Boucherie Again: Mmm Duck Confit

Boucherie
8115 Jeannette Street
New Orleans, LA 70118-2851
(504) 862-5514


I've reviewed Boucherie before. Boucherie is, after all, one of my favorite neighborhood spots in New Orleans garden district. It's easy to see why the restaurant attracts crowds of local food obsessives: it offers high-end dining with interesting preparation methods, a highly seasonal menu, and surprisingly reasonable prices (especially in New Orleans, Land of the Expensive-Ass Dinner). Located in a tiny old house right off St. Charles, the dining room is classy but cramped, and reservations - or at least calling ahead- are very important indeed, unless you're the kind of person who is perfectly okay with mooning around waiting for your table to come up. That sort of thing happens to make my eye twitch and my tiny and desiccated heart fill with a profound and totally unjustified rage. You know, different strokes, blah blah blah.

We made this visit at the end of May, and thus our choices reflect that seasons menu.



Blackened shrimp on a grit cake with a bacon vinaigrette. In all honesty, I've never loved blackened foods. They always taste too salty to me. This was the case here, although the shrimp are nice and fat. I find it rather difficult to distinguish "grit cakes" from "unsweetened cornbread". Maybe someone can help me.



Steamed mussels with collard greens and crispy grit crackers are an eternal fixture on the house menu, and it's easy to see why. I really like the unique, vinegary broth the mussels are cooked in, and the rich vegetable flavor of the collards gives the mussels a distinct, but just subtle enough flavor. The crispy grit crackers are all right. Better when soaked in the broth for a bit.



Boucherie makes a fine duck confit, with crispy skin and a lovely, rich, interior. This was served with a fairly simple bread salad and a light reduction sauce. A good thing: no need to gild the lily with this stuff.




Smoked scallops are omnipresent here, but the dish seems to change twice a month. This go round wasn't all that successful: the scallops themselves were good and prepared correctly, but the pasta was overcooked and the smoky, slightly spicy cumin scented sauce was simply too robust for these tender little guys.

Service here is usually pretty good - hard to lose track of someone in such a small dining room. I'd suggest Boucherie for a casual-upscale near the Tulane campus - the eternally changing menu provides a pleasant change from Riverbend's endless armada of sushi and Lebanese joints, and you can feel fancy without starting up a side business in drug trafficking. Win win!

Dante's Kitchen Round Two

Dante's Kitchen Round Two
504 861-3121
736 Dante Street
New Orleans, LA 70118

I last reviewed Dante's Kitchen a month and a half ago or thereabouts. A small neighborhood restaurant located in New Orlean's Riverbend area, it's reasonably priced, a little funky, and always interesting, if not always predictable. We returned over the second Jazzfest weekend for a casual meal pre the big shindig/my returning home to Sacramento in a blaze of triumphant glory. Something like that.



We started off with the Perique Farms Beet Salad with arugula, citrus roasted pecans, stilton cheese and sherry vinaigrette (8.50). I'm a total beet whore (hurr hurr that sounds naughty) and order them whenever they appear on a menu. I have tried to cook beets before and the results, albeit tasty, left me looking like a serial killer post heinous slaughtering murder. I recall looking at my hands covered in lurid red gore and thinking about how, if I ran outside and started running around in circles and going WAGGA WAGGA, the neighbors would definitely call the police and a helicopter would come. This really made me smile. To address this particular beet salad, it was pretty good: roasted beets combined with peppery greens, stinky cheese, and toasted pecans is a winning combination.



We also tried out the New Orleans Style Barbeque Shrimp with Abita Turbodog beer, rosemary and garlic (9.50). Big daddy shrimp with all the heads and shells on, as befits the BBQ shrimp tradition of New Orleans: peel those suckers yourself, you Yankee wussmunch, don't bother about the clothes. New Orleans BBQ shrimp actually involve no BBQ flavor but DO involve about a two and a half pounds of butter, lemon, worcestershire sauce and other stuff I cannot relate to you at this time. As you may imagine, they are delicious.



I took the Seared Pompano with Louisiana blue crabcake, green goddess dressing, and pickled mirliton salad (26.00) for my entree. I liked this dish: it had a fresh, clean, spring-like quality that is really refreshing in a city that fetishizes rich-ass food. I liked the slightly crispy and skillfully cooked fish in juxtaposition with the meaty crabcake and the crunchy and vinegary flavor of the mirliton. The Green Goddess was interesting and involved some anise-flavored local greens: strong and distinct flavor and something I haven't encountered much before. It was a simple dish but a successful one. As a California spa-cuisine twink, I dig deconstructed variants on New Orleans traditional recipes.

A Mirliton, if you were not aware, is the New Orleans term for chayote, a gourd-like plant common in the Southern USA and Central America, but regularly consumed all over the world. The green fruit has a rather bland taste somewhere between a pear, a cucumber, and a daikon: they are often stuffed with seafood or prepared in casseroles in New Orleans cooking.



My dad tried Bell & Evan’s Chicken Roasted Under a Brick - maple glazed, with a potato and bacon hash cake, topped with egg (23.00). Beyond the obvious question of who Bell & Evan are and why restaurants feel compelled to drop little in-jokes into their menu, this is a nice, hearty dish. The chicken was a little bit sweet for my taste due to the maple glaze (go figure,) but I liked the combo of maple, drippy egg, and smoky bacon. It's in essence a jazzed up variant on breakfast for supper. And who doesn't like that.



My mom tried the Redfish “on the Half Shell” topped with crabmeat and soft herbs (24.00). The flavor profile of this was actually extremely similar to my dish, down to the selection of local herbs used - but that's not a bad thing, as the fresh, simple aesthetic carried over here. Nicely prepared, slightly crispy pan-sauteed fish and fresh crabmeat are a really classic combo and done well here. No flashy business here but doesn't really need it.



My friend tried the Daily Preparation of Local Farm Vegetables served with a goat cheese and caramelized onion croquette (20.00). Vegetarians seem to be forced to contend with a lot of cheese croquettes in this town. Interesting dish here: seemed like they were going for a Thai salad combined with a cheese croquette. Sounds sort of disastrous but it tasted okay to me, though the combo was about as odd as it sounds.

Dante's isn't one of New Orleans must-visit-or-you-will-die dining destinations, but it's a good pick for locals out for a solid meal that won't necessitate a second mortgage or a prescription for beta-blockers. It's a good place to hang out, talk, and drink, and the addition of honest, earthy cooking is icing on the cake. Check it out next time you're out with your friends and need somewhere to nosh.

Also: corn spoonbread with honey butter, complimentary at each table, as tasty as you might presume it to be. Discuss.

La Macarena Pupusas Round Two: Mmm Beef

La Macarena Pupuseria & Latin Café
8120 Hampson Street
504-862-5252
New Orleans, LA

Pupusas, a Colombian corn patty stuffed with meat or cheese fillings, are a rather new quantity to me. I first sampled a pupusa nearly a year ago, the very day I returned from four months in India, arrived in the gleaming terminals of San Francisco International Airport. We picked up our car and drove through the Mission to get something to eat, and I remember being struck by how few people were around - and I also remember being extremely happy to be somewhere where such as thing as Latino culture existed, back in a land that actually had Mexican food and Colombian food and everything in between. We stopped in at one of the neighborhood's many pupuserias and enjoyed a cheese and beef pupusa: as a life-time corn cake lover, I thought it was delicious. (I enjoyed the Colombian style garlic chicken just as much.)

In any case, I was happy when La Macarena opened up: what a convenient way to learn a little more about Central and South American cuisine. The owners also made an excellent tactical choice in serving corn-and-cheese filled concotions very close to two major universities. Well played.


These sun dried tomato and spinach pupusas were pretty tasty, although rather shrimpy compared to the specimens I've encountered in California. They're hand-made and griddled to order here, which means an order can take a while out. The melty texture and nice cornmeal flavor make a little extra time worth it. I also like the clear Colombian (?) slaw and spicy, slightly salty salsa served alongside.


This salad came with pulled beef brisket and plenty of slaw, along with olives, romaine hearts, and a variety of mixed vegetables. The brisket was definitely tasty and meaty, and had been cooked just long enough to fall apart but before toughness set in. I used the Colombian salsa instead of the provided garlic dressing and rather regretted my decision: things got pretty salty by the time I finished this not-inconsiderably sized beast. Still will order again.

The menu features a variety of entrees as well as pupusas: the garlic shrimp are humongo and looked very tasty indeed. This is a family run place and it shows, as service can be a bit uneven (if earnest) and food takes a healthy amount of time to come out. Brunch is offered on weekends with some interesting looking egg dishes. BE FOREWARNED: this place is cash only. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Dante's Kitchen: Would You Like Greens With That?

Dante's Kitchen
(504) 861-3121
736 Dante St
New Orleans, LA 70130




Dante's Kitchen is a laid-back little place in New Orlean's river-bend, tucked back at a safe distance from the always rocking Daiquiri Cafe, facing the train tracks. Situated in an old house, Dante's has developed a reputation in town for serving high-end New Orleans and Southern specialities at unusually reasonable prices (with an emphasis on local ingredients,) and it seems like mostly locals occupy the tables inside and the garden eating area outside. So how's the food?

Every table is started off with a cast iron pot of spoonbread with honey butter, that intoxicating Southern speciality that resembles a warm and gooey corn souffle. This stuff was downright delicious - like a semi-liquid corn cake (and I very much like my corn cakes.) It was snarfed down with unusual speed, which may explain why I have no photo.



We sampled the shrimp and grits with andouille red eye gravy ($9.00), a house speciality and a truly fine specimen of a classic Southern dish. Nice, char-grilled (or so it seemed) shrimp topped a healthy portion of slightly cheesy and pleasantly buttery grits, topped off with a fine gravy. A must order. The cauliflower salad was less successful: an apparent riff on New Orleans's classic olive salad, this had a decent vinegary, peppery flavor but became overwhelming and entirely too oily as a starter-size salad. This pickled cauliflower concoction would work much better as a condiment.



I had the roasted seabass with preserved meyer lemon, roasted squashes, slow roasted tomatoes, kalamata olives, red kale, wild mushroom jus ($23.00.) Let's start with the good: the seabass was delicious, with a crispy, savory skin and a buttery and fork-tender interior. The other components of the dish weren't as successful: the combination of all those strongly flavored ingredients made for a vinegary and rather powerful combination, which served to overpower the subtly flavored fish. The combo of kale, wild mushroom, tomato and olive (and whatever other stuff) would suit a muscular slab of beef or another full-flavored red meat a whole lot better.



Charlotte, one of my dining companions, had Bell & Evan’s chicken roasted under a brick, maple glazed, with a potato and bacon hash cake, topped with a fried farm egg, ($22.00). Huge portion and it looked pretty darn delicious: apparently she orders this all the time.



I also got to take a look at the Daily Preparation of Local Farm Vegetables, served with a goat cheese and caramelized onion croquette ($20.00). The verdict from my dining companion? Decent flavors, but the presentation - note the vivid pink and green on that there plate (and no, you don't need to adjust your monitor) was nothing if not lurid. She also noted that this dish too suffered from the addition of strongly flavored greens: it overpowered the roasted beets and caramelized onions that made up the rest of the dish. The goat cheese croquette was pronounced tasty.



We also sampled these beet greens, the day's seasonal vegetable. I rather enjoyed these and their pungent and earthy flavor, although they were, once again, not much more then vinegary green vegetables. I am a fanatic collard green fan, a kale aficionado, an ardent supporter of mustard greens and broccoli rabe, but Dante's Kitchen, I implore you, does every single food item on the planet have to involve greens with vinegar? Admittedly this could be due to our ordering choices, but I am not entirely convinced. (Were there greens in the spoonbread? Are there greens in dessert...?)


Dessert did not involve greens (to the relief of all) and was nicely presented and tasty: freshly made sorbet came out in a beautiful custom-made compartment dish, and mega-rich chocolate spice cake had a crackly and tasty crust, accompanied by a flavorful scoop of gelato. I didn't sample the strawberry shortcake, but it was both bigger then my head and tasty looking and that sure counts for something.


Verdict: Dante's Kitchen serves interesting, tasty, and reasonably priced riffs on Southern and Louisiana cuisine, but could use a less profligate hand with vinegar, oil, and greens in the kitchen. It's definitely a fine addition to New Orlean's bistro restaurant scene, and I'll be returning for another visit - I'll just have to ensure that I don't inadvertently order the Greens with Greens and Green Sauce speciality platter. Shouldn't be difficult.

Jazmine Cafe: I Kinda Miss California Sometimes

Jazmine Cafe is located in Riverbend, near the famous Camellia Grill (so sue me, haven't tried it.) It's got the usual Vietnamese menu suspects: think pho, vermicelli noodle bowls, spring rolls - and some slightly bizarre interlopers like kimchi and seaweed salad. (What?)



Salads are pretty tasty: standard issue cabbage n' veggie type salads with plenty of fish sauce and fried garlic. At about 8 bucks, they're a refreshing way to hork down lunch, although I wish they used more flavorful chicken instead of rather weak poached stuff. I will try the seared tuna variant in the future.

Went for a visit with a friend the other day and delved into the menu beyond salads.



Spring rolls were up first. These were your typical version: tasty if a bit heavy on the noodles. I had to ask for fish sauce but they did have it on hand, so that's nice.



Next: caramelized shrimp, a pretty classic Vietnamese dish. This version was pretty mediocre compared to the delicousness I can get back home, and what the hell was the pineapple doing in there? The shrimp at least were big and juicy.

We also tried the vermicelli noodle bowl with lemongrass pork, which was also only okay. The pork had a pretty strong lemongrass flavor but definitely was not caramelized with goodness like I expect it to be. A decent rendition but surely phoning it in for those of us who KNOW our Vietnamese cuisine.

The restaurant is quite nice inside and prices are reasonable, although the boba-tea offerings mean a blender is running way too loudly way too often in the main dining area. Still, Jazmine is a decent way for me to get my Vietnamese fix when it must be met (and that happens so often, dangerous fish sauce addict that I am.)