Tales of the cocktail took me to New Orleans this past week. Hipsters in straw fedoras, legendarily drunk distillers and shit-faced presenters added a ton of color to the already vivid scene but I did manage to uncover somethings outside the programmed debauchery.
What’s HOT NOW in New Orleans?
Patois Pickle cocktail. That’s right, the chef at Patois in Uptown showcases his house-made bread and butter pickles by combining their juice with Hendricks Gin in his signature martini. This is a dream come true for a salt lover. The hint of sweetness and subtle floral quality from the cucumber gin, creates a wonderful savory quality to this cocktail. It’s a fantastic start to one of the most inspired local cuisine scenes I’ve ever tried.
We tried the rabbit (perfectly fried) with okra (not slimey at all), tomatoes, and kale . We started with the boiled gulf shrimp with fresh hearts of palm, cucumber ribbons and fresh pea trendrils. This is tossed in a lovely lemon oil. Kind of a quirky salad that never fully comes together but somehow it’s the inherent odd-ball quality that makes this dish successful.
Skip dessert (the dry fig cake and kefir lime cream should be taken off the menu. It reminded us of having our mouths washed out with Ivory soap — not that we ever deserved that). And the peach cobbler didn’t deliver on its homey promise. The peaches were ever so slightly undercooked and it really was more of a brown betty than a cobbler. I’d rather have the alcohol I got from the praline ice cream served on the rocks as my dessert next time.
We also loved Cochon about five minutes away from Patois, also considered uptown but this restaurant is nearer to the convention center. This is truly a celebration of all things pig.
We tried the livercheese sandwich which was outstanding. Apparently livercheese is NOT to be confused with liverwurst (the more refined version, we learned). Liver cheese makes New York City street vendor hot dogs seem like very select pieces of meat. But discerning what’s inside was not our mission. We loved the paté-like chunky quality between two rustic pieces of bagette. The arugula added good flavor but seemed a little too fancy for this sammy.
We also loved the pulled pork served on top of rustic pieces of white and orange turnips. This was definitely a dish designed for fall but the AC was strong and we needed some more pig. The cracklings on top made the dish. These unusually large, crispy bits had pieces of meat and fat attached which was a surprise.
Galatoire’s lived up to its legend. The trout almandine was outstanding. Nicely coaxed color in the almonds from toasting had fantastic crunch and added good nuttiness to the trout which was on a shallow river of meniere sauce.
If you want to try another old school place, we learned that the food at Arnaud’s was not all that. However, the bananas foster were classically prepared table-side by a Chippendale’s worthy nice young man. After the shock of seeing almost a half bag of brown sugar go into the pan, nothing else mattered.
