St. Louis Eats and Drinks

Bashir Lazhar

 You never know somebody's secrets. That's the theme of "Bashir Lahzar", currently on the boards at the Kranzberg Arts Center. It is, essentially, a one-man show, although there's a hidden voice in a loudspeaker and a tween-age girl, this weekend Aliyah Taliaferro, also participating, and the fine music provided live by Farsheed Soltanshahi on various stringed instruments.

J. Samuel Davis plays the title character, who we meet as he is preparing to introduce himself to a class he is to substitute teach. The author of the play is Canadian, so the references to the school systems are slightly different, but that's hardly noticeable in the scheme of things. Lahzar has come to Canada from Algeria because of the worsening political and social system there, and is preparing a place for his family who will follow him.

Davis' Lahzar is a man who keeps his dignity about him - not necessarily formality, but certainly dignity. He finally begins to relax in the classroom, and tries to, a little, with a colleague, but that goes awry. Nobody knows the stress he is under in his private life, just as no one knows the stress his predecessor must have been under to leave her job so abruptly.

The could be a play with all the bleakness of an existential novel, but Davis and his warmth with the children saves it from that. He's doing fine work with this role, complicated as it is. Phillip Boehm's tight direction keeps him moving smoothly from one scene to another, back and forth in time, with an office chair almost another actor in the play. The lights, by Steve Carmichael, work just right to carry the changes on the simple set by Cristie Johnson. Good work from all.

 

 

Bashir Lahzar

through February 15

Kranzberg Arts Center

501 N. Grand Ave.

314-863-4999

www.upstreamtheater.org

Lorenzo's

Someday, Lorenzo's will probably be among the Old Guard on The Hill. It's amazing how little has changed over the years. Here's a review I wrote about it for St. Louis Magazine's Dining blog, quoting something Joe and I said almost ten years ago. (And there's more than just a reprint of the review then, I promise.)

Safe House

 There's a fascinating work on the boards at the Rep Studio for the next two weeks. "Safe House", by Keith Josef Adkins, takes place in pre-Civil War Kentucky. Adkins discovered that his mother's family were free people of color, to use the old legal term, in that area, and started from there.

The Pedigrews, two brothers and their aunt, live together. They make shoes for their living, the elder brother, Addison, seeking out customers and heading up the work. He's a proud man, proud of his work and driven to make life better. The other brother, Frank, is driven, too, but he's not sure what direction to aim. Their lives and that of Aunt Dorcas, are severely circumscribed, not just by the mores of the era but by restrictions placed on them by the sheriff after they were thought to have harbored a runaway slave. (Kentucky, like Missouri, was a state where slavery was legal but did not secede during the Civil War.)

It's a gifted group, inhabiting their roles rather than merely acting. Addison is Daniel Morgan Shelley, Frank is Will Cobbs and Dorcas played by Kelly Taffe. Around them are Clarissa, the love interest, Raina Houston, and an employee of the sheriff, Bracken. Bracken, Michael Sean McGuinness, is - sort of - a friend of the family, despite his whiteness, but there's an awful seesaw between his metaphorical fondness for Dorcas' rabbit stew and "I was only doing my job." McGuinness and Taffe in a scene late in the second act are breath-holding good.

Marvellously detailed costumes from Myrna Colley-Lee, a set that glows in the golden light of memory, by Peter and Margery Spack, and the work from composer and sound designer Scott O'Brien all contribute to the weight of this production. Melissa Maxwell's direction is spot on.

Of course the play is about race. But it's about a lot more - moral choices, ambition, love versus need. It doesn't run long, and this is a small house. Grab a ticket.

 

Safe House

through Feb. 8

Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

www.repstl.org

Imagining Madoff

 "Imagining Madoff" is the current offering from The New Jewish Theatre. In retrospect, the first word of the title is probably more important than the second. We all remember Bernie Madoff, the Ponzi schemer who wounded a long list of prestigious individuals and institutions with his deceit. Deb Margolin's play appears to be almost completely disconnected from reality.

Bobby Miller is Madoff, Jerry Vogel is - cognitive dissonance alert - an extremely prosperous poet (his balance sheet explained by how much money he's made from translating), and Julie Layton an unnamed secretary. The play begins with a schlubby, gentle-sounding sort of guy trying to remember the punch line to a joke. This is Madoff? Yes, it is, as it turns out.

The script cuts among three scenes, Madoff musing to himself, perhaps from prison, Madoff and the poet in dialogue at the poet's home as the poet tries to woo Madoff into taking him on as a client, and Layton who might, from the set, be doing a news conference but might be being interviewed by police or giving a deposition. There's a voice-over, uncredited, that seems to use lines from the Midrash. But nearly all the dialogue in the 95-minute work seems to drag and much of it feels very unconnected.

Director Lee Ann Mathews' choice to portray Madoff as an unprepossessing man seems an odd one. Madoff, in his photographs, was always immaculately and expensively dressed, but here appears in an ill-fitting and shapeless suit, albeit with an expensive tie. At times, it's difficult to understand Miller's lines. Whether it's because he's mumbling or is facing the other half of the audience is hard to discern, but there's also talking over, whether from the Great Voice or Vogel.

The poet was originally to have been Elie Wiesel, author and concentration camp survivor who had invested with Madoff and lost huge amounts of money, but when the author sent him a copy of the script, he called it "obscene" and threatened legal action. Vogel's portrayal is soft, almost fuzzy, and while he is trying to woo Madoff, as Madoff apparently liked his would-be clients to do, he's never in doubt about who he is and where he stands. Layton's secretary is the most clearly drawn of the three, an onlooker to the scene of the crimes, stunned by what she didn't know she was a minute part of.

The primary culprit in the unfocused play is the script, no question about that. But one's left feeling that it could have been tightened up had that been the choice.

 

Imagining Madoff

through February 8

The New Jewish Theatre

Wool Studio Theater

2 Millstone Campus Drive

www.newjewishtheatre.org

 

New Orleans: Brennan's

The best news of the flying trip to New Orleans is that one of the great restaurants is back with a bang. Brennan's on Royal Street, the big pink house across from the Supreme Court Building, has reopened. Closed for several years, the result of a family feud that could make the plot for a Masterpiece Theater series, it's been freshened up, to put it mildly. And the kitchen? Ah, the kitchen. After falling to shocking levels on our visit several years ago, the kitchen now will have you dancing in the duck. Other delicious things, too, of course, and we'll get to the duck in good time.

Our group dinner the first night was upstairs near huge portraits of Mardi Gras queens a century ago and smaller ones of entire courts of the various krewes. The meal clued us in that changes were clearly afoot. For instance, in the peak of oyster season, we had oven roasted Gulf oysters topped with smoked chili butter, chives and manchego cheese, just a wee bit of heat and a light shower of the cheese, the oysters still succulently juicy.

Another highlight was a shrimp creole risotto. The shrimp, laid out like soldiers atop a mound of risotto, were surrounded by the creole sauce. The menu said there was ginger in it, but the chowzters around me all thought the tomatoes had been smoked some, so complex was the sauce. It made one regret filling up on the oysters, so hard it was to resist just one more bite. Bananas Foster for dessert, of course, invented there at Brennan's in 1951, pepared for us by Etienne DeFelice, one of the captains.

 

But the menu is not the same as it was. Some of the old favorites have been retained, viz, the Fosters. But for example, their crepes Fitzgerald, involving fresh strawberries, aren't going to be available until local strawberries are in season. "If they aren't good enough, we're not serving it," was the firm announcement.

Then late Saturday night I discovered that a smaller group of fellow Chowzters were planning a visit the next morning for the meal this house made famous, Breakfast at Brennan's.

With planes to catch, we forewent the famous eye-openers, cocktails like milk punch. But chicory coffee was hot and fresh and good enough to elicit grunts of pleasure. The food began to roll in, a dignified pace, to be sure, in the new downstairs garden room that looks out on the patio. From the pastry chef to go with the savory dishes came huge biscuits, more than 3 inches square and 2 inches high, delicate and buttery.Turtle soup that managed to be both light and very full-flavored, nice notes of lemon coming through. Pan-roasted sweetbreads resting on a mound of truffle-laced grits, a sauce of bacon-laced sherry lightly anointing it. Panfried rabbit, slightly crisp, perched atop a bed of tender creamed collard greens, attended by a couple of over-easy eggs.

 More eggs in two of the traditional styles of the house. It's possible to get a divided eggs order, so out came an egg hussarde, housemade English muffin for a base, prosciutto ham, the properly poached egg and both hollandaise and marchand de vin sauce - plus an egg Sardou, my old favorite, a crisply fried artichoke bottom instead of the muffin, very lightly creamed spinach, the egg and a sauce choron, bearnaise with a touch of tomato. Let me point out here that hollandaise in New Orleans is perkier than in France, where it's all about the butter. A little more lemon in the New Orleans style and often just a light, light touch of cayenne or Tabasco, just to put flavors more to the front. Good stuff.

 

Yes, more food. Grillades, not the usual thin slices of veal, but veal cheek made crispy, with cheese grits and over-easy eggs, all drizzled with a little of the juice from pickled pork, another old Creole dish. And then that duck. The menu calls it duck ham - but to me it was more like lean bacon, strips of breast that had been cured, smoked and fried, a little chewy but not tough, absolutely wonderful. And scrambled duck eggs, cooked over a low heat and stirred almost constantly so they remained creamy, some chives in them, and I suspect perhaps some duck fat for the pan. I nearly called my pal who keeps kosher to shriek, "Get down here!"

And just because it's not a meal without dessert, dark chocolate mousse with the rare Criollo chocolate, enrobed in ganache on a chocolate sable cookie, white chocolate ice milk, and a wonderful chocolate florentine that managed to be chocolatey, caramel-y and slightly salty while remaining as brittle as a light glaze of ice.

The executive chef, Slade Rushing, is a Southerner who's worked in San Francisco and New York. He and his wife, Allison Vines-Rushing, returned to New Orleans just before Katrina hit and decided to stay after the storm. It's quite a story. The Brennans have a history of hiring fine chefs and letting them do what they do best, and it's clear that Rushing falls right into that line. And the service is charming, one step back from formal, accustomed to dealing with long-time local customers and newcomers who stare at the menu and have a dozen questions.

Reservations probably necessary already, so get on the phone.

 

Brennan's

417 Royal Street, New Orleans

5o4-525-9711

www.brennansneworleans.com

Breakfast and Lunch Tues.-Sun., Dinner Tues.-Sat.

Bayeux

 If you're interested in more about Normandy than the D-Day assault, you can't do much better
than stay in Bayeux. It's a small, walkable town on the train line from Paris to Cherbourg, and it was spared almost completely during the Allied landing and German defense, unlike, say, Caen. There's a lot more to it than the famous Bayeux Tapestry. In fact, Mr. T, the Duchess of Escargot and I spent three nights there, went to D-Day sites one day, and were so occupied the remainder of the time that we never got to the tapestry.

And of course, the eating is excellent.

We were there in the autumn, a time of year I'm convinced is very good for much of Europe and the UK. Bayeux clearly must be extremely busy in the summer and get lots of British tourism, a bonus that makes for lots of English-speakers in shops, restaurants and hotels. For others like me who love street markets, the market day is Saturday, on the Place San Patrice, just north of the main thoroughfare.

We ambled into la Table du Terroir for a late lunch the day we arrived. This little spot on the main street, whose name changes every few blocks but here is rue St. Jean, has two dining rooms and outside dining, with a menu that leans toward local food, as the name promises. A first course seafood platter at lunch offered shrimp, mussels and an oyster, all cold and fresh, and some fine onion soup, for instance. Another night, tired and not wanting to walk very far, we wandered in only to be recognized by the waiter from the previous visit - to the point where he recalled where we sat. A fine duck in a red wine sauce satisfied, and an apple tart with ice cream was very nice indeed. And there were winkles - in French, bigorneau, much like snails, but chilled and spicy. (Photo below.) Crowded in the summer, we understand, and despite the fact that it's bigger than it looks, reservations suggested then.

 

 

La Table du Terroir

42, rue St. Jean, Bayeux

33 02 31 51 08 85

http://www.la-table-du-terroir.com/

Lunch and Dinner Thurs.-Tues.

 

Bayeux's cathedral, despite its considerable size, nearly as big as Notre Dame in Paris, fronts onto a cozy little square. Scarcely a block away is le Pommier, where I stopped for lunch and brought back my pals for dinner. The interior is modern, with rough walls painted over and a long, comfortable banquette in one of the three dining rooms. It's casual enough that a French couple were lunching with their two small children. The young gentleman was discussing the kinds of cheese pictured on his paper place mat with his father, and just hearing a 5-year-old saying "Pont l'Eveque" makes an old chowhound like moi smile.

I had tripes Normand (above) for lunch - I love tripe, and this was cooked with beef shank to make the broth even richer. When we returned for dinner, there was foie gras and and andouilette sausage to begin, pork in a Neuchatel cheese sauce and a steak, among other things. Profiteroles, housemade ice cream and a cheese plate finished things off - as well as a nice view of the cathedral lit up. Smooth service, clearly family-owned, and very hospitable.

The website has an English version, and a way to make reservations.

Le Pommier

38-40 rue des Cuisiniers (that's Cooks' Street!), Bayeux

33 02 31 21 52 10

http://www.restaurantlepommier.com/en

Lunch and Dinner daily

 

 

The best, however, was La Rapiere, down an alleyway off rue St. Jean. If you're going, stop reading and go make a reservation now. (They have an English translation on their website, and they, too, let you make reservations online.) It's very small and intimate, a stone fireplace gently sizzling and crackling, the sort of spot with plenty of regulars - but clearly a spot that's serious about their food, serious without what Americans would call an attitude. Ingredients are trditional French, but the presentation and some of the approach is modern. Oysters with a mignonette sauce, yes, but also prawns lolling on a small mound of risotto to begin with. Duck came with what seemed to be a simple pan sauce, but there were notes of thyme, bay leaf, a hit of tartness and just a bit of red currant, absolutely stunning. Pheasant, described as being in the Moroccan style, wore a sauce with notes of onion, cumin, cardamom and just a faint hint of cinnamon, subtle, but able to stand up to the rich dark meat. Almost as good as the duck.

An orb of orange marmalade mousse was glazed in chocolate. A small cheesecake, mild and soft, was topped with a ring of sauteed tart apple and a salted caramel sauce, slightly runny, was lighter than any chesecake has a right to be.

And as a bonus, the prix fixe meals, which run from 29 to 52 Euros, all include an entremet - in this case, a take on the tradition of a trou Normand, a shot of Calvados between courses to "open up the stomach" for more. Here, the Calvados was turned into a wee scoop of sorbet, still soft from the alcohol.

The staff are clearly proud of their food, but the atmosphere is warm, and the farewell at the door felt as though we'd been visiting in a private home. But La Rapiere is very popular, and we were lucky to get a table at all. They've got two forks in Michelin.

This is extraordinary value for the money, and particularly if one follows Pollacks' First Law, restaurants set their own standards by the way they price themselves, Mr. T may have been right when he said he thought this may have been the best meal of the trip. It cerainly hit the trifecta, food, service and decor.

 

La Rapiere

53, rue St. Jean, Bayeux

33 02 31 21 05 45

http://www.larapiere.net/index_en.html

Lunch and Dinner Tues.-Sat.

 

 

New Orleans: Willie Mae's Scotch House

Some food stops are non-negotiable. Vivoli for gelato in Florence. McClard's for barbecue in Hot Springs. This last weekend in New Orleans, I had to break one of my rules, though. I've visited The City That Care Forgot more than a dozen times, and I never NOT went to Cafe du Monde for beignets and coffee until this time. Less than 48 hours on the ground for a meeting with other rabid eaters just didn't allow for it.

But I've found a new place that I insist I will never, ever leave New Orleans without visiting. I've been seduced by the fried chicken at Willie Mae's Scotch House.

I admit that most fried chicken doesn't excite me. I was introduced to Popeye's when they had only a few outlets in New Orleans, long before the word "mild" was ever heard on their premises; I feel it's the best of the drive-through poultry palaces, but it's not anything I go out of my way to get. When I come across fried chicken that's notable, I'm happy to pass it on, but as far as downright chicken madness - well, that's not my beat. (Although the attention being paid to the bird here in St. Louis is, overall, a definite improvement on what we've had.)

Willie Mae's is in the Treme neighborhood, totally inundated and much destroyed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It was touch and go as to whether the restaurant would ever reopen. But finally things came together. It's a very simple place, certainly, a soul food restaurant with a relatively short menu, although seeing veal on it reminds you of just where you are.If you're lucky, you'll walk by the kitchen, where the guys are blasting out stuff like Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing", en route to the second dining room.

Twenty or so of us descended on Willie Mae's from our taxis. They don't take reservations. The staff kept their calm, putting us at tables as they emptied. There is pretty much always a line - they open at 11.30 a.m., and we arrived around 11.40. Under other circumstances, folks like this swarm of food bloggers would have run through the entire menu, but we had another lunch stop after this and two more for dinner, so we stuck to the essentials: Fried chicken and a few sides.

The chicken is battered - what seems to be frequently referred to as a "wet batter" - but it's as light as tempura, but crispier. There's some cayenne in it, but not enough to set the mouth aflame. One dissenter thought it was greasy - but what's on your fingers is chicken juice, not grease. No further sprinkling of salt, pepper, or the New Orleans classic, Crystal Hot Sauce, is needed. The color is magnificent, the bronze of an Arizona sunset. Worth the inevitable wait here, definitely.

Many rave about the butter beans, rather like large lima beans, cooked to creaminess, but I voted for the red beans, more assertively seasoned. Fried okra wears a different batter, this one of cornmeal, but almost as light. Cornbread turns out to be corn muffins, surely the most tender cornbread in the United States, almost angel food cake-ish.

No alcohol - locavores know that the vin du terroir is Barq's Root Beer, a great match. Not a place to go for a light snack, but if there's any leftover chicken - ha - it's probably just as fine cold. There's now an uptown location, but I can't vouch for it, and the menu apparently is more limited.

 

 

Willie Mae's Scotch House

2401 St. Ann St. New Orleans

504-822-9503

Facebook

Lunch (through 5 p.m.) Mon.-Sat.

Leonardo's Kitchen and Wine Bar

 Every once in a while something comes along that's a little bit different. Leonardo's Kitchen and Wine Bar, Rich LoRusso's new baby, is situated in an old gas station, and it's really a working guy's spot. (I use guy in a bi-gender sense, youse guys!) Lots of lunchtime carry-out traffic, picnic benches out front that are an optimistic touch here in the depths of winter, with sandwiches and hand-tossed pizzas the point of the whole thing.

The front room, with a counter for orders and a large cooler for nonalcoholic drinks, has lots of light, and perhaps five tables. There's also an inner dining room on the way to the kitchen, so don't be discouraged if tables look filled up when you walk in.

Happily, Leonardo's is not one of those spots who don't turn their pizza ovens on until evening, so it's a good spot for lunch cravings. One size, a 12-incher, a crust that's medium-thick by St. Louis standards, chewy and pleasantly yeasty. The cheese is a mixture of provolone and mozzarella. I was particularly taken with the Piggy, with bacon, sausage and hot salami, robustly seasoned but not fiery. Less assertive, despite the drizzle of roasted garlic olive oil, was the chic sev, with chicken, artichokes and spinach.

Both hot and cold sandwiches (plus hamburgers, which will have to wait for a return visit), all on hero-style rolls. Italian beef, beginning to get a toehold in this town for good reason, appears, moist and messy and tangy-spicy from its ladle of giardiniera, the olive-vegetable relish and, of course, the beef gravy.

And here is a sandwich whose very name has to evoke a smile: The Yogi Hoagie. This brings forth a stack of beef, ham, salami, mortadella and cheese with lettuce, tomato, a little red onion and some dressing. These vinaigrette dressings being used on such sandwiches are what lift them from snoozers to super - eschew mayonnaise for the zip of acidity, if you're wise. The salami, aged and thinly cut, almost makes one think there's prosciutto in there. It's an excellent take on the classic. Also fun to say, but another choice that had to be skipped was the Three Stooges: Hot salami, Volpi salami and baloney, which is actually mortadella.

 

Two of the three sides with the sandwiches deserve a little extra attention. The salad della casa, or house salad, is not what one expects to find in a red checkered cardboard container. the lettuce is fresh, there's roasted pepper, artichoke hearts, a little onion and a light dressing, plus a piece of garlic crostini, all very satisfying. And the fries - well, they're swirls about the size of a comma on a billboard, lightly dusted with a seasoning that left us thinking. Salty/tangy/faintly sweet with a light note of - is that maybe cinnamon? The nice woman behind the counter said it was ketchup seasoning, which made sense. However, I will say I don't like ketchup with my fries, and I thought this was pretty darned good.

Yes, there's pasta - hey, it's a LoRusso operation, after all - but everyone was going for pizza and sandwiches. Maybe some evening with a glass of one of the twelve by-the-glass selections, mostly Italian, of course. Daily specials that aren't necessarily from the old country - like soups that were New England clam chowder and chili with beef and hot salami. And, oh, they close at 8 except Friday and Saturday.

Very casual, let me repeat. But tasty.

 

Leonardo's Kitchen and Wine Bar

2130 Macklind Ave.

314-664-1410

www.facebook.com/leonardoskitchenandwinebar

Lunch and Dinner Monday-Saturday

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Sandwiches and pizza $8-$14

Pappy's Smokehouse Does It Again

Last weekend, I was in New Orleans with the North American folks who write for Chowzter - whose logo you can see (partly) to the right. The main purpose was to present the awards for the tastiest food in North America, which happened at a dinner at Commander's Palace Saturday night.

The barbecue winner was our own Pappy's Smokehouse, to my delight. Mike Emerson and his crew work hard and I was happy to pick up the trophy and plan to hand it to him at the first opportunity. It's high time the world realized that Missouri barbecue is first-rate on both sides of the state. I reckon that we're slightly ahead because we have more emphasis on pork, and as I have often said (and been challenged about in parking lots), the Lord created the hog to be barbecued.

Chowzter offers food from four continents curated by bloggers from each area, and it's designed to be very affordable food. Lobster Albanello, pace Bommaritos, is delicious, but it's not what we focus on. It's a world of pizza and sandwiches and noodles and chicken. Go look at, say, Singapore and see what to eat there.

We had more than forty of us attending this meeting, so you can imagine that it was 48 hours-plus of bacchanalian eating. I'll have more on what else I found. In the meantime, congratulations, Mike Emerson.

You can read more about the awards here.

Remember The Forum Cafeteria?

Here's the link to the St. Louis Magazine piece.

This photo is of the Minneapolis location, via the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's website, but it sure looks like what I recall ours did. The only thing I'd note is that I originally mean to write about the Friday after Thanksgiving, which was a far bigger mob scene than December 26 must have been back then, say, in the Eisenhower Administration. 

Lucha

New in Grand Center - slightly upscale Mexican. It's a nice idea - get there early and get better parking, too, before a concert or play. I wrote about it in the St. Louis Magazine blog.