There’s a real joy in walking into a restaurant you know, ordering from a familiar menu, and remembering all the times in the past when you’ve enjoyed the very same dish. This is both one of the pleasures of being a regular and of being attached to a particular cuisine, and it’s a common pleasure in our city of great restaurants and distinctly local cuisine.
Then there’s the other side of the equation: the excitement of never knowing what’s going to come next. That’s one of the pleasures of eating at new and new-to-you restaurants, and it was on ample display during our dim sum brunches at Three Happiness, the Gretna restaurant reviewed recently with a sprawling Chinese and Vietnamese menu.

Dim sum is served on weekends from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. This is standard fare in Chinese tea houses, but not so familiar to the average New Orleans diner. The dim sum menu is written in Chinese, Vietnamese and English, none of which did me much good since the English amounted to two or three word titles for what proved to be frequently complex small dishes.

What to make, for instance, of that “8 treasure sweet rice in lotus leaf?” We ordered it and waited in anticipation. The result was something that looked so much like a weathered, overstuffed leather wallet that the men in our party put their own battered billfolds on the table next to it to compare (pictured above.) Whereas a glimpse into our wallets wouldn’t reveal much action, we peeled open the thick, rough lotus leaf and released a cloud of steam cloaking a dense loaf of large-grained rice imbued with chunks of hard Chinese sausage, roasted pork and ham, all gripped in the aromatic, sticky rice. Where the rice touched pork, it tasted meaty, where it touched the lotus leaf it tasted like tea and where it was on its own it was sweet.

The Three Happiness dim sum menu has plenty more pleasurable surprises. But if surprise in dining isn’t your thing, below I provide some visual aids for some of the dishes described in my review. This might at least help the uninitiated know what to their meal could look like.

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I woke up this morning to this frequent-buyer coffee card stuck in my front door. Somebody must’ve been up early…

Today is high tide for pumpkin popularity. Thanksgiving is a close second, of course, but since the jack-o-lantern is the de facto emblem of Halloween tonight’s the night.

Unlike Thanksgiving, though, you don’t get to taste much pumpkin on Halloween, unless you stumble upon some ambitious and generous household giving out pie to trick-or-treaters instead of “fun size” Snickers (and if you do, please let me know so I can get my android-transgender-Sarah Palin costume over there pronto for the slice).

But back in the real world, given the paucity of edible pumpkin on this of all days, I was intrigued by the appearance of pumpkin ice cream at Angelo Brocato’s. I dropped into the Italian-style ice cream parlor yesterday for an innocent cup of coffee, not a mid-day ice cream, but when I spied the seasonal flavor and could not resist. Forget Halloween, this tasted like Thanksgiving dessert in a cone. Mellow, spicy, creamy, not too sweet and utterly delicious. Seasonal flavors like this are around for a limited time at Brocato’s, so if you want a taste I recommend beating a path there quickly.

This pumpkin ice cream is definitely a treat.

– Ian McNulty

The field of candidates going after Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District seat in the Democratic primary seemed reluctant to touch the elephant in the room, the upcoming corruption trial of incumbent U.S. Rep. William Jefferson.

Turns out the folks at Mid-City’s own New Orleans Ice Cream Co. are not so timid. After all, these are the people who came up with the ice cream flavor “Chocolate City,” a riff on Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s Martin Luther King Day speech in 2006 that so prickled racial sensitivities.

The ice cream company’s NOLA-tinged entrepreneurial spirit has now spawned a new billboard visible from the elevated approach to the Crescent City Connection, near the New Orleans Arena and Central City, that takes square aim at what will be a major issue for Jefferson during his trial: the $90,000 in marked bills FBI agents say they found in the Congressman’s freezer when they raided his D.C. pad.  The image above is a reproduction of the billboard, for those who don’t like distractions on the road.

It’s all a set up for a contest the ice cream company is promoting. From their Web site:

If you’re from New Orleans, you know your paw-paw always hid his money in the freezer or the ‘ice box.’

Now, thanks to a well known FBI investigation the whole country knows our secret.”

So they want people to send in photos of whatever they have in their freezers, which will surely inspire some creative product placements. Send the images to them online and if they choose yours to appear on their Web site, you get a prize.

Note that nowhere does the copy mention our Congressman by name, but, of course, we can read between the scoops.
–Ian McNulty

I admit I was a bit skeptical when I heard Iris would uproot itself from its Carrollton location and move downtown to the ground floor of the Bienville House hotel in the French Quarter.

I’ve been a big fan of Iris ever since it first opened in January 2006. This was among the first wave of new fine-dining restaurants to open after Katrina, and to me it was a source of inspiration.

Chef Ian Schnoebelen and partner Laurie Casebonne had conceived the idea for their first restaurant and made it a reality all completely in the aftermath of Katrina. People who also decided to stake their future on the nauseatingly uncertain prospects of New Orleans and its ruined or at least lonely neighborhoods at that time could look at these young entrepreneurs with a feeling of camaraderie and wonder. So while my own kitchen situation remained a tepid cooler and a menagerie of canned food back in blasted-out Mid-City, I found myself eating at Iris more than any other restaurant during that first post-Katrina winter and spring.

Naturally, I got attached to the surroundings, the intimate former-cottage with its two tiny dining rooms, its close, four-seat bar and even the narrow porch in front where we could sit in nice weather and wonder if the streetcars would ever again rattle down the Jeannette Street tracks just below on the way to their barn. I had the best first date of my life here. So, on many levels, I associated Iris with good things.

With all this in mind, I pushed open the doors of the new Iris on South Peters Street last night with some trepidation. Could those good feelings be transferred, or rekindled, in a new and different locale?

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Downriver from the part of town real estate people call the Marigny Triangle, there seems to be a Coffeehouse Cluster under development.

In addition to Cafe Flora on Royal, Sound Café a few blocks away on Chartres and Marigny Perks on Burgundy, the latest entry is the Orange Couch (2339 Royal St., 267-7327).

The coffee we had here was good, as were the baked goods we tried, and a freezer case is stocked with mochi, or balls of Japanese ice cream encased in sweet rice flour and meant to be eaten by hand.

So there are some different things going on here. But what really makes Orange Couch stand out in a crowded field is the look and ambiance of the place. Just look at those modernistic tables. They make me want to sit up straight and write something serious, if not technical. Maybe design a new Apple application or a carnival float.

The design comes courtesy of Ammar Eloueini, founder of the architecture firm AEDS. He gets commissions for French museums and high-end Berlin retailers. So what’s he doing designing a coffee shop in the Marigny? It turns out he’s friends with Orange Couch proprietor Johnnie Sanders, a Marigny resident who opened the place as his first business last week. Eloueini has been teaching at Tulane’s architecture school since Katrina.  Note to self: make friends with an internationally-recognized architect before opening a coffeeshop.

Laurel Street Bakery (5433 Laurel St., 897-0576) seemed like an unlikely target for an armed robbery, but the Uptown breakfast and lunch spot was in the news last week after a pair of teenagers with guns tried to stick the place up.

A parole and probation officer was in the bakery at the time, and a shoot out ensued, leaving one of the would-be robbers critically injured. Police soon apprehended the second teen.

And at Laurel Street Bakery, life goes on. Owner Hillary Guttman reopened the bakery the day after the robbery attempt, to the relief and cheers of her regulars and neighbors.

But something like that doesn’t go down under your roof without leaving a mark, literally and emotionally. To help deal with both, the bakery staff decided to decorate tables that took bullet hits with paper purple hearts, which cover up the bullet holes and express tacit gratitude that those bullets hit furniture rather than bystanders.

Then the bakers brought out a tribute cookie, complete with bullet hole and red sprinkles. Guttman polled the first few customers she saw: would they find it offensive if she put these out for sale? On the contrary, she was told, they all wanted one.

The purple hearts and the gunshot cookies both strike me as the same brand of defiant gesture and nervous humor we saw so much of after Katrina. Leave it to a cookie to make you feel better.

– Ian McNulty

One of the distinctive old French Creole restaurants of the Quarter is back open after a long hiatus with a new owner and a much different menu.

Glen Hogh, chef and owner of Vega Tapas Café in Metairie, reopened Café Sbisa (1011 Decatur St., 522-5565), which has been closed since Hurricane Katrina.

Café Sbisa first opened in 1899 and had several different incarnations over the generations that followed. In more recent history, the restaurant was best known for its Sunday brunch and its elegant old world ambiance of murals, mirrors and dark wood paneling through its 1820s-era building.

Cafe Sbisa’s two dining rooms, balconies and patio are now open for dinner only Wednesday through Sunday. Lunch and Sunday brunch are planned for the near future.

While the interior and exterior look of the historic restaurant has been restored, Hogh’s menu is larger, more ambitious and more creative than the French Creole fare of the past. This isn’t surprising knowing Hogh’s wide-ranging, ever-changing menu at Vega Tapas, and I’m excited both to see this beautiful structure back in commerce and to have a new restaurant of this level in the lower Quarter.

Click below to see highlights from his opening menu:
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When Felipe’s, proprietor of New Orleans’ best $5 plates slung up like prison slop, announced that it was opening a second location on the corner of Bienville and North Peters streets, I chalked it up to divine providence. Ditto for La Divina, whose new Place d’Armes outpost makes the city’s finest gelato fix an any-hour possibility. (Although I will miss scoffing at those poor, misguided souls sitting outside of Sucré, crowing over a costlier and inferior product while subsidizing the sweet boutique’s stainless steel Sub-Zeros and travertine trimmings.) But the news of Iris Restaurant’s impending Bienville House relocation — technically not a franchise, I’m aware, but Carrollton’s loss is still the Quarter’s gain, and on behalf of Sixth Warders from Rampart Street to the river, allow me to say: nanny nanny boo boo — has me considering more scientific conspiracy theories. How else to explain the great Vieux Carré migration of so many favorite eateries? Maybe some physics-minded foodie and St. Philip Street denizen designed a gastro-magnet in his fourth-floor attic? Or could the city actually be folding up on itself, Stephen Hawking-style? Whatever the reason, it seems to be the epicurean equivalent of running up the score — after all, we already lay claim to arguably the best fine-dining (Stella!), diner fare (Clover Grill), patisserie (Croissant d’Or), seafood (GW Fins), African (Bennachin), Italian (Irene’s Cuisine), coffeeshop (Café du Monde), steakhouse (Dickie Brennan’s), burger joint (Port of Call) and convenience-store-deli health violations (Verti Marte) in the Croissant City limits. Plus, ever since the Delachaise quietly kicked open the doors of its North Rampart digs in August, we’ve had the market cornered on domestic beer denial and brusque French bartenders, too. Coming soon: $14 tapas supremacy. Your serve, Uptown.  

“You Are Where You Eat” is destined to be filed on bookstore shelves in the cooking section, where it will make most unusual company next to the collections of recipes from big name New Orleans chefs and the spiral-bound volumes offering primers on the city’s Creole classics.

Writer/photographer Elsa Hahne’s new book does contain New Orleans recipes, some 85 of them, but it is first and foremost a collection of compellingly open, frank oral histories from more than 30 New Orleans home cooks.
“You Are Where You Eat” was reviewed in this week’s issue, and Hahne will sign and discuss the book this Saturday, Oct. 18, at 1 p.m. at Garden District Books. It’s a good bet some of the people profiled in the book will be there as well.

These people are not big names, and they do not proffer the big recipes most New Orleans cookbooks are practically obligated to include. So instead of an oyster artichoke soup recipe we get a yakamein recipe from a Central City homemaker, instead of beignets we get fried crawfish balls with cilantro chutney from the Lower Garden District kitchen of an India-born school teacher, and instead of red beans and rice, we get a brothy white beans recipe from local communications manager Warren Bell, pictured above in a photo Hahne took in Bell’s Gentilly home.
The recipes, though, seem more supplemental to the central value of the book. The intimacy with which Hahne collects, edits and shares the stories from her subjects, and her touching /funny/revealing photographs of them, is the heart of the book. They offer a uniquely personal social history of the city over the past few generations.
Along the way there are entertaining peeks into the secret life of New Orleans eaters, like the Metairie man who makes his oatmeal with dried shrimp, the Uptown housewife who always keeps two jars of bacon grease in her fridge expressly for cooking okra and tomatoes, or the physician who learns from constipated patients where to find fig trees with ripe fruit to use in his favorite duck recipe.

In the spirit of revelation, here’s one of my now-former New Orleans food secrets: whenever I make a big batch of red beans for an Endymion party or a post-game drink-up, no matter what else goes into the pot, I always start with an institutional-sized can of Blue Runner, which I then hide from guests at the bottom of the recycling bin.

Care to confess anything yourself? Any quirks in New Orleans cooking you keep simmering in your own eating life? Please share with the rest of the class below. We all might learn something.