Boots in the Oven

Comfortable Meaty Food

Sheez, at least there has been a post between this one and the barbecue orgy!

So.  What do you do when a Texas Deppity bangs on your door and hands you an EVICTION CITATION that asks for your presence in court in a week or else?

Well, first you gasp a lot, and then you think about it for a couple of days, and then you decide that what would really help your state of mind would be a burger from this place you've been hearing so much about.

Or am I projecting, and that's just me?

Now I'm really not one to eat when I'm upset - in fact, I lose weight quickly when stressed - but I guess this time is different.  I just couldn't stop thinking about meaty meatburgers and crunchy fries.

So I went to Mighty Fine Burgers.

Smitty's Market in Lockhart Wants to Cure Your Anemia

No real news to report on the condo.  The "owner" and his realtor continue to sink to newly hilarious levels of insane sleaziness, and meanwhile, we wait.  Like I told my father last week, I'm buying laundry soap in the small sizes just in case we have to move suddenly.  Har.

Memorial Day Weekend was filled with fun and food and happiness in the form of my inlaws, the inestimable and inimitable GQ and Mama Bear, who haven't made an appearance on this blog in some time but are still trucking along just north of New Orleans.

While they were here, in Central Texas, we had to go eat barbecue.  Texas-style barbecue, of course.  For those of you who are blissfully unaware of what sets Texas barbecue apart from that of lesser states, well, we scoff at the vinegary marinades of North Carolina.  We laugh at the childlike yellow of Central South Carolina's mustard-sauced shredded pork.  Here, we do beef.  And some pork.  But mostly beef.

And sauce is always the condiment, never the star!

Wink leaves us confused.

Since we're in birthday season here, a few weeks ago we visited a restaurant we'd been wanting to try for some time.  It's called Wink, and it's in a small strip mall just northwest of downtown Austin.

The experience was really good tempered with emphatically not good. 

Prosecco by Villa Sandi, for instance, good.  One thing Wink does have entirely under control is their very nicely chosen wine list.

Having to wait a half-hour past our 9:00 reservation?  Well, we didn't really care that much, but I figure it's worth mentioning for those people that get really Teutonic about the timing of their evening out.

Their wine bar looked very nice, and the bar snacks going by were intriguing, but unfortunately the place was full.  We sat with our backs to the camping display at Whole Earth Provisions and watched cars come and go.

Xiong's Cafe - I welcome our dumpling overlords.

Last week we drove to Houston to piss off a waitress.

Naw.  Actually, we drove to Houston to see my broheim and his ladyfriend, M, who's attending Rice. 

Pissing off the waitress was gravy on the cake.  Or is that icing on the turkey?  I don't know, my brain's pretty much completely stopped working after four weeks of reading those essays by our Texas 16 year olds. 

Where was I?  Oh, right... DUMPLINGS!

We left Austin a little later than we meant to last Saturday to meet these dear family members, so we asked them if they'd mind meeting us in far west Houston for a few hundred dumplings.  They kindly obliged, so we met in the middle of what seemed to be a freaking mile of various Asian businesses, all in huge strip malls, at Xiong's Cafe.

The dumpling house itself was completely full, but they accommodated us next door in the tea house.

Where we did a good bit of dickering about what to order.  When we finally did get our order together and presented it to our by now already suffering waitress, she said "You can't eat that."  So we dropped thirty dumplings off the list and looked at her hopefully.  Pass.

The first two things she dropped on the table were still wrapped in plastic.

First - preserved egg and jalapeno.  Fugly dish.

I actually liked this a lot, though it was sort of challenging to eat with chopsticks.  I've had preserved egg once before and thought it was a little ammonia-ey (though maybe that was just a bad egg?), but none of that flavor came through here.  Just nice comforting eggyness and a tiny, tiny bit of spice.  Tiny.

And spicy bamboo shoots,  with a fresh bamboo snap and again, like no spice.  Still tasty.

We nibbled on these for just a couple of minutes until the next dish came out.  This wasn't on the menu, but the waitress suggested it after seeing my disappointment at the lack of soup dumplings.  It's a pan-fried beef dumpling with soup in it.  Eeeeeeee!

Turned out to be my favorite by a nose, and it came out first in the dumpling extravaganza.  Go figure.  It had that delicious greasy fried dough thing, with the crunchy outside and the slightly gooey middle where the soup resided.  The beef was a little difficult to keep in the dumpling, but was seasoned nicely with pepper and onion.  Here's a bit of an innards shot for you.

This is making me hungry.

Husbear put together a nice spicy vinegary dipping sauce for our dumplings.  The man can't be stopped if there are seasonings around.

We had a few minutes to commune with our new beefy soupy dumpling friend before the next dumplings were deposited on our table.  Next up - spicy szechuan dumplings.  These were $3.25 for an order of 12 - a good deal, even if they were teeny little guys.

These were pretty strongly reminiscent of Asia Cafe's Xhong dumplings.  Porky goodness with a slightly thicker dumpling skin, barely keeping above the level of the chili oil.  Very nice.

More pork next, with a dish that had specific favorable reviews - Boiled Pork and Cilantro dumplings.  Comes in an excessive order of 15!

I did like these, there were just so many of them.  They had a VERY strong cilantro flavor - I'm a fan, but I'm aware there are some insane people out there with a genetic predisposition to hate the delicate leafy guy, so if that's you - don't order these.  Man, this dumpling skin was good, though.

A brief break from the pork (don't worry, it will be back) for a green onion pie, which seems to be the same as a scallion pancake.

M, who was raised in Bangalore, took one look at these and said "Hey, that looks like something my grandma used to make."  Ah, the universal cultural glue that is the flatbread.

Good, if a little greasy?  These definitely benefited from a dunk in that chili oil/vinegar concoction.

And back to the pork.  That didn't take long, huh?  The waitress walked over with this plate, scornfully surveyed our overflowing table, and said "Make room for this."

I'm pretty sure these pan-fried pork dumplings were the first open-ended dumplings I've eaten in a Chinese restaurant.  Dang, were they good.  All fried and porky and conveniently tube-shaped.

And then we had to consolidate a bunch of dishes, because a huge wok steamer arrived at the table bearing an order of mixed steamed dumplings.

The huge braided ones were the vegetable dumplings, which the table didn't really care for - lots of, I think, green onion tops made for a slightly bitter and not totally agreeable veg flavor.  This from a lady who's a freak for greens.  Don't worry, my champion eater of a brother helped us out.

On the top, with the unfortunately split skins, were the pork buns.  I was expecting, you know, pork buns, not these dumplings, but they were certainly good.  They may even have been Husbear's favorite, with their delicate skins and savory porky interior.

On the right - lamb!  I seem to recall lamb dumplings in a Tibetan restaurant in Vienna in 2001, but I don't think I've seen any on a menu since then.  If you like lamb and dumplings, you'd like these lamb dumplings.  Very lamby.

And, well, that's it.  We followed M and my brother back to her dorm, where she had a bunch of work to do in the afternoon.  We kidnapped bro for an afternoon of being outside (after all, he's been in Chicago for the last few months).  Later on that.

Xiong's Cafe is at 9888 Bellaire Blvd # 150 in Houston.  713.771.8448.  I think they're open until like 2 in the morning, but you might want to call them to check that.

Happy Celebratory Birthday Catfish!

Yeah, we're trying not to fall off the face of the earth, we're just not doing a very good job.  Husbear's working his magic for a new movie, and I'm spending my days reading the standardized essays churned out by Texas 16-year-olds.  The job is simultaneously hilarious and depressing, and had I not signed eleventeen nondisclosure agreements, I'd be filling your ears with some real doozies.

But I can't. 

So... perhaps I can appease you with some food?

Sunday was Husbear's birthday!  Yay!  29!  And still adorable!

The man wanted catfish for his birthday.  More specifically, he wanted a whole catfish.  Fried.  And served in the Vietnamese style, like the elephant ear fish we had in the Mekong, see here.

We'd heard long ago that Le Soleil will happily put on this kind of spread for you, so we called a couple of friends and drove over.

Sorry about the seafood overload, Adam.

We had to order something besides the catfish, so why not try out their Bo luc lac, also known as shaking or shaken or shaky beef?

This has to be some of the tenderest beef I've ever eaten.  We don't really eat much beef in this household, but I did see Husbear's eyes light up over this dish.  Perhaps we'll be seeing a home version?  Or maybe we'll just be ordering it a lot at Le Soleil?

The expertly stir-fried beef came with a side lime and pepper dipping sauce, which nicely cut through the meat's richness.  I've had that dip at lesser restaurants and not understood what the fuss is, but with this beef it was just perfect.

Next came the grilled pork, which I insisted on.  Theirs is the best version of the Viet staple I've had in town. 

And plates of noodles and herbs and rice paper started to hit the table in preparation for the catfish.

The pork was perfect and savory and grilled and delicious.  It's a given that when we're at this restaurant, we have to order some version of this pork.

When the catfish came, we all just stared for a moment.  I should mention that the catfish is listed on the menu with five different prices, and this is the size smack in the middle.  Our waitress's recommendation.   (By the way, is it just that I'm reading the  essays of grammar-deprived 16 year olds, or does "waitress's" look strange to you, too?  I had to go look it up.)

I was reminded of  the hilarity that would ensue in Italy when we asked vendors for enough blank (beef, mussels, pasta) for two people, which is how we ended up with this four-pound steak.

The catfish was... big.  Large.  A fitting centerpiece for a birthday meal.

Few things are more entertaining to eat than fish served in this way.  Wet a piece of rice-paper, then pile up the center with some combination of fish, unidentifiable herbs of your choice, marinated daikon and carrot, bean sprouts, and rice noodles.  I'm pretty sure that some of that pork and beef found its way into a few rolls, too - though not this fine specimen of Husbear's.

I would think it would be pretty difficult to fry a fish of that size in a home kitchen, unless you're like my husband's family.  They maintain large setups specifically for frying fish outdoors, though usually the fish is redfish and it's in much smaller pieces.

Hey, that's why we have restaurants.

Somehow, in between all the conversation and catching up and mid-day drinking, a lot of eating got done, and most of the catfish disappeared.

Dude, I was just as surprised as you are.

And like that wasn't enough?  Husbear brought cake!  Specifically, a Grand Marnier crepe cake he'd been up until 2:30 in the morning preparing.  That man can make a serious bunch of crepes - he did work brunch prep for several months, after all.  He's also a master egg poacher.

The cake was delicious, but was better the next day with a caramel sauce.  Ahem.

Such a fun birthday lunch!  Great company, overlarge quantities of great food, what's not to love?

Things took a small turn towards the odd on our way back to the house - I think I'll blame the seventeen pounds of catfish we ate for the hallucination we had on the way home.  Really, an alpaca (or llama?)  in a trailer?  On the highway?

We were so full, actually we didn't eat dinner.  Instead of eating dinner that night, we went out to Vino Vino with the lovely Electric Blues and her lady, and then to the Will wrap party.  Yup, we got to go even though Husbear's not on the movie anymore!  Open bar and a photo booths, this one with an array of hilarious headgear.  I'm pretty sure I'm not going to show you those photos.

Le Soleil is, as always, at 9616 N. Lamar in Austin.  512.821.0396.

SXSW, Chinese, and another reason to Beware the Ides of March

It's been a while, I know.  I've just started a "job" reading exit level TAKS tests, and after a day of scanning overwhelmingly mediocre essays sprinkled with few moments of sheer brilliance the last thing I've wanted to do is come home and write. 

Interestingly, those aforementioned moments are often failing essays.  Go figure.  I think it's another example of how No Child Left Behind is really a push towards mediocrity - from my reading these sixteen-year-olds' two pages, it feels like the those outliers are being slowly forced towards the middle.

Anyhoo, with me burning my eyes out at a computer screen and Husbear working six-day 80 or 90 hour weeks, yeah, the blog's suffered.  But now we're back, to let YOU know, we can really shake 'em down.

And to tell you about this hilarious experience we had last week at Austin's huge music and blogging extravaganza, South by Southwest aka SXSW aka South by.

Thursday, I got home eyes-ableeding from the essays.  Husbear arrived oh, two and a half hours later or so, and we drove over to a nearby Chinese restaurant we'd been wanting to try - China Palace.  I was all primed to ask for the Chinese menu, but apparently they've been getting that request enough that they've added it as the final page of the Western-style menu.

I honestly don't know if they have a beer or wine menu... we stuck with tea.  And a pallet of food from the Chinese page of the menu.

First?  Scallion pancake.  (You were starting to think there weren't any pics in this post, ja?)

Perfect, at least in my limited knowledge of scallion pancakes.  Nice and chewy, and somehow not greasy - I don't know how they pulled that off.  Sort of huge, though.  We probably should have taken half of this one home, but sometimes it's hard to stop eating the crispy fried bready tastiness.

We did bring home huge amounts of our two entrees, though.  First of those was a last-minute decision, the Shrimp with Soft Tofu.

Seriously Cantonese, here.  The dish was really good, but would have benefited from higher-quality shrimp.  Subtle flavors all melded really well, with a nice soothing salty shrimpyness and the smooth taste and mouthfeel of the tofu.  Really fun to eat.

Not as much fun as the Shredded Pork with Mustard Greens and Tofu Knot.  Holy happymouth. 

Again, the sauce here really remained in the background.  The main flavors were the sharp cruciferousness of the mustard greens and the meaty pork, but the fun here was in the texture.  The tofu knot had such a nice chew to it that really contrasted with the crunch of the mustard greens and the barely resistant bamboo shoot.

There was a huge amount of garlic in this dish, but we were surprised to be pretty much unable to taste it.

Here's a closeup of that tofu knot.  It's apparently made from the skin that forms in a layer on a block of tofu while it's being made.  The skin is rolled and tied into a knot.  Ta-da!

Total, for the two of us, before tip?  $23.75.  Noice.

We loaded our six pounds of leftovers into the car and drove downtown to the Light Bar.  A friend of ours here in town who's better at staying in touch with college friends than we are called me to tell me an old friend was playing there with his band.  (I can no longer recognize runon sentences.  Sorry.)

Downtown was PACKED with people wearing wristbands and credentials and looking like they were from somewhere much more self-conscious than Austin.  Lots of metallic shoes, one-color sack dresses, enormous bags, extra-tight jeans, wide-armed glasses... you know the type.  We eventually paid to park and walked over to the Light Bar, where a hip-hop showcase was going on downstairs and a hand-lettered sign pointed us up to the rooftop patio for the Arclight Records Showcase.

Corona was $5.50, as was Shiner.  Perhaps you're from a large town, and those sound like reasonable bottle-beer prices, but damn were SXSW attendees getting ripped off!  Sheez.

Yeah, we bought drinks.

Our friend's band, the Freshkills, went on as scheduled at 10:00.  We were sitting, enjoying the music and enjoying watching a couple of hardcore fans getting their hipster dance on, when suddenly their sound was cut off.

The crowd started chanting.  "Bull-SHIT.  Bull-SHIT."  You try it, it's quite therapeutic.

Turned out they'd been shut off because the club was violating a noise ordinance.  During a huge music festival.  Yeah.

Rumor was some jackass threw a golf ball at a cop car off the roof the day before, and that there were perhaps some other unspecified annoyances, so the cops weren't wanting shows at that particular bar. 

We went and got our money back, but when we waited around to talk to our friend, the doorkeeper snapped at us.  "You gonna take your money back and STAY HERE?"

Well, yeah, actually.  The cover was for live music, and there isn't any.  We did throw away a good chunk of change at the bar, though.

After Mitch talked with his folks and other friends that had come to see him play, we all split and walked over to Imperia to get the boy some food.  We had a great time catching up.  I hate when I fall out of touch with people I really like, especially when it's so hard to meet new folks.

Rapid topic shift.  BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH.

You know why, right?

No, not because we have to fear being stabbed by a Senator we've treated like a son. 

Actually, it's because these particular Ides are the 20th anniversary of the Bloomin' Onion, that scarily delicious allegedly 2200 calorie treat.

I had a very interesting email earlier this week, with some Bloomin' Onion trivia.  Did you know that the type of onion used in the gutbomb appetizer was specially devised by what the Outback folks choose to call an "onionologist" at Texas A & M?

No?

Well... how about the fact that the chain serves about 40,000 Bloomin' Onions a day? (That's 84 million calories and just under 5.4 million grams of fat, for you party-poopers.)

A piece of personal history, since I'm on the subject of not only Bloomin' Onions, but also long-lost college friends.  I had a good friend my first year of college that used to order a knockoff Bloomin' Onion from WingZone or somewhere once or twice a week.  Then he'd eat the whole thing. 

Great, now I want a ginormous batter-dipped and fried onion with deliciously spicy dipping sauce.  Curse you, Outback!

No, seriously, thanks to their Blogger Outreach program for sending me lots of detailed information and pretty pictures of the process each restaurant goes through to turn out the tasty. 

All from me.  Look for a post about bugs soon.  I hope.

Please tell me NoRTH (yeah, that's how they spell it) is kidding with this mess of an app.

020208, 033/366: Please tell me NoRTH (yeah, that's how they spell it) is kidding with this mess of an app., originally uploaded by Boots in the Oven.

This was my picture of the day for Sunday over at Flickr (yup, I'm still plugging away at Project 366) but honestly, the thing is such a crappy joke that I have to show it off to those of you that don't check the Flickr photostream.

Here's what I had to say over on Flickr:

Normally, I would have let this disgusting joke of an appetizer go unblogged, uncommented, and unremembered.  But.  It really pissed me off.

This restaurant is supposed to be "modern italian cuisine."  This is their "seasonal house antipasti" for $9.  Let's not pick too much on how any Italian restaurant in Italy would spit on this mess of a plating (for actual Italian antipasti plates, look here) - I understand NoRTH may be trying to get away from traditional ideas of italian food.  Which wouldn't be bad in and of itself, but...

It's just... in February, their "seasonal" plate included tomatoes, asparagus... and raspberries!  These were mixed in with absolutely flavorless salumi, some sort of medicinal-tasting caponata, very low-quality parmesan, and then, in what must have been the kitchen's final "fuck you for ordering this crap we found in the back of the walk-in, you stupid customer" surrounded by a surfeit of ridiculous, ubiquitous basil oil.  I was pissed at the pandering of the menu, to those people who don't know or care about seasonality or, barring that, good food. 

We also ordered a pizza.  The less said about that crackery flatbread, the better.

Of course, Dale Rice, our local paper's critic extraordinaire, who's never met a gloppy processed nacho cheese dish he didn't like, just went apeshit for the place.  Great.  He LIKED the pasta bolognese... which was served with giant shell pasta!  WTF?

Another reason the Domain sucks.  Where are the LOCAL seasonal restaurants?  Is Austin really begging for shitty, overpriced Italianateish food out of freaking SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA?

I should tell you we got the food and our round of martinis free, after our waitress apparently quit in the middle of her shift and the managers lost our checks.  Even for free, I wouldn't go back.  That waitress had the right idea, taking a powder while she could.

www.foxrestaurantconcepts.com/north.html

Dining on whole pigs with Dai Due

Remember all that pork?

Well, someone (make that 40 or so someones) had to eat it.  The group of happy eaters began with Husbear's compatriots from his porcine class the day before, their significant others (including me!  :waves:) and various others who weren't in the class but wanted to eat its spoils.

We arrived at Rain Lily Farm on a balmy Austin fall Sunday, me being my usual apprehensive self, to a beautiful setting.

The dinner was BYOB, so buckets of ice for chilling wine and beer were provided.  We were given a light, refreshing aperitif, an apple ratafia made of local white muscat wine mixed with local vodka infused with local apples, to drink while we wandered around the small farm operation.

I think Husbear already mentioned Dai Due's overwhelming commitment to eating as locally as possible.  The back of the menu above listed all of the sources for just about every ingredient for each dish we'd be enjoying, and every source was Texan.

We carted our ratafias over to check out Rain Lily Farm's vegetables. 

November and December are great months to eat locally here in Texas.  While August and September are usually too hot for much of anything to grow, by the end of the year second crops are ripening.  Last weekend, the farmers' market was full of tomatoes, along with more traditionally wintry greens and root vegetables.

And okra, which is one of my favorite vegetables.

Rain Lily Farm also raises a few animals, mostly goats and chickens.  We visited with them for a few minutes.  By this time, more people were arriving, and we all made our introductions while trying to avoid the curious nibbles of the friendliest of the goats.

Part of the reason the goats were so interested in getting to know us better is that we'd all just been provided with a pre-dinner snack to go with our ratafias - a slice of banh mi.  Though it was more French than traditionally Vietnamese, in both presentation and flavor, this banh mi was quite good.  Plus, it incorporated some of the pate the class had prepared.

The banh mi was perfect as a before-dinner snacklet; not only did it start the pork theme off loudly, it was also packed with lovely flavors that readied us for the enormity of the meal ahead.

I mean, you saw that menu.

The goats definitely wanted to find out more about this new food in their pen.  The brown one with the warpaint took advantage of the black one's being distracted to try to jump on its back for a quickie.

This did not make the black goat happy.

While the musicians played light fare,

we wandered through the prep stations.  Husbear, of course, wanted to see what was going on with the varied products he and his class had helped to prepare the day before.

He nodded happily at the rilletes, that brilliant method the French have for making shredded pork moist and deliciously fatty.

I have to say I was a little apprehensive about the headcheese... I can't say I'd had a deep-seated desire to ever buy or try this product.  It's gotta be the name.  Or the texture.  Or the appearance.

These particular treats were all being sliced and put on boards for the first course, which would be a family-style charcuterie. 

Which means there would have to be more of that smooth, creamy pate.

Darn.

Many other pork or pork-related items were also undergoing final cooking for later in the meal, including a non-traditional grilled boudin (normally in Louisiana you see boudin poached),

and a spit-roasted pork loin, turning gracefully over low grilling heat.

By this time, we were all nigh-on ravenous, so we took our places at the aforepictured beautiful long table.

We sat down with our wine, that we'd gotten a great deal on from Central Market.  It turned out to be amazing.

After just a moment, heaping plates of bread arrived on the table, followed closely by boards heaped with the pate, rillettes, and headcheese.  These tasties were supplemented by not only mustards, which are an absolute necessity with charcuterie, but pickled beets from Boggy Creek Farm that were earthy and beety and a good counterpoint to the various fatty pork products on the table in front of us.

All three of these pork products were wonderful, and I have to say Jesse and friends have changed my mind about headcheese.  It can be really good.  I still don't think I'm going to run out to pick some up at the HEB, but I'm hoping Husbear makes some with that half a pig we're bringing to Louisiana for Christmas.

Next, things lightened up a bit with a chorizo and smoked hock soup, with creamer peas, sweet potatoes, and kale.  Need I say that the class made the chorizo?

The soup was nice and light and had a good taste of fall, though the cilantro was a little strong for some.  Cilantro's tough - people have such adamant opinions about it.

Next came an enormous pile of pig - on one plate, the grilled boudin and chile sausages topping a very nice clean potato salad (made with potatoes from Bikkurim Farm, of course).  I loved the potato salad, but was not blown away by the sausages.

Unfortunately, by this time it was getting really dark and we didn't get a decent picture of what may have been the best thing we ate that night - the grilled pork belly, served on apple cider braised chinese cabbage and accompanied by an amazing sweet spicy apple chutney.  So instead, here's a picture of how happy I was to be eating it.

Rain Lily wouldn't have been a real farm without a farm cat, right?  Here he is, sitting on top of the signin book we'd forgotten to sign.  Looks like we missed our chance. (Sitting on? More like guarding with his dynamic cat powers.  He made me answer three questions and a riddle just to get a grassfed beef pamphlet -L.Pants)

For the dessert, which of course had to include pig in some way, Dai Due went all out.  Not only did they fashion pork cracklins into a tart bound with brown sugar and molasses, they also topped it with freshly whipped lard, sort of a sweet version of Dario Cecchini's Burro del Chianti.

No?  Husbear says that was actually a pecan tart made with pecans from the tree we were sitting under, topped with fresh whipped cream.  Oops.   Yes, it was very good.

At least there was lard in the crust, in true Southern style.

Dinner finished with mint tisane and coffee, and Jesse gave a brief speech about the importance of eating locally and knowing the people growing your food and raising your meat.  He's really inspired us - we're buying all of our meat these days at the farmer's market, as well as a good portion of our vegetables, and we've discovered that Central Texas farmers certainly do a wonderful job producing deliciousness.

It's been a bit of a revelation, what we can get at the farmers' markets around here.  Grassfed bison, lamb, beef, and pork.  Geese, roosters, free-range chickens, partridges.  Seriously.  And, of course, some of the most delicious citrus in the country, beautiful greens in copious amounts, and everything as fresh as it can be.

Not only that, but the prices on much of the produce are lower than the pricing at our grocery stores, and you get much better, fresher produce often sold to you by the person who picked it.

Enough.  Dai Due helps to teach us that eating locally is not only good for the environment and the local economy, it's also good for your tummy and tastebuds.  Kudos to them for spreading that message.

Elizabeth's, for those of you who like your food fried in cream sauce - and who doesn't?

You'd think that the aforementioned turducken would have supplied all our calorie needs (and then some) over the course of the long Thanksgiving weekend, but sometimes the tastebuds tire and need a jolt of new stuff.

Plus, we wanted to drive down to New Orleans to see our friend Robert.  Brother Brandog was happily still in town and was even willing to drive us across the freakishly long Causeway.

After a slow amble up and down Magazine Street and a visit to a cute little tapas bar, we made our way over to Elizabeth's, just around the corner from the Quarter.

Cute, no?  It's a two-story restaurant just up from the water.

Nicely and comfortably decorated, too, with a bakery container in the corner stocked with yummy dessert treats.

We then just about made Brandog weep with delight when we ordered the entire appetizer menu.

Hey, appetizers are usually more attractive than entrees, right?  And, well, too be fair, we ordered the appetizer menu minus two of their offerings.  And we did order an entree to share, because sheep's head over wilted spinach just sounded too good to pass up.  (For those of you who are, like I was, envisioning the whole head of a ruminant, a sheep's head is a kind of white-fleshed fish.)

The deluge began with a quickness.

Fried Green Tomatoes with Remoulade was first to hit the table.  A delicious cornmeal breading formed a crunchy barrier, holding in the tangy green tomatoes.  I just about always like these, and Elizabeth's were a great example of why.

Barely behind the tomatoes, the restaurant's mildly famous praline bacon arrived.  We could barely wait for the pictures to be taken before we pounced.

Yeah, you heard right.  Praline.  Bacon.  Savory, smoky bacon with a caramelized layer of brown sugar and tiny pieces of pecans.  Ho boy, were these good for the tastebuds and bad for the waistline.  If only they were coated in chocolate...

The next treat to settle on our table was a seafood stuffed mirliton in a cream sauce.  I'm not going to give you a picture here, because stuffed things in cream sauce - well, they don't photograph all that well.  Mirlitons, known as chayote squash everywhere else I've seen them, are in season right now in southern Louisiana, and man are then good.  They have a delicate squash flavor that's perfect with a light seafood stuffing and a drenching in thickened cream sauce.

Probably a good thing we were splitting all of these...

Next came the appetizer some considered the belle of the ball - the boudin balls.  We're eating our way through Cajun country's boudin offerings, and when you take the filling and fry it, and then throw the rice/liver/pork sausage over the top of some good Creole mustard, well jeebus.

No, these were not the size of my head, thanks for asking.

Next up?  A rather untraditional meat you don't see a lot on American menus, though we saw it all over the place in Italy.

Rabbit Tenderloin in a Tomato-Basil "Coulee".

The rabbit was perfectly fried, nice and moist, but the sauce tasted a little too much like tomato soup. 

Appetizers kept coming, a little parade made up of what we soon realized were either fried dishes or dishes in cream sauce.  Or both, like this one:

Blue Cheese Oysters.  I am a big blue cheese fan, and while it was interesting to have a yummy blue piquant blue cheese sauce on these of course perfectly fried oysters, I'm not entirely convinced by the combination.  The only solution must be to have it eight or ten more times to see if I can formulate a considered opinion.

The Beer BQ Oysters, on the other hand, were good enough to make me consider seriously the idea of returning the next day for their Sunday brunch.  Tangy, smoky, rich, on the again perfect oysters.  I don't know who they have back there doing their frying, but damn.

At this point, we were thinking "Surely that's it?"  But no...

Out came the last appetizer, fried chicken livers in house pepper jelly.

I would never have thought to apply pepper jelly as a sauce for fried tidbits, but this very good jelly cut right through the double richness of the liver and the frying.  I've never had fried chicken livers before, and now I know I'm a convert.

Don't worry, we didn't only have fried things in cream sauce.  We also had sauteed things in cream sauce, in the form of the nightly special; sheep's head in a spicy cream sauce served over wilted spinach.

We got to choose two sides, so what you see here is red beans and rice and green beans.  Bigger than any green beans I've ever seen, but hey.

That's a huge amount of food!  I can't imagine one person eating it, though everything was so flavorful and well-seasoned that I'm sure plenty of people do just that.  This cream sauce was very light and didn't overpower the fish, and their red beans and rice are primo. 

We really weren't going to order dessert.  I mean, did you see what we ate?  I know there were four of us, but still...

But then we asked the waitress what this "ooey-gooey cake" was that we saw on the menu.  And when she told us it was a pound cake with a cream cheese icing, we couldn't help it.  And as long as we were ordering that, we figured we should probably give the buttermilk ice cream a try.

My friends, these desserts are evil seductresses sent from the land of the happy 400-pounder.  They were both so good, the rich thick sweet gooeyness of the cake and the nicely sour buttermilk ice cream - a great match.  Yipes.

In short, I'd definitely recommend a visit to Elizabeth's, though I can't speak to the entrees.  Just order everything and smile.

Elizabeth's Restaurant.  601 Gallier Street, New Orleans, LA.  504.944.9272.

BTW - on a bloggy business note, over in the lefthand column you'll see a new feature highlighting the most popular pages here on Boots.  Check them out, if you haven't already!

You can lead Girlie to oysters, but then you can't make her stop eating them.

This is way out of the chronology (though not as much as, say, the posts I have left to do about our Thailand trip in June, or leftover Italy posts from May backwards) but, hey, it's a restaurant that's pretty much a New Orleans institution and I'd hate to let the opportunity to blog it slip by.

Actually, it's hard to believe that we were at Drago's only a month ago.  Seems like a lot has happened since then!

The day we went to Drago's was a long one.  We'd spent most of the day sorting through the various things we'd left at Mama Bear and GQ's house, trying to figure out what all would be coming with us to Austin and what would be going to various donation centers.  The cats seemed happy to see us, but were still mad about the year-long vanishing act we'd pulled.

Stinky wanted to make sure we'd remember to bring him.

I think Fatty was just traumatized by the whole ordeal he'd had (he spent two days outside before we arrived) to want to leave the immediate vicinity.

I can't say that all of this sorting and driving back and forth to Goodwill and cat-dodging was the most relaxing way to spend the day, which is at least part of the reason we jumped on GQ's idea of meeting for dinner at Drago's.  It's barely on the other side of the Causeway Bridge from Husbear's folks in Mandeville.

We arrived right about at prime eating time, just before 7.  (Most Italian restaurants wouldn't even be open at 7.)  The cavernous place was packed to the rafters, and since they don't take reservations, there was a good number of people waiting at the bar to be seated.  We got drinks and went to watch Drago's signature dish being prepared.

Charbroiled oysters!  To me, oysters have always been something best served raw, so I was more than a little suspicious of what was going on here.  Especially the huge spouts of flame that kept shooting from the grill - how could they not be overcooked?

When we were seated after an elevator ride to the second floor (!), twenty minutes or so later (hey, not that bad!) we of course had to order a dozen first thing.

And I've gotta say I'm a convert.  These oysters were barely cooked, still with that nice briny poppy oysterness to them, but layered on top of that was the always welcome flavor of the grill.  Plus, a giant ladleful of butter and a hit of parmesan cheese.  I mean, what's not to like?

We did giggle at the folks over at the next table, who were examining their plate of charbroiled oysters as if it had just arrived from Venus.  After they poked at the bivalves for a long moment, the man at the head of the table started cutting each in half.  We could barely contain ourselves.

Oh, like you don't laugh when you see people eating hamburgers with a knife and fork, or trying to bite directly into an unshelled crab leg.

ANYWAY, we also ordered a dozen fresh raw Louisiana oysters, caught just down the road.  This platter occasioned stares from the folks next door.  Come to think of it, I wonder where they were from?

These were delicious, and so fresh I'm surprised they allowed themselves to be eaten.  They almost didn't need accompaniments, and if I had less of a horseradish addiction, I would have left them alone.

And, well, why not get a third appetizer?

These are the fleur-de-lis shrimp, fried and then tossed with peanuts and a nicely spicy aioli.  The combination came across as vaguely Asian.  Thankfully, the shrimp retained a lot of their fried crunch after being tossed with the sauce, though I'd recommend you eat these pretty quickly when they hit your table.  Not that that should be a problem; they're ridonkulously tasty.

We opted to get three entrees to share, though GQ threatened to zealously guard the Crescent City Shrimp.

These arrived, floating in a sea of butter.  They had a terrific grilly flavor and were well spiced, though the rosemary was a little overpowering.  The dish was dangerous, since it asked repeatedly that you dip bread into its buttery, shrimpy, spicy sauce.

We also ordered the Shrimp and Eggplant Stack, which I would have enjoyed more had the tomato cream sauce been a little more seasoned.  And perhaps with less cheese.  The fried eggplant slices were perfectly done, though, and combining them with sauteed shrimp was genius.  I swear I could see Husbear working out new dish ideas in his mind.

Our last choice was the unfortunatly named Shuckee Duckee.  I'm sure I'm not the only person to feel like an ass ordering this dish, but it sure did sound tasty on the menu - blackened duck breast served with an oyster cream pasta.

Sorry this pic is a little blurry.

This was, unsurprisingly, an enormous amount of food.  The duck was cooked quite nicely, though Husbear prefers his duck just about completely rare (and it's not common for restaurants to cook it that way).  I really liked the pasta, too - the oyster flavor really dissipated through the entire sauce, so you didn't need to many to get a nice oystery flavor.  Duck and oysters?  Sign me up!

I don't know why, after all this, we felt the need to order dessert.  Perhaps it was because our waiter told us the pecan cobbler was made with wild turkey and served with ice cream, and, well, that got us going.

While our waiter was walking away from the table to put in the order, Mama Bear leaned across the table to us.  "Did he really say there was turkey in the dessert?"

Now, I can't say I didn't think the same thing for a second... but he meant this, not this.

Anyway, the dessert was delicious and poultry-free.  Really sweet.  I could only manage a couple of bites, but somehow it was all finished.

We stumbled out of the restaurant full of delicious Louisiana style oysters and yumminess. If you find yourself in the area (and you should; New Orleans and environs could really use your tourist dollars) go there.  Yum.

Drago's.  3232 N. Arnoult Rd, Metairie, LA.  504.888.9254.  No reservations.