Po-Boys Everywhere

This past Sunday was the 3rd annual Po-Boy Preservation Festival on Oak St. in Uptown. An enormous crowd - over 25,000 - showed up to support the New Orleans po-boy culture and enjoy po-boys from over 40 area restaurants. The streets were packed, bands were playing, the Saints were on the TV, and the po-boys were stuffed chock full of goodness. What a day!

Here's a peek into the fun we had...

We braved enormous crowds to obtain the ultimate po-boys.



We enjoyed a 12 hour roast beef po-boy with pickled red onions and horseradish cream from Boucherie. Well, 12 hours and 40 minutes after waiting in a huge line to get a sandwich. It was a lot of meat, and the meat was good.



There were plenty of well-known names around serving up po-boys. We heard that the Vietnamese po-boy from Dong Phuong was out-of-this world, but after waiting in line for 20 minutes, they were out of meat, and we just didn't have the patience to wait another 20 for them to cook more meat. Maybe next year, Dong Phuong.



Our favorite po-boy was from Palace Cafe. The ESP (Extra Special Peacemaker) had wonderfully crispy fried oysters, brie fondue, spinach, red onion, and sherry-tasso cream. After one bite, we have no doubt that this po-boy could bring peace to any warring nations. Palace Cafe also gets bonus points for bringing samples of their also delicious duck po-boy (Quack L'Orange) to guests waiting in line for the ESP.



Sunday ended up being a perfect day - we enjoyed delicious takes on a staple that has helped define New Orleans cuisine and the Saints achieved an unprecedented 10-0 record. Here's hoping the magic (on both accounts) will be recreated next year!

REVIEW: Albasha Greek & Lebanese Restaurant

1958 North U.S. Hwy. 190
Covington, LA

View the website

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Overall:
Service:
Atmosphere:
Food:
Price:

Pros: Near perfect gyro and chicken shawarma.
Cons: They don’t have a location next door to our house.
Bottom Line: Really good Greek & Lebanese food at a great price!

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In the middle of a half mile stretch of Hwy 190 where there are not one, not two, but three Thai restaurants, sits a lone Greek and Lebanese restaurant, Albasha. Albasha has several locations in Southeast Louisiana – we were big fans of the ones in Baton Rouge, and, fortunately, the Covington one does not disappoint. Greek and Lebanese, in our opinion, is a great category of cuisine in that it is appealing because it is "ethnic" - it's cuisine from another region of the world - but it is also not overly intimidating. Most dishes use relatively standard ingredients and simple cooking methods, so there isn't anything that should scare away timid eaters. It's a great introduction to global cuisine for those with trepidation.

The restaurant itself has an open, bright feeling without seeming cheesy or fake. It's a nice enough place to bring a date but casual enough to stop in with the family and kids.

On the menu, Albasha offers a significant number of appetizer options, many of which are vegetarian. The only downside is there are no “sampler platters”, which are great for pleasing a diverse crowd or for introducing this style of food to some newbies. We started with the meat-stuffed grape leaves. These were delicious, as was the creamy sauce with which it was served.

In the entree category, you can’t go wrong with the Greek staples – gyro (lamb) and chicken shawarma platters. (If you can’t decide between the two, don't fret - there is a combination platter.) The chicken shawarma is juicy and delicious. The gyro, however, is near perfection. Tender, flavorful, and almost melts in your mouth. That is what’s great about well-executed Mediterranean food – it’s simple, but so delicious. No crazy preparation tricks, just well-marinated, slow-cooked delicious meats. The sides stand their own as well. The hummus is very good and has the right amount of boldness, the salad is solid (though they seemed to have switched from an oil-and-vinegar-dressed salad topped with feta crumbles to a salad topped with a creamy feta dressing), and the rice is decent yet forgettable. Overall, Albasha makes one of the best-rounded platters that we have tried in the area. And they really stand out where it counts – with the meats. Not to mention they serve generous portions at reasonable prices (the platters are just over $10).

Albasha offers a wide range of Greek and Lebanese dishes and executes them well. If you're the kind who doesn't like to venture out of the ordinary, Albasha is a great place to cautiously break out of your rut. Give it a try once, and we're sure you'll be back for more.

Thanksgiving on a Bagel

We frequented our favorite morning eatery - Creole Bagelry - the other day, and the daily cream cheese special was Sweet Potato Pie. Sweet Potato Pie!! And yes, it was as good as it sounds. Brown sugar, cinnamon, and the taste of fall all encapsulated into a creamy topping...doesn't get much better! From our experience, the cream cheese specials usually stick around for a week or two, so we suggest you head on over soon and whet your Thanksgiving appetite!

RECIPE: Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

adapted from foodnetwork.com and wilton.com

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Difficulty:
Taste:

Pros: Super soft and super yummy!
Cons: The icing adds some extra time to the preparation, and decorating the cake to actually look good can take some patience and practice if you're not familiar with the techniques.
Bottom Line: The best parts of a cookie and a cake combined into one heavenly dessert...what's not to love??

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This is an awesome cookie cake. Be careful not to overcook it, and it will be soft, slightly dense, and oh-so-delicious. The majority of your time with this recipe will be spent waiting for the cake to bake and cool and decorating the cake (at least, if you're amateur decorators as we are). It does take some extra time to make the homemade icing rather than buying something from the store, but this is an icing that is easy to decorate with and actually tastes pretty good. We like it a lot more than the icing you'll get on most grocery store cakes. And of course, when you make your own icing, you can tailor the colors to the occasion (LSU or Saints tailgating, anyone?). So we suggest you try to ice the cake yourself, even if you're new to it. (If we can make the icing look halfway decent, certainly you can, too.) But if you are intimidated by the homemade icing, please don't be intimated by the cookie cake...it is super easy to make and would taste great on its own. This dessert is definitely worth the effort and makes enough to serve a whole crowd. So try this instead of traditional cake for your next birthday celebration, or for the next time you are entertaining, or for your next, say, Tuesday! We bet you can't make this cookie cake just once!

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened 1 cup packed light brown sugar 1/2 cup granulated sugar 2 large eggs 2 cups + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips 3/4 cup white chocolate chips

Icing:

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter softened 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 4 cups (about 1 lb.) confectioners' sugar

2 tablespoons milk 2 tablespoons cornstarch desired food coloring

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut parchment paper to cover the bottom of 14-inch, light colored, round pizza pan. (If you don't have a pizza pan, you can use a 13x9 casserole dish - your cookie cake will just be thicker). Grease the parchment paper.

Cream the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and butter in large bowl. Add one egg, then beat the mixture until the egg is well combined. Add the second egg, and beat the mixture again.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and egg mixture a bit at a time, mixing as you go. Add the vanilla extract, and mix until everything is well combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. We have generally use Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips (our favorite) and white chocolate chips, but use your favorites! We've also done dark chocolate chips (for the milk chocolate) and peanut butter chips (for the white chocolate). Anything goes here! Spread the mixture across the bottom of the prepared pan.

Bake until the edges are golden and the cookie is set. The center of the cake should be slightly soft. This generally takes 15-18 minutes for a pizza pan, and 17-20 minutes for a 13x9 dish. Just keep an eye on it...the cake is much better a little undercooked then overcooked - trust us! Let the cake cool for about 10 minutes, and then carefully transfer it to a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way. (Don't worry about little cracks that may occur in the transfer - you won't notice these at the end.)




For the icing, beat the shortening and butter in a large bowl until fluffy. Add the vanilla and beat to combine. Add the confectioners' sugar one cup at a time, beating after each cup. Make sure you scrape the sides of bowl occasionally while doing this.

In a separate small bowl, combine the milk and cornstarch. Stir until the cornstarch is dissolved. Add this to icing mixture, and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add your desired food coloring and mix well. This makes a good bit of icing - if you are doing two colors, you can divide the icing at this point into two bowls and color each separately. This should be more than enough icing to decorate your cake with two colors.

Use this icing immediately to decorate the completely cooled cookie cake. Use a decorating set with a piping bag, or cut the corner off of a ziploc bag and squeeze the icing out that way. If you don't use the icing immediately, store in the refrigerator in an air-tight container for up to one week. If it's stored in the fridge, you will need to beat the icing again before use.

REVIEW: Jasmine French Restaurant

1768 Front St
Slidell, LA

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Overall:
Service:
Atmosphere:
Food:
Price:

Pros: A great place to bring - and impress - a date.
Cons: The restaurant seemed a little too empty.
Bottom Line: Was a great experience with classic French cuisine that left us hungry for more.

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Located in a small, unassuming building on Front St. in Slidell, Jasmine's is the kind of place that doesn't do much (if any) advertising, but lives off regular customers and good old fashioned word-of-mouth. Jasmine's is a somewhat upscale restaurant that serves French classics. We Hippos haven't done a lot of true French dining (unless French fries and French toast count), so we were excited to sample some authentically-cooked cuisine.

The dining area is shaped in a deep rectangle and is cozy and authentic. The decor is classic and elegant - white tablecloths on the tables and a large, beautiful painting of people dancing on the wall (if you go, check out the guy who looks like he's doing the Thriller dance). We went in for dinner at 7:00 PM, and there were only 3 other tables occupied. Of these, only one of the tables - a couple - was under the age of, oh, say 80, and no more younger people came in while we were there. Apparently, this place does best with the early dinner crowd and is not well known with the younger population.

To start the meal we ordered an appetizer and a half liter of wine. Oh how we love restaurants that serve half liters - it's the perfect size for us when we're dining on our own to each get two generous glasses. The wine was great and came at an extremely reasonable price ($15) for such a nice restaurant. Jasmine definitely gets bonus points for that! For an appetizer, we had crabmeat au gratin. It was creamy, cheesy, and delicious. Our only critique was that we didn't taste much of the flavors of the white wine that it was cooked in. But it still tasted great. Each entree came with a Caesar salad, topped with anchovies (salads without anchovies are also available for the unadventurous). Good stuff here, too.

For entrees, we asked the waiter for recommendations. He pleasantly obliged, and offered recommendations and descriptions (which weren't on the menu) of his preferred entrees in each category (pasta, beef, game meats, seafood, etc). We decided to go with two of his recommendations - the Beef Wellington and rack of lamb with rosemary. Beef Wellington is a classic French dish. It's a beef tenderloin on top of pate and all wrapped up and cooked in puff pastry. The Beef Wellington was a beautiful piece of meat - cooked perfectly and oh-so-tender. The rack of lamb was also cooked very well and had great flavor. It was served with a mint jelly that nicely complemented the dish - and this is coming from a hippo that doesn't like mint much. Each dish came with sides of green beans and potatoes. The green beans were your average steamed, butter-coated green beans. The potatoes were comfort food at its best. However, it was the perfectly cooked, well-seasoned cuts of meat that were the stars of the plates.

We really enjoyed our dinner at Jasmine. We've heard that new owners are taking over the restaurant soon. We hope they will maintain the integrity of the cuisine while making an effort to draw a younger crowd. As it is now, Jasmine is a great place for a romantic dinner for those in the Slidell area who don't want to cross the lake. The service was excellent, attentive, and postively contributed to the dining experience. We really enjoyed our meal and look forward to returning to increase our knowledge of French cuisine.

RECIPE: Mexican Rice

adapted from recipeezaar.com

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Difficulty:
Taste:

Pros: Recreates the texture and flavor of great, authentic Mexican rice.
Cons: Takes a bit more involvement than the average rice dish.
Bottom Line: Definitely worth it when you are entertaining or have some time to prepare the meal.

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This recipe takes a little bit of investment, but it is worth it! The end product tastes just like the ubiquitous yet delicious side dish found at many great Mexican restaurants. The key here is getting the texture right - the rice comes out fluffy instead of sticky. This recipe is worth the investment when you need a goes-with-everything Mexican side dish.

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Mexican Rice

12 oz. canned tomatoes 1 medium white onion 3 medium jalapenos 2 cups long grain white rice 1/3 cup canola oil

4 minced garlic cloves 2 cups chicken broth 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, minced 1 lime

Adjust your oven rack to the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.

Puree the tomatoes (fresh and cored or canned) with the onion in a blender until the mixture is smooth with no chunks. Measure out 2 cups of the mixture and discard the rest.



Rib, seed, and mince two of the jalepenos. For a kick to your rice, mince the third jalepeno (with ribs and seeds) and set aside to add to the rice at the end.

Put the uncooked rice in a fine mesh strainer and rinse under cold running water until water runs clear - this should take a couple of minutes. Shake the rice to remove excess water. (This is the step that removes the starch from the rice to help create the nice fluffy texture.)

Put the oil in an oven-safe deep sautee pan or Dutch oven that has a lid. Heat the oil over medium high heat for about 2 minutes. Test the temperature of the oil by dropping a few rice grains in to see if they sizzle - if they do, it's ready. Add the rice and stir until the rice is a light golden and translucent, about 6-8 minutes.



Reduce the heat to medium, add garlic and the 2 minced, seeded jalapenos. (We had some leftover bell pepper to use up, so we threw that in, too, and it turned out great.) Cook, stirring constantly, for about 1 1/2 minutes. Stir in the broth, pureed tomato mixture, and salt. Increase heat to medium high and bring to a boil.



Cover the pan and transfer to oven. Bake until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender, about 30-35 minutes. Stir well after 15 minutes. (Don't forget that the handle of the pan will be hot!! We learned this the hard way!)

Stir in the cilantro, the remaining minced jalapeno (if you like it spicier), and the juice of the lime.

REVIEW: El Palmar

123 Gause Blvd
Slidell, LA

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Overall:
Service:
Atmosphere:
Food:
Price:

Pros: Good food at reasonable prices.
Cons: Nothing too exciting about the typical Mexican menu.
Bottom Line: Up to par Mexican food and cheap margaritas.

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The sign for El Palmar, a Mexican restaurant in Slidell, has been up for what feels like years. But finally, after months of a sign with no restaurant, El Palmar has opened for business. On the corner of Gause Blvd. and Front St., the restaurant has a prime spot on a busy corner. So far, the location has seemed to bring them in a good bit of business.

Inside the restaurant is the typical casual and festive Mexican decor. The space, maybe since it's so new, feels open and clean. The service wasn't as smooth as it could be, but the restaurant and the waitstaff are new, so we'll give them a pass for now. Once we ordered, we were brought chips and salsa. The salsa was stored in a carafe and was delivered with individual bowls in which to pour it. While the salsa was a bit liquidy and thin for our liking, it did have a good flavor. We also sampled the frozen lime margarita. We ordered a small, but it was plenty enough for the average person. And at $3.50, it was an incredible deal. The margarita had a good taste, which was perhaps even enhanced by the warm, tingly feeling you get when you know you got a good deal. The sign on the door says margaritas are only $1.50 during LSU and Saints games -- so you can stretch your dollar even farther during these times.

For our first entree, we got a grilled chicken & bean burrito, which was covered with queso and sliced avocado and served with rice and beans. This was pretty good. The chicken was juicy and had a great flavor. The avocado was fresh, and the queso was...well, how can you mess up queso?? In our opinion, the burrito would have been even better if the beans in the burrito were black or pinto beans instead of refried, but that's a small complaint. The rice & beans sides were up to our Mexican standards.

The second entree was the El Burro Loco - "loco" because it's a "huge" burrito, according to the menu description. Sometimes you wonder when a menu claims something is "huge," especially since the first burrito was more expensive and relatively small. However, we had to remove our jaws from the table when this burrito came out. We have never seen such a massive burrito. This was the type of burrito that looked like it should have been free if you could finish it in one sitting, with the victor getting his name up on a plaque. This burrito made Izzo's Illegal burrito look like a petty crime. This burrito was...well, you get the idea. (Notice we had to put a fork with it in the picture, as a point of reference.) Stuffed with beef, shredded chicken, rice, beans, and cheese, this burrito didn't come with sides because, well, there aren't any plates large enough to fit this burrito and sides. In case the filling wasn't enough, the burrito was topped with enchilada sauce, queso, lettuce, tomato, sour cream, and guacamole. This massive dish tasted pretty decent, but, really, do you order this burrito for the taste? Not only was this entree a dollar cheaper than the first, it provided enough leftovers to feed dinner to a family of four.

The sign for El Palmar has been tantilizing us for many, many months. Once the restaurant actually opened, it took us another month or so to finally make it there. But now that we have, we are pleased. While it didn't necessarily knock our socks off, it provided good Mexican food for a good value. It may even be able to compete with the Hippos' favorite Mexican shop in Slidell, Los Tres Amigos (on Pontchartrain, not Gause). We'll have to return to El Palmar soon to sample their non-burrito entrees because so far, so good.