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A restaurant row Posted: Tuesday February 12, 2002 11:15 AM
Have a comment or question for Dr. Z? Click here. I am most impressed by the quality of mail from the folks from New Orleans, some defending their city against my rather heavy-handed treatment of it, one fellow agreeing with me. None assumed the tone of that idiot last week who said my stupidity would be rewarded when the Rams led by 30 in the fourth quarter, etc. No, the mail I got from the New Orleans folks was thoughtful and tolerant and it made me respect their loyalty. The longest and most carefully thought out came from Steve in, well, New Orleans. I will go over the highlights. Restaurants. I mentioned that the city has its share of good ones. I didn't rave about them. Steve pointed out that "in this town, if you're a restaurant and don't make good food, the competition will clobber you." He then volunteered a guided tour of some of the sleepers for the next time I'm in town. This is what is known as a teaser. How can I respond to the offer when all I have to go by is his first name? There must be at least a dozen Steves in New Orleans. Send me your address, please, via Jimmy, and we'll see what we can do. I'll run you through the roster of restaurants The Flaming Redhead and I visited and you can see if I was unfair. Emeril's is the most famous. I saw one store in which four of Emeril Lagasse's cookbooks and funbooks were prominently displayed. This made me suspicious right away. Chefs belong in the kitchen, cooking, instead of being romanced by publishers. So four of us hit Emeril's on Tuesday night of Super Bowl week, and the first thing that greeted us was a wall of sound. Maybe it was a holdover from the car dealers' convention. It's always convenient to blame car dealers for everything unpleasant. I know these diners weren't football writers. They were too well dressed. Bad noise. Yelling. Screams of laughter from the ladies. Bill Clifford, the famous wine writer, once told me that you can't properly taste wine when you're angry. The anger sends bad enzymes through your mouth, or something like that, and maybe it applies to food, too. Emeril's was not a good experience. Maybe if the food had been knock-em-dead I could have made allowances, but it wasn't. We started off with a signature dish, the foie gras appetizer (at $17 a pop), and what he had done with it was to whip it to a froth, stuff it with little pieces of pineapple and pack this mess into a hollowed-out pineapple. This was the single most awful dish I tasted in New Orleans, the conception of a lunatic. After that? Well, after that I got up and approached the adjoining table, which was the loudest and most savage. I asked the leader of the pack if they could possibly tone it down a bit. I was very polite, honest. I was greeted with a sneering face and a "Surely you jest ... " I was getting myself balanced, so the shot I would deliver would do the utmost damage, when I heard from the Redhead, "I'm leaving." So I had to go back and calm her down and the moment was lost. Meanwhile Emeril himself had departed the kitchen and was leading cheers, whipping each table into a frenzy. "Let's try to make the best of it," said Sharon Miller, the wife of San Francisco Chronicle writer, Ira Miller. "Never again!" Ira wrote in his little note pad. The rest of the meal? Well, nothing as bad as that pineapple thing. I guess the guy does know how to make sauces. But I could think of at least 50 restaurants in New York in which I'd had a better meal. I didn't see any signs that Emeril's was getting knocked over by the competition, either. K-Paul's. We sat on the balcony, overlooking the street, and it would have been a fine evening if 1) the food were better, and 2) the same hee-hawing weren't going on at the tables on either side of us. Now I go back a ways with K-Paul's. I was there the first month it opened and I had one of the great meals of my life. Everything fresh, right off one of Paul Prudhomme's brothers' farms in Opelousas, even the butter, which was churned by hand. I hadn't been there for a while, but this time everything was done with a heavy fist. We started with a plate of jambalaya and, I swear, it was nothing more than a little serving of chili. At nine bucks. Next came the turtle soup. I remember the turtle soup at Bookbinder's in Philly. Clear and delicately made, with a light touch and real flavor. At K-Paul's it was heavy, gray sludge. Oh, a few things were OK, but it was basically sludge cookery. Heavy, heavy, heavy. Galatoire's, where the locals dine, would be a welcome relief, I reasoned, and it was. No screaming, decent food. Not great, decent. Next night, Commander's Palace, and it was the best place in which we ate. Really terrific. The Redhead and I went the hog route and had the tasting menu. Usually those things involve a little dollop this, a small taste of that, but not here. Serious portions. Substitutions allowed at no extra cost. Actually, they would do anything you wished. They wanted you to have a good time, and it was appreciated. A fine meal indeed. Every dish was a winner. I thanked Ella Brennan, the 76-year-old owner, on the way out and we were invited to join her at the bar, where we had a nice hour of chit-chat and whatever. Casamento's, the little oyster place I mentioned last time, didn't let us down. Bayona, where we ate on our last night, was excellent, and it featured a beautiful wine list with many well-chosen rarities and a nice guy named Dan Brown to lead us to some of the more moderately priced exotics. On Friday afternoon before the game we had our Sports Illustrated business meeting, the gathering of the clans where everyone got his battle station, at the Palace Café on Canal St. A real joke. I went with the oyster pan roast and the alligator sauce piquante. The pan roast was a few cooked oysters smothered in cream and bread crumbs, with not much flavor. The sauce piquante was merely a tomato sauce that wasn't as good as what we get at Pizza Man in Pompton Plains, N.J. I scraped it away to get to the alligator, which tasted as if it were frozen and microwaved. Not much taste at all. No empty tables here, and the waiter said they're always filled. OK, I realize that we hit a lot of tourist traps. Next time I'll search out the little places. I know we should have gone to Upperline, which I've always enjoyed. But even the big spots should have shown better than what we found. As I said, I'm always open to suggestions. From Steve again: "If I sound defensive, like I've taken your comments personally, it's because I have. I suspect your reaction to an article like this about your hometown would be about the same." Uh, not exactly. Anything negative said or written about Denville, N.J., would be topped by yours truly. And we'll leave it at that. Steve, I really hope that we meet up some day and you get a chance to show us those little hole-in-the-wall spots you mention. I'm always game ("except when you're out of season," the Redhead says). Bryant, a former Louisianan, from Germantown, Md., agrees with my assessment of the Crescent City. Thanks for your tips on military miniature outlets, by the way. To answer your question about the breakdown of the Saints, Jim Haslett seemed to have lost control, which I find hard to believe. More to come. Thanks again for your sleeper restaurants. Kevin of Olathe, Kan., offers an explanation as to why some people react well to pressure and others don't. Psychologists, he says, call it the Dominant Response Theory, which basically translates into practice makes perfect. The guys who devote more hours to honing their skills come through. I don't think it's that simple. I mean, how many more hours does Adam Vinatieri spend on the field than Kris Brown ? Mark of Pittsburgh finds a parallel to the Patriots' victory in the Niners' Super Bowl defeat of the Dolphins, and he cites the San Francisco's big umbrella zone. I disagree. I think that gut pressure on Marino was the key to it. Defensive coach Bill McPherson worked many hours concocting his rush scheme. The key man was tackle Gary "Big Hands" Johnson, who was my co-MVP that day, along with Montana. He asks if the Pats, with their Cover 2, pressing corners, have signaled the end of the Rams' success. I don't think so. You have to have the right people to do it, and not everyone's going to go out and draft big, physical corners just to hold off St. Louis. His final question: Why didn't the Rams go no-huddle, hurry-up to counter New England's shifting spectrum of DBs? Good question. The Patriots I talked to asked the same thing and were fully expecting it. Dave of South Laguna Beach, Calif., wants my take on the caliber of officiating. I never like it in the postseason because the league breaks up the regular crews and selects an all-star assortment. This ruins the mesh. It showed itself in the Patriots-Steelers game, which I thought was horribly officiated. Five challenges, three reversals, c'mon now. One guy was out of position and couldn't see a sideline catch. Normally he'd signal for help from another official and get it. Not with an all-star crew. These guys aren't used to working with one another. The worst fluff, though, came right before Troy Brown's punt return for a TD. Josh Miller originally had punted from the left hashmark. He pinned Brown on the left sideline and there was no return. A penalty forced a re-punt and the ball was spotted on the wrong hash, on the right one. Miller got the ball too far in from the sideline and Brown ran it back. I wasn't sure I'd really seen this when I first watched it, so I ran the tape back when I got home, and sure enough, Ed Hochuli's crew blew it. It amazed me that Miller didn't catch it, but people get all nerved up in a game of that magnitude. And he probably felt that the officials knew what they were doing. It's a mistake that's all too commonly made. John of Falls Church, Va., wants a further explanation of how the AFL writers were discriminated against by their NFL counterparts before the Jets-Colts Super Bowl. The sneer. The curled lip. Trying to take part in a conversation and having people look away. You know, subtle ways. Anything to make us feel that we didn't belong. It still exists among the Hall of Fame selectors. A few of the old-line NFL guys refuse to recognize the achievements of the old AFLers, or at least they don't take them as seriously. From Parker of Calgary: Who calls the defenses for the Patriots, Bill Belichick or his coordinator, Romeo Crennel? Belichick conceives them, Crennel implements them. Suggestions are always encouraged. Kaveh of Chicago wonders about Drew Bledsoe's future. His big contract will scare off some people, but I think Washington might give it a shot, assuming that Bob Kraft would be willing to let him go. He didn't pay him all that money because he didn't like him. Right now the situation is ideal, with Bledsoe perfect in the old Don Strock role, if he were so inclined. I don't think he is. He could start for a lot of teams. He'd be an intriguing choice for Baltimore, but that would entail Brian Billick admitting that he made still another mistake at the position. Ed of Reno, Nev. spotted two seconds left on the clock after Vinatieri's game-winning Super Bowl kick. I think you're right. The operator, a member of the Saints' crew, just let the clock run. Well, maybe the Rams could have gotten something going with their squib-kickoff-return team, but I've never seen it happen. Hall of Fame question from Richard of Huntsville, Ala. Did Bill Parcells' tap dance with Tampa Bay cost him a Hall of Fame spot? And will it in the future? Yes to the first, for obvious reasons. The funny thing is that six people spoke on Parcells' behalf and only one voiced a moderately dissonant note. Based on that, I thought he might make it, but the anti-Parcells faction has learned to keep quiet during those sessions because there are people in the room who can't wait to tell Parcells who spoke against him. I think when the selectors are firmly convinced that he's really packed it in, however long that takes, he'll be elected. I have to admit that I made an ass of myself again during that session. I made a little speech about how I wouldn't hand my ballots to any of the Arthur Anderson reps that the Hall employs to do the tabulating. So I instead handed them to Joe Horrigan of the Hall or Boston's Will McDonough sitting next to me. There were snickers in the room. "Goofy, isn't it?" I heard one guy say. I don't care. I don't think those people should be connected to the HOF in any way until they're judged either guilty or innocent in the Enron affair. When the Hall's executive director announced the enshrinees at the press conference, incidentally, he mentioned "an international accounting firm" had tabulated the results, failing to mention Anderson by name, as he usually does. And the Anderson people had removed their name tags and all signs of identification. What intrigue! Thank you Richard, for your kind words about my Super Bowl matchups. A trifecta from Jim of Brooklyn. Agrees with me on the uneasy feelings I had about New Orleans. Asks if Parcells could have been as successful without Belichick. Probably not. It's a team effort. And finally, "What the hell is a quality control coach?" A guy who spends extra time on film breakdown and looks for little tips that others might have missed. Adam of Chicago has a disturbing evaluation of Marshall Faulk. He feels that Faulk steps out of bounds too often. To be honest, I've never noticed that. His courage can't be questioned. I mean, I've seen him smack in there when he was exhausted. Perhaps he just doesn't feel that the drain on his stamina, considering the workload he must carry, is worth the extra couple of yards. Part two involves praise of Warner for standing in the pocket as long as he does. Adam wants my opinion on which QB is tops in that department. Jeff Garcia will take off if he has to, but I've also seen him face the horns of the beast with great courage. From Kwame of Dover (N.J.? Delaware? England?): Martz stinks. Wastes too many timeouts. Forgets about Faulk. Blew the Super Bowl with his bad calls. I disagree. Occasionally he calls a timeout to set up future action or give his guys a rest, and the players who relayed this to me saw it as a plus, not a minus. The defense sometimes dictates his use of Faulk. And my only criticism of his work in the Super Bowl is that I feel he should mixed in some no-huddle, but I've mentioned this before. Xun Zhong of Wayne, N.J., has his own Super Bowl MVPs. First choice: Ty Law. Second pick: Vinatieri. My choice would have been Otis Smith, but I can't argue with the Brady pick. He did take them down the field for the game-winner, whereas Smith, as brilliant as he was, did not figure in the ultimate conclusion of the contest. Thanks for your comments, incidentally. More Hall of Fame observations from Rich of Saratoga, N.Y. He's sad that Harry Carson didn't make it and Dan Hampton did. I'm sad about Harry, too. I voted for both of them. I'm also sad that Bob Kuechenberg got stiffed. Harry will be back next year, fighting for a spot, as usual. Rich doesn't really favor Phil Simms as an eventual choice, but he feels that he was at least as good as Jim Kelly. I'll wait to see who's going against Phil when he comes up, but I'll probably end up voting for him. Mark Bavaro will be a tougher call. In his day, he was the best, but through no fault of his own, his productive years were limited, and that's big when the votes are cast. Sean of Waldorf, Md., is outraged that Art Modell was shunned and Al Davis, who carried heavier baggage, was elected. Sure, Davis was a pain in the ass but he coached, scouted, walked the sidelines in the East-West game practices, etc. In short, he was a football man. Modell was not. I remember when Davis was enshrined. It was the most radical enshrinement group in history, featuring Davis, John Riggins and John Mackey, whereas Wellington Mara failed to make it. When we were coming out of the press conference, someone asked me, "Who are you guys putting in next year, Sacco and Vanzetti ?" Have a comment or question for Dr. Z? Click here.
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