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I'm from New Orleans, where people appreciate good food to a fault but are deeply suspicious of concepts like "molecular gastronomy." We came to Alinea last July with open minds, but fully ready to giggle and/or sneer if the food struck us as gimmicky, pompous, or lacking in substance. Instead, we had one of the best meals of our life. Two courses -- SQUAB and BACON -- reduced me to tears with their deliciousness and still haunt me at odd moments lo these many eventful months later. After just one meal, I almost feel as if I could identify Chef Grant's "flavor signature" in a blind test, just as I could with those of chefs whose food I've been eating and thinking about for years. The food at Alinea is not only delicious but also deeply coherent. This is not a young man tossing disparate ingredients together in an attempt to be innovative. He knows exactly what he is doing, and while I found a couple of dishes gimmicky (the famous "PB&J" -- a single peeled grape still on the stem, wrapped in peanut puree and toasted bread -- annoyed me slightly, though it is one of his signature items), overall it was one of the best and most interesting meals we've ever had. Afterward, we were given a tour of the kitchen, which has an orderly, science-lab-ish feel: a far cry from the clanging and hissing and cussing and smoking of just about every other restaurant kitchen I've ever been in. There's only one stove -- four burners -- but any number of fascinating gadgets designed especially for Alinea, such as a "cold plate" that works like a hot griddle, only in reverse, instantly searing things to -50. I certainly wouldn't want every restaurant to be like this -- I like the clanging and hissing and cussing and smoking, and the genius that sometimes emerges from it -- but I'm very glad we experienced this. Now they just need to start serving liquor, if that hasn't already been taken care of.

Belated thanks, y'all. We are back in the city and hanging in there, though I do tumble over occasionally (see blog for details). I'll soon be proofreading the next Liquor book, Soul Kitchen, big whacks of which are set in places like Shell Beach that basically don't exist anymore. That should be fun, huh? The next book, Dead Shrimp Blues, will be set down there a lot too, and that is gonna be a real heartbreaker to write.

Anyone interested in trying nontypical New Orleans food should also visit Marisol -- much better and more interesting than Bayona, in my opinion, though it doesn't get nearly as much attention. (I ate at Bayona probably 12 to 15 times over the course of a decade trying to see what people cherished so much about it, and finally decided it just wasn't for me.) Another good restaurant that doesn't fit the Creole template is the new-ish Addis at the corner of Magazine and Milan Streets. N.O. was without Ethiopian food for a couple of years after Red Sea closed its doors, but proprietress Hirut Yibsa is now serving a variety of dishes including the best kitfo I've ever had (and I eat kitfo at every conceivable opportunity).

FYI, Casamento's is closed for the season, and even when it's open it stops serving dinner at 9:00 PM.

Finally managed to unearth the Besh Steakhouse review I wrote in my blog last June. Contains language. ****** Normally it would take a great deal to make me even consider visiting a casino restaurant, and this one had the added baggage of being (at least nominally) run by Chef John Besh, whose grinning, ruggedly pretty mug is plastered on nearly as many New Orleans surfaces as Louis Armstrong's and whose overrated Restaurant August served me one of the most tantalizingly described, execrably prepared meals I've ever eaten. Still, the casino-restaurant concept has some relevance to my next book, and I had heard tales of a 45-day dry-aged New York strip topped with marrow; also of an appetizer of roasted marrowbones with oxtail marmalade. We ended up enjoying ourselves tremendously. The space was beautiful (though it would be a damn sight more so without the enormous Blue Dog paintings everywhere -- Christ, how I hate that thing), the service was exemplary, and though the marrowbone app had been removed from the menu (lagging sales due to Mad Cow hysteria, I bet), I convinced them to prepare it for me anyway, though the oxtail marmalade was unavailable. Lovely, lovely marrowbones. I think I alarmed the couple at the next table with the extent of the surgery I performed on them. Chris started with the lobster-tail gazpacho, which arrived at the table in a vast bowl that seemed to me to have about two tablespoons of soup in it, but he claimed to be happy. The 45-day dry-aged New York strip was very good. Alas, it could not live up to the 45-day dry-aged bone-in ribeye I had at the Nana Grill in Dallas, which was the single best piece of beef I've ever eaten and is practically a character in PRIME. I'm reminded of a cooler-than-thou college radio station manager/Cure fan I once knew who said after listening to The Head on the Door, "I'd probably think this was a pretty good album if I'd never heard Pornography." Yes, she was a stupid bitch, but when I compared the two steaks, I kind of knew what she meant. The New York strip had a rich, almost livery flavor, but the Dallas ribeye's flavor was incredibly complex: first beefy, then almost cheesy, not unpleasantly so, but rather like a good Parmagiano-Reggiano when it starts to get old and grainy. There was some attempt to impart this complexity to the New York strip with a blue cheese butter, but it wasn't really happening. (Readers interested in hearing much, much more about the beef aging process should read Jeffrey Steingarten's essay on same in IT MUST HAVE BEEN SOMETHING I ATE.) Anyway, it was very good, but it didn't blow my mind like the Dallas steak did. I blame the lack of bone. Next time I'll try Besh's 28-day dry-aged bone-in ribeye and hope it's been sitting around a few extra days. Chris had a Kobe beef filet with chevre mashed potatoes and piquillo peppers stuffed with shrimp and lobster -- accompaniments I would never have wished for in a million years, but he liked them -- and we finished by sharing a chocolate "cake" that intrigued me only because of the promised gold leaf. I'm a sucker for edible gold. It turned out to be a pyramid of hard chocolate filled with chocolate mousse, set atop a pool of nicely tart passionfruit syrup (not coulis, for a change), and crowned with a tiny speck of gold leaf. Not bad, especially for a chocolate skeptic like me, but if you're going to advertise gold on a dessert, I don't want a CRUMB of it -- I want the MAJOR BLING-BLING at my table.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of this one. I think it is probably the third most overrated restaurant in New Orleans (after Bayona and Jacques-Imo's), but almost everybody in the world seems to disagree with me.

Is that the one across from the Abita Brew Pub? I love that place. OK, here's my list of extremities: "Mannish water" (goat testicle & green banana soup in Jamaica) -- delicious Whole snipe, complete with its innards on toast and the head split so you could scoop out the brains, at St. John in London -- delicious Kangaroo, both fresh & jerky -- pretty good as long as it's cooked rare; apparently it toughens up quickly Durian ice cream -- I get this every time I'm in Chinatown, and the counter person always says, "You have before?" and makes a face Natto -- possibly the most horrible thing I've ever eaten Duck tongues -- tough but tasty Squirrel and possum -- both quite good Mockingbird (highly illegal, I'm sure, but I used to have a starving artist friend who just about subsisted on fresh roadkill) -- faintly rancid Nutria -- not bad, but awfully lean And all the usual offal, pig parts of every description, odd sea creatures, coagulated blood in congee, thousand-year-old eggs, etc. etc., most of which I enjoyed thoroughly (though the blood had an unfortunate laxative effect). Oddly, the thing I was most discouraged from eating was not an animal part at all, but a soup of fresh bamboo shoots at a Vietnamese restaurant in eastern New Orleans. The waitress told me repeatedly that I would not like it, that it was very stinky, that I would still have to pay for it if I couldn't eat it, and so forth. Of course all this made me perk up with curiosity, and I convinced her that I had to have it. It was very good, and didn't strike me as especially stinky or extreme in any way. Things I want to try, because I am a fool: Lutefisk The "walking cheese" of Sardinia

Hey, man! Good to see you too. Hong Kong -- I'm jealous. Have you tried the stinky bean curd? I attempted to fix some the other night and not only couldn't eat it; I had to leave the house for awhile. And I'm a fan of Epoisses, Limburger, and durian. Come back to New Orleans and drink Wild Turkey with me.

Pam, I've tried hard to make each book stand alone, but yes, they're about the same characters and are connected. I'd suggest reading Liquor, which tells the story of how they open the restaurant, and then Prime, which picks up after the place has been open a couple of years. If you like those, then you can read The Value of X -- it tells the backstory of how the boys grew up in New Orleans and learned to cook. By the time you finish all that, the next book, Soul Kitchen, may be out! VeryApe, thanks for your kind words -- so glad you enjoyed the book.

I've not written a cookbook, but I am the author of three food-related novels -- The Value of X, Liquor, and Prime -- and am at work on a fourth. These tell the story of two young New Orleans chefs who open a restaurant where the menu is entirely based on liquor, a concept I think would be perfect for a N.O. restaurant. Some readers have expressed interest in a cookbook. There are a few problems: (1) people outside the business tend not to understand that the publisher of your novels won't automatically want to publish a cookbook based on them; (2) much of the food in the novels is inspired by other chefs' food I've eaten, so I don't really think of it as "mine"; (3) I have no idea how to write or test any but the simplest recipes, and my husband is a chef and thus at work all the time, so there's no help from that quarter. As far as the importance of an agent, I've made my living as a freelance writer for fifteen years and I know a good agent can help you as much as a bad one can hurt you. I don't know if there are any Stephen King fans here, but whatever you may think of his fiction (I like it), he knows the writing business as well as anyone and the second half of his memoir/guide On Writing contains some of the best advice I've ever read on how to obtain literary representation. I'm a new subscriber to eGullet and it's exciting to see so many writers here whose work I have enjoyed. (Michael Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef has been an invaluable research tool, ultimately inspiring me to visit the CIA a couple of years ago, and I've recently been comparing some of Clifford Wright's recipes with traditional foods that appear on the St. Joseph altars held every March 19 by New Orleanians of Sicilian ancestry). I introduced myself briefly over on the Louisiana board, but would like to do so again here. I look forward to discussing and obsessing over food with all of you. Poppy Z. Brite

Hi, Larry -- good to hear from you! I certainly don't want to discourage you from reading the earlier books, but you should know that they are very different from Liquor/Prime, and have little to do with food or restaurants. I'm currently working on a book-by-book guide for my website, so people can see at a glance which ones might interest them.

I third (or is it fourth?) Marisol. I've seen some complaints on here about their service, but the situation has improved, and they are still serving what I believe to be hands-down the most interesting and innovative food in New Orleans. If you want raw or fried oysters, I recommend Casamento's over Uglesich's.

Well, if so, at least they've been dusted regularly.

The trend may be coming back. I've not seen posters, but I have seen giant paintings of fruits and vegetables in a number of New Orleans restaurants. (Of course, some people will tell you that New Orleans hasn't made it out of the '80s yet ... )

Hello! I hope no one minds my bumping this up after so much time has passed, but I wanted to let folks know that Prime, the sequel to Liquor, has just been published by Three Rivers Press. I'm a brand-new eGullet subscriber and I look forward to talking about food, restaurants, chefs, New Orleans, and such with all of you. Poppy Z. Brite