THE GURGLING COD

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This pic of Donald Link throwing down w/ some preschoolers? Sploosh. 

A suggestion for Patriots and Giants ownership -- skip Indy and just play in New Orleans

Deear Messrs Kraft, Mara, and Tisch-

Congratulations to you and to the Giant and Patriot families on your conference championships. Both of your franchises have had exciting seasons, and this Super Bowl matchup will have fans buzzing. 

There is some bad news. For your efforts, you have earned yourselves a trip to Indianapolis. Once in a while the NFL chooses to rotate the game out of the usual venues, and play it in a grim and inhospitable Rust Belt stadium. 

But look at all the fun you can have tailgating, as long as you follow these rules!

Nearby dining options include the worst Subway in Indy! A White Castle! Elsewhere in Indy is a "cajun creole" joint. Exactly. 

If you want to go upscale, there is Tavern on South, pushing the culinary envelope with filet mignon meatloaf! 

You see the situation. Indianapolis is a city where people like Asian fusion and McCormick and Schmick. Fortunately, there is a solution. You are people of means, and did not become the men you are by kowtowing to men of small minds and limited imagination. Here's what you do -- rent some jets, fly to New Orleans, and play a game there. Loser agrees to forfeit the Man's Super Bowl. 

In case you have forgotten, one stumble out of the Superdome and be eating like a king within minutes. A Ferdie or a Ralph at Mother's. A meal at Cochon and some snacks at Cochon Butcher. Take a streetcar, and a whole world opens up. Take a cab to Frankie and Johnnie's. Try that new burger place on Freret. Oysters from Acme and Cassamento's Stroll to and from your hotel sipping on an Abita. Get a muffaletta from Central Grocery and hide it in your jacket. Find someone with keys to the Supedome, put a sign on the marquee -"FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP TODAY." Cash-only general admission. Tee it up, play the game and send Rodger Goodell and Indy your regrets. 

You can thank me later, xo, The Gurgling Cod

Cajuns occupy Wall St. Journal? Or, first we take Manhattan, then we take Baton Rouge

Stephen "Cochon" Stryjewski is doing some receipts for the WSJ. At the end of #1, the following correction appeared: 

Corrections & Amplifications 
Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Lafayette is the capital of Louisiana.

Is it? 

The next critic for the NY Times?

Sez Eater, there is a rumor that the next lead DI/DO critic will be Brett Anderson, who is currently the lead critic for the New Orleans Times Picayune. This is, by definition, puzzling, considering that being a restaurant critic in New Orleans is the best job in the world. Schnelly left the U for the USFL, and that feels like that kind of choice. 

Welcome Eater NOLA!

Greetings NOLA types. Various NOLA stuff here. I meant what I said about EaterNOLA having the best job in the world, because of the difficulty of having a bad meal in New Orleans. Difficult, but not impossible. Years ago, the Cod spent a Mardi Gras staying by Constantinople w/ a crew that included two vegetarian until graduation types, who subsisted the entire time on cheeseburgers, hold the meat from the McDonald's on St. Charles. We've spent plenty of time glorifying the high points of NOLA -- would be interested, in the comments, to hear about any NOLA dining disasters, high or low. 

That said, these Memphians seem a little rough on Central Grocery here. I've had both Cochon Butcher and Central Grocery muffalettas this year, and they are both good. The Cochon Butcher sandwich travels better than you might imagine, but the OG Central Grocery model is the cossack of sandwiches. If remembering that you have half or even a quarter of a Central Grocery muffaletta in your carryon bag, or in the back of your car has ever saved your life, you likely share the Cod's limited patience for Central Grocery naysaters. 

The final Richman / M. Wells post? We can hope.

Already more attention than it deserves,* but a few loose ends from the first and second posts on allegations that a GQ food critic had fondled a server at a haute diner in Queens...

1) DuBarry, offers a take on sexual harassment of the assgrabbing variety that makes me proud she learned her law-talking where grandpa worked:

Here's an antiquated notion I know - don't ban the customer, but don't fire the waitress that whips around and slaps him in the face.

2) Its proximity to L'affaire assgrab made me more sensitive to this than otherwise, but it was a bad week for a pitch on the "Manliest Restaurants in America" to hit the inbox. In particular:

"Readers are now invited to visit www.menshealth.com/nutrition/manliest-restaurants and vote for their favorite guy-friendly restaurant."

 Guy-friendly? You mean like every restaurant in the world, pretty much? Or is there some oppressed remnant somewhere, silkscreening ESPN AND JALAPENO POPPERS ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY t-shirts in a basement?

3) And speaking of guy friendly, I suggested in a previous post that Ruth's Chris might be the kind of place that would not mind so much if you grabbed their waitresses' asses -- the misdeed that Richman was charged with by M. Wells management. I hope neither is true, but it did remind me that Richman and Ruth's Chris both went out of their way to throw a half-drowned city under a bus. 

 *In general, the level of attention paid to the rise and fall of a diner serving poutine in Queens makes me wonder what's missing from NYC dining, circa 2011. Besides fava beans, of course. 

Six of one, half dozen of the other oysters = ?

A few questions for oyster lovers, and the folks who pander to them:

Restaurant folks: If a restaurant has oysters priced at, say $10/half dozen and $17/dozen, and you order six of one variety, do you ring that as $10 + $10 = $20, or at $17?

Also, what is the deal with Ameripure oysters? The cinetrix and I tucked in to some last night at a dreadful new spot in the upstate. They tasted like pieces of those white Crocs that nurses wear. The Cod's got nothing but love for Gulf seafood, but these oysters give Gulf oysters a bad name. Zero flavor, zero salinity. It was like the Sani-Taco of oysters. It's a curious buiness proposition, as the marketing hook seems to be reducing levels of pathogens I've never heard of, and would be happier not knowing about. I can understand concerns about BP related chemical contamination, but bacterial contamination would seem to be a whole other kettle of fish. Given the general cluelessness of this outfit, they could have done something like rinsed the oysters prior to serving. (Ordering poboys outside the 504 is like kissing gila monsters, but hope springs eternal. Ford's take on the roast beef poboy is something between pulled pork and sloppy Joe in texture, on a hot dog bun. It made me pine for Domilise's, even if I had to watch a loopof Tyree's catch Clockwork Orange steez, while Eli pinned my arms back, and Peyton fed me.*)

*I am aware that that may well be what this lady would ask Make-a-Wish for, which makes one of us. 

Bourdain meets MC Escher, or sometimes metatheater is a Sazerac in the face

The Cod just got off an airplane, but this makes the bones in his head hurt. If I have it straight:

1) Katrina.

2) Critic trashes post-Katrina NOLA dining.

3) TV show set just post-K drops.

4) Show references critic's pan.

5) Critic makes cameo on show, gets Sazerac in face from irate NOLA cook.

6) Said (fictional) incident blows up Eater.com. 

7) Entire story arc reprised on (real) Eater.com. 

8) Cod further muddies water with real blog post (this one here) about metatheatrical collusion between Eater and Treme. 

Is that correct? 

LAKER IHOP FRACAS IS WHAT WE CALL A FRACAS THAT TAKES PLACE IN AN IHOP AND INVOLVES A MEMBER OF THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS

And it's Big Ass Beer sized HT to Caunboy for this pearl:

Laker arrested in IHOP fracas

He allegedly shoved waitress while drunk

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

By Brendan McCarthy

Staff writer

Though he has yet to step on the basketball court in this playoff series, Los Angeles Lakers backup forward Derrick Caracter still managed to get whistled for a flagrant foul this weekend.

The offense occurred not along the sidelines of the Hive, but in a booth at a downtown pancake house. And instead of a trip to the locker room, Caracter's night ended with a sojourn to Central Lockup.

Caracter, a 6-foot-9, 22-year-old rookie who was in New Orleans for his team's playoff series with the Hornets, was arrested and jailed early Sunday for allegedly grabbing and shoving a female server at an International House of Pancakes restaurant while drunk. The altercation occurred about 1:20 a.m. in the 800 block of Canal Street, near the edge of the French Quarter, not far from the Lakers' hotel.

This works on so many levels. Dexter Fishmore gets at several of them here. As he points out, being arrested for drunkenness in a city famous for its drunkspitality takes some real effort. (Even for a visiting athlete, to judge from Kenny Stabler's appearance on the list at the Famous Door.) 

Moreover, it's New Orleans, not an afterprom in Kenosha. There is no excuse for eating in an IHOP in New Orleans. Ever. 

Finally, with the exception of the aforementioned Mr. Stabler, the 800 block of Canal at 1:20 AM is not where you want to be the night before the big game. 

The real payoff for this story will come at Phil Jackson's next presser: "Derrick is a warrior on a journey, and his warrior path took him to an IHOP at 1:20 am"?

Sunday morning coming down, with Bayou Teche

Like evolution or same sex marriage, beer for breakfast is one of those needlessly controversial issues of our age. Just as there are those who think fossils are God's way of testing us, or those who think the shape of someone's junk is what makes them suitable as a life partner, there are those who feel that drinking beer for breakfast represents some sort of degenerate abdication of everything Ben Franklin and Max Weber hold dear.

But Virginia, your little friends are wrong. We are descended from apes, and if you want to grow up and marry Mehitabel, let me know where you are registered. The same is true of drinking beer for breakfast. You have someone who says it's bad? Well, the Cod has a Rhodes Scholar endorsing drinking beer for breakfast:

 

Well I woke up Sunday morning,
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad,
So I had one more for dessert.

One lesson from the most recent NOLA trip (Llinkfest wrapup TK, promise) is that Bayou Teche Biere Pale is an oustanting breakfast beer. Really assertive hop character, and some body, but not overwhelming. I have not tried their other styles, but their website suggests they are very serious about matching their beers to local cooking styles. Given all the locovore buzz, it's surprising that this isn't happening more across the US, but props to these guys. Play us off, Kris.