was delicious and moist, but with a less than acceptable smattering of crabmeat. My paneed rabbit was well-seasoned and crusty. A touch dry, a sauce would have gone a long way to making that dish sing. Another element of the plate, jambalaya suffered the opposite fate. I have never had Creole sauce on jambalaya. Perhaps it is some traditional accompaniment. Perhaps I am out of my element, but on the jambalaya, it was a disaster. We each got the 1990's medley of sauteed vegetables, but nothing wrong with that. 
The waitress attempted to make up for the entree screw up by delivering a jar of Magic Seasonings Blends with the check. But by then, my mind was made up. Paul Prudhomme is a legend, a great deliverer, interpreter, and ambassador of Cajun culture. His books and products are wonderful and a welcome addition to your collections. His cooking shows are a downright pleasure. But, a trip to his restaurant, you can skip. 
K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen - Feel free to skip.416 Chartres Street596-2530Deli Lunch Tues.-Sat. 11:00 am - 2:00 pmDinner Mon.- Sat. 5:30 pm - 10:00 pm

Last year Lakeview added not one but two Mexican restaurants along the Harrison Avenue corridor with the debut of the Velvet Cactus and the opening of the second location of El Gato Negro. The appeal of  this type of food in a neighborhood full of young families makes perfect sense. First and foremost, the prices are cheap. Second, the process of eating chips and salsa can keep children placated for a remarkably long time. As long as the server keeps refilling the baskets with tortilla chips, kids will keep on dipping and eating. As long as the kids are eating, the less likely they will be to cause a scene. And the less likely that the kids are to cause a scene, the more liberties that mommy and daddy have to enjoy that extra cerveza or margarita.

Sidenote: I believe that I just wrote Chapter 1 of the Blackened Out Guide to Better Parenting.

And not only are the Velvet Cactus and El Gato Negro family friendly, the surroundings are sleek enough (flat screen TVs and outdoor seating) and the menus creative enough (pineapple cilantro margaritas) to offer an experience more unique and more local than the average run-of-the-mill Mexican joint.

But for those whose priority is finding the most authentic and best tasting Mexican fare in Lakeview, I implore you to shun the crowds and the hype of everything new and pretty and make your way to Salsas Por El Lago.

Well, technically it's located in West End, not Lakeview, but it's 70124 all the same.

Fish taco with Mexican tartar sauce at Salsas Por El Lago.The Folk Singer and I love this place, and we try to spread the gospel every chance we get. A few weeks ago I directed a group of co-workers to Salsas for a Friday lunch away from the office. Upon our arrival (and through the end of our meal), our group of 8 made up 50% of the total number of occupied seats in the restaurant. There is always some hesitation when dining in an empty restaurant, but those pre-conceptions were quickly erased after we went through countless baskets of tortilla chips (effective in placating both children AND adults) and a half dozen bowls of the house made salsas named after the characters in Shrek. My favorite is still "The Dip" - the smooth puree of avocado and sour cream with plenty of cilantro - but the tomato-based Fiona is deliciously fresh and spicy.

Torta and tamale at Salsas Por El Lago.Then came forth a sampling of almost the entire menu. Tacos filled with a wide array of meats, the best being the barbacoa (tender, lip smacking shreds of beef cheek) and chicharron (rich, flabby, fatty pork skin). Flash fried fingers of tilapia are paired with spicy Mexican tartar sauce augmented with diced jalapeno. Tamales - an everyday special - are stuffed with pork and served alongside a cup of thin, warm tomato sauce.

Entomatadas at Salsas Por El Lago.My favorite dish on the menu is one which can be found on the specials board. Entomatadas may not be a familiar name, but the end dish is easily recognizable as a derivation from classic enchiladas. Corn tortillas get a quick dip in hot oil before being bathed in a mild tomato sauce, double rolled, and filled with cheese and softened onion. A trio of these are then covered in more sauce and a heavy hand of more cheese before getting the broiler treatment and a finishing of sour cream. A delicious dish to be avoided by the lactose intolerant.

The menu is not flawless in execution. Instead of serving fresh local fish, the kitchen uses frozen tilapia. The meat to bread ratio in the torta tilts too far in favor of the latter; same goes for the burrito. The chorizo queso was too thin for my liking. Even considering these minor complaints, the food is still worth returning for time and again.

On every occasion that I have dined at Salsas, there have never been more than a handful of other diners in the room, while a mile or so away the crowds wait 30 minutes for a table on a Friday night. I understand the draw of a restaurant which is both family friendly and lively enough to play host to the weekly meeting of the "Real Housewives of Metairie" - actual words used by a table full of middle-aged women referring to themselves (without a hint of irony) on a recent Saturday afternoon at the Velvet Cactus. But if you are ever in the mood for the best Mexican food in Lakeview regardless of atmosphere, then head to the old Ground Pati.

Salsas Por El Lago - Birdie
124 Lake Marina Drive
(504) 286-3057
Mon-Sat: Lunch & Dinner