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Our weekly blog on the New Orleans fine dining scene
Jan 25, 2012
10:23 PM
Haute Plates

Bizarre Louisiana Eats and Questions About Restaurant Openings

By Robert Peyton
Jan 25, 2012 - 10:23 PM
Bizarre Louisiana Eats and Questions About Restaurant Openings

Image Courtesy of the Travel Channel

This Thursday Andrew Zimmern, host of the Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern," will appear with Poppy Tooker from 3 to 5 at the Thursday afternoon edition of the Crescent City Farmer's Market in Mid-City. Tooker is, among other things, the host of the "Louisiana Eats" radio show on public radio stations WWNO and KTLN, and an ardent supporter of locally produced foods. Together they'll shop at the market and prepare shrimp étouffée.

I have not always been kind to television food personalities. There was a time when I cared about food television, but that ended when the networks began cutting chefs like Mario Batali in favor of Sandra Lee, Guy Fieri and Rachael Ray. I have been fairly restrained in my criticism for the last several years, despite taking the occasional potshot at the spiky-coiffed Fieri. (Seriously, I cannot think of Guy Fieri without thinking of Yeats' poem "The Second Coming." I picture Fieri as the sphinx in that poem, his gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun; his slow thighs rubbing together as he slouches towards Hollywood to shoot another commercial for some fast food restaurant.)

But I like Zimmern. I read an interview of Zimmern back in October of last year at the Onion A/V Club, and I discovered that the enthusiasm he displays on his show is entirely genuine. I don't religiously watch "Bizarre Foods," but I tend to enjoy it when I do. It reminds me of a more populist version of Anthony Bourdain's show on the Travel Channel, "No Reservations."

Zimmern has been in town this week shooting an episode of "Bizarre Foods America," and based on the photographs posted on the show's website, he's made some good choices. A poor boy at Parkway, Vietnamese food in New Orleans East, a meal with Leah Chase and the obligatory alligator sauce piquant on a side trip to Cajun country all sit well with me. In the video posted on that website, it's clear that Zimmern is actually enjoying himself, and that's a rare thing on these sort of shows. The American Can Company building which hosts the Mid-City market is located at 3700 Orleans Ave, which is just about directly on my way home from work every day. Hopefully I won't be too late to say hello to Zimmern and Tooker when I stop by after work this evening. 

In other news, there have been a slew of restaurant openings in the area in the last weeks. Superior Seafood, a cousin to the casual Mexican restaurant Superior Grill, opened at the corner of St. Charles and Napoleon, and Johnny V's started service yesterday at 6116 Magazine St. Maurepas Foods began serving in the Bywater at 3200 Burgundy, and Manning's Restaurant, the partnership between Archie Manning and Harrah's casino, joined the already restaurant-heavy Fulton Street pedestrian mall in the CBD. John Besh and Brian Landry opened Borgne in the Hyatt Regency on Loyola just a few blocks from the Superdome, and stretching the definition of “last weeks” just a bit allows me to include the French bistro C'est la Vie, which opened last December at 4206 Magazine St.

I have asked a number of people who are savvy about the restaurant industry how New Orleans has managed to actually increase on the number of restaurants that were open prior to Katrina, given the somewhat reduced population and the weakened national economy. No one really has a solid answer, but for my part I think it's largely got to do with strong support from local residents and the increasingly strong convention and tourist business New Orleans is seeing. I don't think either one or the other of those things would do it, but together they provide a solid and reliable base of customers for restaurants of all types. That's my theory, anyway. What's yours?

Reader Comments:
Old to new | New to old
Jan 29, 2012 02:57 pm
 Posted by  gail

Hi Robert:

We will be in New Orleans this coming Saturday, for four nights and would like to visit your favorite restaurants. We like nice, but not stuffy, good food is important.

Could you help.


Thank you,
Gail Selk

Feb 1, 2012 02:18 pm
 Posted by  Aaron

Hi Gail,

Speaking as a surrogate for Robert, although since I'm a guy that isn't technically possible in the double-entendre sense, I would suggest looking back through his columns for this past year for restaurant suggestions. I would pay particular attention to the summer months of 2011 when a talented but obscure guest writer filled in for him, with the dashing good looks of a young Millard Fillmore and the erudite wit of early Dear Abby columns (before her daughter took over and tarted the column up). If you have any questions as to which of those _August_ locations to go to, feel free to comment again and I'll create a throw-away account to respond and make it appear there is at least a second person who agrees with me.

Aaron

Feb 2, 2012 11:35 am
 Posted by  Robert

Hi Gail,

I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to reply to you. If you're still interested, please email me at the address in the side-bar at the right of the article. I usually try to tailor recommendations by location in addition to the kind of food and amount of money folks want to spend.

Robert

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About This Blog


Robert D. Peyton was born at Ochsner Hospital and, apart from four years in Tennessee for college and three years in Baton Rouge for law school, has lived here his entire life. He is a strong believer in the importance of food to our local culture and in the importance of our local food culture, generally. He is a partner at the law firm Christovich & Kearney LLP and began writing about food on his website, www.appetites.us, in 1997. That is approximately 72 Internet years, for anyone counting.

In 2006, New Orleans Magazine named Appetites the best food blog in New Orleans. The choice was made relatively easy due to the fact that Appetites was, at the time, the only food blog in New Orleans.

Robert has gills, but they are nonfunctional.

He began writing the Restaurant Insider column for New Orleans Magazine in 2007 and has been published in St. Charles Avenue magazine and on the website www.slashfood.com. He is the only person he knows who has been interviewed in GQ magazine, albeit for calling Alan Richman a penis. He is not proud of that, incidentally. (Yes, he is.)

Robert’s maternal grandmother is responsible for his love of good food, and he has never since had fried chicken or homemade biscuits as good as hers.

Robert once ate an entire goat, but it was very small, and he didn’t feel too good about it afterward. He did, however, feel better than the goat.

He developed his curiosity about restaurant cooking in part from the venerable PBS cooking show Great Chefs and has an extensive collection of cookbooks, many of which do not require coloring. 

Certain parts of the above are exaggerations, but one thing is true: Robert appreciates your comments and e-mails, so keep them coming.

If you find that you need a more constant source of Robert in your life, you can follow him on Twitter.

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