A Command Performance....

In what may be a gastronomical record, after our memorable lunch in Houme we finished our dining experiences in New Orleans that evening with a dinner at Commander’s Palace, a venerable restaurant that has been garnering accolades for decades, beginning in the late 19th century

Upon returning to the hotel after lunch we rested a little, walked a little and then got DFD’d for the evening. Still avoiding herding the Momster through the maze of one way and small streets of the down town sector, we got a cab and had a nice ride through the garden district past the lovely homes there to the restaurant which is located in the Garden District in an old ante bellum Victorian house. Since sometime in the mid last century, it has been under the Brennan umbrella, which alert readers will know is an important name in the New Orleans food scene.

Having made our reservation on line, we were a little worried (of course) but again fears were foundless. Upon disembarking from the cab, the valet parkers greeted us with a pleasant, eye contacting, “good evening, welcome to Commander’s Palace!). This spirit continued throughout the evening, as all the servers said “hello” or some other greeting as you passed them or they came to the table. At the “stand” inside the door, we were acknowledged and immediately shown to our table. We were seated in the maid dining room although come to find out there are several in the building. It was high ceilinged, somewhat ornately decorated and many tables. Most were occupied, several of them with family groups sporting balloons indicating special events. Locals and special occasions are a good sign. Of course there were also tables occupied by tourists and business men, and for the most part DFD was observed. And, in fact in the little e-mail we received confirming our reservation it was mentioned that they prefer gentlemen wear jackets.

Commander’s Palace (CP) is an old time classic model of a restaurant. That is, there is a “captain” for the room, a person in charge of your table, and a host of “back waiters” whose tasks are to make sure you have your correct silver, the glasses are kept full, dishes are removed, and the general mechanics of dining are taken care of. Upon being seated the captain, a pleasant man in a gray suit and tie, approached the table and asked if we would care for a drink. MFO deferred (the Vouvray of the afternoon still somewhat present), but of course duty made me order “the drink”. He immediately asked if that meant I wanted a little bit of sweet vermouth, or dry. Imagine that! Soon after that, our server Edward came with the menus. He, like the entire wait staff were dressed in black slacks, and gray vests over a white shirt. They did have a name badge, but names were never exchanged. The menu is a large, one sided plastic card with basically three areas: a la carte; Chef Tory’s Three Course Specials; and The Chef’s Playground. The latter two are basically prix fixe menus with the “three” having soup/salad, a couple of entrée choices, and desserts. The latter is a more elaborate adventure, almost a tasting menu consisting of 7 courses with such items as: Foie Gras “Du Monde” - Skillet roasted foie gras over spiced apple, pecan and foie gras beignets with a foie gras café au lait and chicory coffee “mist”; and Cracklin’ Crusted Duck - Hot & sour melted onions over Jack Daniels-buttermilk coush-coush with pepper jelly glazed sweetbreads & roasted pecan duck fond. Each course has a suggested wine, and the food is $70 and the “optional” wines add another $40. I think you would have to be in pretty good shape to tackle that option, so we left it for another time.

Somewhere in there, my Manhattan made its appearance as did some excellent little garlic toasts to munch while absorbing the menu. After a bit of thrasing we settled on first courses of a citrus salad for MFO, and after consulting with Edward who said there were people that had their turtle soup daily, I tried the “Soups 1-1-1”, which consisted of a demitasse of their soup du jour (a crab and corn chowder), the gumbo du jour (classic shrimp) and their famous turtle soup. For main courses MFO took a wild mushroom strudel, and I went for their signature Pecan Crusted Gulf Fish - Champagne poached jumbo lump crab, crushed corn sauce and spiced pecans; which narrowly nosed out an interesting Black Skillet Seared Wild Fish - A hearty selection of winter vegetables with char grilled Meyer lemons, ripped herbs and brown butter vinaigrette.

Having settled on the food, attention was turned to the wine list. The wine list is about telephone book size, with a table of contents. New world reds, whites, a whole section devoted to burgundies, multiple pages of Bordeaux’s, Alsatian, German, you name it. Almost any price imaginable. An amazing document. We settled on an ’03 Nuits-Saint Georges 1er Cru, “Les Pruliers”.

As we sat, we saw several dishes passed of their “crispy” whole fish special of the day, eyeing us as it went by. Service remained attentive and friendly, and then the food arrived. My soups were all good, but in fact, I did like the Turtle soup the most, although the gumbo and chowder were very good indeed. The main courses were also elegant, the pecan crusted fish had vertical development and was very tasty (the exact fish it was escapes me at the moment). For dessert, we had pre-ordered their (famous, of course) bread pudding as it was cooked to order, and we soldiered our way through that. It was lighter than I feared fortunately, otherwise it would have been a bit much. It was a great meal, second of the day! There was a certain energy around the place, and all the servers appeared to generally enjoy their role of making you happy. It's easy to see why this place remains at the top of several lists. They work hard at it...

During the meal we were visited by a member of the family, she was very gracious and said to be sure to get a kitchen tour at the end. We finally finished and Gregory our second waiter conducted us to the kitchen. It was a huge space with the cold space, the hot line, a completely different room for the pastry chef. What struck me was how quiet and efficiently things seemed to be going. There must have been at least a hundred diners in the building, but no evidence of scrambling was evident.

So, that ended our dining experiences in New Orleans, and probably the last big deal meal of the trip. At this point, resolve, budget considerations, and travel ennui have set in and I think that we’ll leave Savannah and Charleston to another time and RTB the digs..

But, there are still pictures, experiences, and restaurants to be recalled in future editions…

And, at the other end of the spectrum I have been informed that the Olive Garden in Lexington Park has opened to long lines, full parking lots, and the endless salad bowls and breadsticks must be flowing.. Sigh…..at least I hope there is some consideration for

DFD