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Friday night my son and I met Brooks at MiLa for our farewell dinner. When we arrived, we were to be seated at a dimly lit table. This time, I saw several empty tables with much better lighting. I asked if we could change to one of those. The response tonight was a simple "yes." The entire menu was enticing, but rather than order a tasting, we ordered a number of ala carte dishes. For an amuse we were given a tasty... Lobster gratinee. I started with the subtle, but delicious... Oyster Rockefeller “Deconstructed” Poached Louisiana Oysters, Spinach, Bacon Chips, Grated Licorice Root. The dish did not bash one over the head, but it did satisfy with a subtle blend of flavors and textures. This was nicely done. Along with several other oyster dishes this week, I have never enjoyed cooked oysters as much as I did in New Orleans this visit. My son had the ... New Orleans Style Barbeque Lobster Poached with Creole Spiced Butter, Garlic Confit, Fresh Thyme No complaints there! I'll let Brooks describe what he had, if so inclined. I decided to put my own multi-course meal together. Next for me was the absolutely incredible... Pan Roasted Sweetbreads Creamy Black Truffle Grits, Sherry Bacon Jus This dish was so satisfyingly good, it was one of the finest dishes I've had the pleasure of eating this year - simply outstanding! The crisp and tender sweetbreads, the creamy grits with enough truffle flavor for depth, but not so much as to overwhelm the rest of the dish and the salty, smoky goodness of bacon provided tremendous balance and pleasure. My last appetizer was another subtle but wonderful dish... Tian of Louisiana Crab Ripe Tomato Concassee, Scallion Remoulade I will post the rest of the dinner later...

Thanks. We did indeed miss the Mid-City market by a day as we were out there last Friday on the 8th.

I agree that one goes to the best restaurants to indulge oneself. That, however, means different things to different people. This discussion has cropped up repeatedly and really has only subjective responses. For some people, such as Robert, control of and active participation with the menu is a key component to the meal. To many others, letting the chef determine what he puts in front of the diner adds an element of intrigue and creativity to the meal with the idea that the chef has the best idea of what is best that day in the kitchen and knows how to give the best representation of his skills. For some, expensive, luxury ingredients are the be-all and end-all element that comprises a great meal. For others, it is simply top quality ingredients regardless of their rarity or expense. It goes without saying that in either case the great chef and restaurant does their utmost to bring out the best of either set of ingredients. Though I enjoy luxury and unusual ingredients, I value what the chef brings to the table whether or not the ingredients are luxe so long as they are well chosen, well prepared and well presented. The same goes for wines. L'Astrance fit into that mold for me. The good news is that both approaches can still be widely found in this world. Regardless of the approach, the diner places at least some trust in the skills of the chef or else probably wouldn't be at that restaurant in the first place. Robert, it would appear that your trust only goes so far - at least with L'Astrance and tasting menus in general.

Why would they be out of crops now? Is this the market located by the old American Can Company factory? If so, we just missed it last week. What other good farmers' markets are there in NO?

They do have options for smaller sandwiches at Parkway. The problem with a short visit like this is I want to try everything, but can only do so much. What kinds of ham and cheese do they use? I have no doubt that the quality of that sandwich is great given the quality of everything else they do.

Actually, I did go with my usual, but let's get it right. I had a Cream of Almond with a topping of condensed milk. While topping off with Condensed milk may be a fine example of "Gilding the Lily" it's awfully tasty. If this rain stops, I think that I may pass by this afternoon for another one. ← That was a detail that I didn't think to add to mine Next time.

I wish that I could mail myself one as I am no longer in NOLA! They were gooood!

Since we had a light breakfast, we needed a good lunch, so we headed to Mid-City and Parkway Bakery for some po'boys. The joint was jumping when we got there. It took us a few minutes to figure out the system, but once we ordered, it moved smoothly. Justin, in the blue shirt is from the family that owns Parkway. He was running the kitchen while we were there. I had a chance to talk to him for a bit later in the meal. He is a very friendly and knowledgeable young man, who filled us in on the history of Parkway and the area. While the flooding from Katrina was extensive in that area, their building had benefited from having been recently renovated, enabling it to withstand the stresses of the storm and the flooding. They re-opened relatively soon after the hurricane in December of that year. My son had the roast beef with gravy and fully dressed... ...while I had a 50:50 shrimp and oyster... Both were excellent sandwiches, albeit a bit messy The shrimp and oysters were top notch with a lot of shrimp and oyster compared to coating. The shrimp come from relatives of the owners and were of decent size with great flavor. We accompanied our sandwiches with fine fries and Barq's, making for an excellent lunch. These were hanging out on the porch, presumably as some insect repellant. I had seen something like this in Mexico, though I have no idea if or how it works. A view of the porch as we wound down our lunch. By this time, the rush was over. From Parkway, we walked through the neighborhoods out towards the park, ultimately winding up at the cemeteries before hopping on the streetcar and back towards the river. We eventually made our way to the excellent Southern Food Museum in the Riverwalk complex. Housed within this museum is the Museum of the American Cocktail. Though the physical space for the Cocktail Museum is small, it is chock full of interesting paraphernalia and information. It is well worth a visit for anyone even remotely interested in cocktails. That museum certainly whet my appetite for a good cocktail, so I made another stop back to the bar at the Pere Marquette to visit with Chris McMillan. I had him make me a cocktail of his choice and he chose... ...an Old Fashion. That cocktail was well crafted and tasty, but I couldn't leave without trying one of his classic... ...mint juleps. The photo, though not as good quality, is a homage to the master, Philadining and his photo of the mint julep at the Pere Marquette. I would have loved to try one of Chris' legendary Pimm's Cups, but I still had dinner plans. I'll have to save it for my next visit.

There is one place in New Orleans that always seems to attract nearly everyone who visits the city - Cafe du Monde in Jackson Square. This place essentially sells two things, things they do exceedingly well - chicory coffee and sugar drenched beignets. We came over on Friday morning for a light breakfast. The place was packed, but we managed to find a table inside. We ordered a single order of beignets... ...and I had a cup of their wonderful coffee. That made a nice start to the day. They sell cans of their coffee and beignet mixes, both of which I have bought in the past. They have never, however, approached anything close to what they are like in Jackson Square! I didn't buy any this time. We continued walking down to what was supposed to be the green market only to discover that it is not yet completed or open. We walked back along the river, where we noticed clean-up procedures from a recent oil spill. I was amazed that I hadn't heard anything about this spill - the result of a tanker having been run into on the river a week or so prior. The clean-up appeared to be a massive undertaking, We had hoped to take the ferry across the river, however, it wasn't operating due to the clean-up efforts. Instead, we went to the Aquarium of the Americas to check out the denizens of the deep as well as an IMAX movie on hurricanes in New Orleans.

Thanks, Sarabeth. That is not a bad reason! I'm generally not one for hanging out at bars though I like a good cocktail, however, that is one bar I could get addicted to. Chris has the knack in making classic cocktails and the patter to go along with it.

Dinner that night would be at John Besh's Restaurant August. It was not a far walk from the hotel and we arrived in time for our reservation. The hostess took us to a small table in the back room. The table was fairly dark. I asked if it would be possible to move to a table with better light. Rather than telling me that she couldn't because all the tables were accounted for, she told me that the light was all the same. While the lighting in the restaurant was not particularly good anywhere, there were a number of as yet unoccupied tables at which the lighting was significantly better. In any case, it was not worth getting into an argument or even a protracted discussion. My son and I perused the menu. I wanted to simply let Chef Besh cook for us. They had a 9 course degustation menu available that would achieve that, however, they stated on the menu that it would require a minimum of three hours. We had designs on heading over to Vaughn's for some jazz, so we felt that perhaps we should not commit to so long a dinner. Instead, we settled on the 5 course tasting menu with wine pairings for me . The amuse was a seafood custard with truffle and American caviar served in the eggshell - a nice introduction. A salad of grilled melons, tomatoes and prosciutto was the initial course. The combination of flavors showed a deft hand and a pretty palate. We were off to a good start, although one problem I had through the meal was that the young man who served the food was practically unintelligible when he announced the course. This remained the case even after I asked him to repeat it several times. A Raviolo with an egg inside, brown butter sauce, parmiggiano and fresh peas. This dish was quite tasty, though the egg was cooked through and lacking the runny yoke that would have put it over the top like the superior version at Schwa in Chicago. Grilled quail with peaches, mushrooms and arugula. This dish worked on all levels. It was my favorite of the evening. "Kobe" beef shortribs with potato gnocchi and summer truffles. I inquired if the beef was true "Kobe." Initially, the server did not know - in fact he had no idea of the significance of kobe or what wagyu is - but he went to the kitchen to find out. He returned shortly after to state that the beeef was "kobe" from Snake river farms in Idaho. I informed him that if it was from Idaho, the beef may have been wagyu, but it wasn't "Kobe." I'm not in the least bit surprised that it wasn't true Kobe as the cost for that dish would likely have been more than the cost of the entire dinner, however, i was a little put off by what was at best an ignorant error and at worst a deception. My attitude was not improved by the fact that the dish held little pizzazz. Dessert was a fairly sweet and somewhat ordinary chocolate-nougatine Napoleon. Mignardises did not arrive until well after the check as we were readying to leave. The paired wines worked well enough with their dishes, though none were extraordinary. While my report is less than glowing in an absolute sense, I can't say that the dinner was a terrible value by today's standards. The dinner with wines was $100pp exclusive of tax and tip. Had service been better, the "Kobe" issue not been one and slightly better execution of at least the raviolo, the meal would have been much better received. The other issue was that it felt as if we were rushed through the meal. While we did not want to commit to at least three hours dining time at that point in the evening, neither did I care to be rushed through the entire meal in little over an hour. Our reservation was for 7:30PM and we were out by 8:45 PM with time to kill. With that we took a walk across Bourbon Street before getting a taxi to Vaughn's. Unfortunately, that too proved to be a waste of time as Kermit Ruffin was not going to be there that night as we had come to hope and there was no-one under 21 years old rule. By this time we were both pretty tired and so we returned to our hotel for some sleep.

We took a taxi back to the hotel and then went shopping for a pair of pants, with my son having neglected to bring a pair beyond shorts. With that mission accomplished we made it back to our hotel, the Renaissance Pere Marquette, where I decided I needed a different sort of refreshment. I stopped at the lobby bar to visit with Chris McMillan, as sage a bartender as they come and one of the founders of The International Cocktail Museum. I deposited myself on a barstool and listened to Chris regale me with cocktail yarns while he made me a wonderful Sazerac. . After that soothing libation, I returned to my son. We spent a few moments in the hotel pool before readying for that evening's dinner.

We got to see quite a bit of that neighborhood as we continued our little sunbleached stroll all the way to... If ever two people were in need of a little ice-cold refreshment, it was my son and I. Fortunately, we found the perfect place to provide it. Much has been said about Hansen's here, though I'll post our impressions in this topic. When we walked in there was a little line, but as we would be meeting someone there, we waited and let a few people pass us. That gave us some time to ponder the imponderable - what flavor(s) should we have? If one lived around the corner, this would not be difficult. should my son wind up at Tulane, it would become slightly easier, but for a one-time visit, the question is nearly impossible. I watched some being made. and one resonated with me... ...at which time, our friend arrived... ...and we ordered. I opted for half cream of coffee and cream of chocolate... ...while my son went with the more colorful half strawberry/half pineapple. Our friend went with his usual cream of almond, which I did not photograph as I was too busy devouring my bliz! We also got to try the tart lemonade... ...and noticed a couple other happy customers... The flavors were great and the blizzes extremely and welcomely refreshing, however, the real magic was in the texture. This would be a dangerous place for me if I lived nearby.

The following morning we got out later than expected in order to get to a 9AM info session and tour of Tulane. We stopped at a place near our hotel for a quick egg, sausage and cheese on a biscuit, but didn't have time for any photos. It wasn't particularly memorable anyway. We managed to get on the St. Charles streetcar to head out to the campus and got off right at the admissions office directly across from Audubon Park. It was a beautiful day- sunny, but not yet blistering hot or insanely humid. The info session and the tour itself were excellent and informative. Our tour guide, a rising senior from D.C., had just arrived for her freshman orientation when Katrina followed on her heels. She provided an interesting perspective on that and the school itself. Overall, it was quite impressive. The session finished shortly before lunchtime. Since the day was so nice, we decided to explore the area and set off across the park to Magazine St., where we came upon the Taqueria Corona, a place that had bee recommended by our friend the Mayhaw Man. The place was hopping so we sat at the bar. As the temperature outside and the strong sun had both increased during our walk, we were both parched and received wonderfully tall and generous glasses of ice water upon sitting down. My son ordered a chicken enchilada with guacamole. Being in New Orleans, I wanted to have as much seafood as I could get, especially gulf shrimp, so I went with a shrimp flauta and a shrimp taco. It was all good, satisfying and reasonably priced. We decided to have dessert elsewhere though and continued our walk. By this time, it was quite hot and the sun quite strong, so we would duck in to suitable, air conditioned spaces for occasional respites. One particularly interesting one was at the most amazing Whole Foods I have ever seen (including the one at Time Warner in NYC) down the road a little bit on Magazine. We still had a little way to go though...

We could always go do a college visit! I'll take any excuse to visit those areas. This certainly was a convenient reason to return to New Orleans after too long of an absence.

Well it's pretty obvious to me that you and your party used flash (or a tripod with the right shutter speed) at your meal at Binkley's in 2007 (unless your private room had a lighting level about 10 times brighter than the main dining room). Do you mean that you wouldn't dine at Binkley's again as a small party in the main dining room because you'd have to use a flash to get good pictures and you won't use a flash (the main dining room has pretty low lighting)? Or that you'd use flash to get pictures - or what? I'm not being negative. It just seems to me that there are people who are more interested in taking pictures than eating meals. Robyn ← Thanks to Fat Guy for putting up the info from my photo (another advantage of digital) that shows "no flash". The fact is that flash would not have been a problem in that situation as we were all like-minded people in a private room. I have, however, become used to not using flash and prefer it that way anyway. Your last statement must be addressed though. Assuming that you are right (which I do not agree with), what difference does it make to you if they are more interested in photographing the food than eating it? They are paying for it and should be able to derive pleasure from that meal however, they can. It seems that you are transferring your own attitudes on these other diners, but in reality, how could you possibly know what is relevant to them? It so happens that food photography enhances my meals and helps me to focus on them both then and subsequently, and yes, it helps me share my experiences better than if I didn't have photos. I suspect that I am not the only one. While we may be in a minority, I also suspect that the vast majority simply doesn't care one way or another.

I would have thought that an illegal immigrant should not be employed in the first place. Your responsibility to society is to obey the rules of society. How can you help him to achieve legal status? He has broken the law by entering the country illegaly. I admire you for supporting family farms over giant agribusiness and minimizing ecological impact by buying locally but this can only pertain to a certain tranche of operators. Sadly the reality is that for a great majority of food consumers world wide price is the driving factor. Of course efforts are being made to "educate" the consumer but the bottom line for the vast majority is price. ← Isn't "price sensitivity" one of the main reasons illegals are hired in the first place?

Isn't the idea of having to make decisions that in the short run may be difficult and potentially counter to self interest in order to benefit the greater good (i.e. to make sacrifices) for the long run the basis for being "responsible?" If one believes that small farm produce and sustainability are important issues, then shouldn't that be important for a chef to support? If a fish is popular but endangered, is it responsible to serve it? I think that these are legitimate questions, realizing that there may not be one "right" answer depending on the specific situation. David, aside from simply abiding by the laws of society, do you feel that a chef needs to be "responsible" for the greater good and if so, how do you or should one approach that? ← It appears that that "tranche" of operators may be growing as a chain as large as Chipotle is now committing to using all locally sourced ingredients at its restaurants. If they can do it, can't others? Should they? While this is a very visible area for responsibility and worthy of much more discussion, it is not the only one. Please discuss other areas as well.

Isn't the idea of having to make decisions that in the short run may be difficult and potentially counter to self interest in order to benefit the greater good (i.e. to make sacrifices) for the long run the basis for being "responsible?" If one believes that small farm produce and sustainability are important issues, then shouldn't that be important for a chef to support? If a fish is popular but endangered, is it responsible to serve it? I think that these are legitimate questions, realizing that there may not be one "right" answer depending on the specific situation. David, aside from simply abiding by the laws of society, do you feel that a chef needs to be "responsible" for the greater good and if so, how do you or should one approach that?

I have to say, I love taking photos of food, whether in Michelin 3 star fine dining restaurants, ethnic eateries or food markets and have done so all over the country and on 4 continents. It has been the extremely rare exception that I have ever encountered anything but friendly enthusiasm from restaurants, farmers or vendors. In addition, I have noticed many others taking photographs at restaurants and have never encountered any problems or attitudes from other patrons either. Even though I use on of those "honking big" SLR's, I never use a flash and I try to be quick and considerate as I like to enjoy eating my food as well. My point here, is that I just haven't seen the negativity that you portray, Robyn, except in extremely rare circumstances and in those cases, I have respected the wishes of the potential subjects. I agree with Holly, though, that I generally avoid a place that has an attitude about it as there are simply too many great restaurants that don't.

While the service wasn't high end fine dining wonderful, I found it friendly and efficient - appropriate for the setting and food. Sorry about the delay between posts, but I've been busy since returning and unable to get to the bulk of my photos. After Cochon, we took a cab out to Metairie to see a baseball game between the New Orleans Zephyrs and the Las Vegas 51's. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to see the Zephyrs as they are the top farm team of our beloved N.Y. Mets. There actually appeared to be some decent food options at the park including $1 hot dogs. We were, however, too full from Cochon to partake. The options weren't bad, but they weren't that good! Unfortunately, the Zephyrs lost that night by the same 2-4 score that their parent Mets did on the same evening. At least we had eaten well!

As stated on the Starchefs.com website, the theme for this year's International Chefs Congress this coming September is The Responsibility of a Chef. A number of presenters including Barton Seaver, Daniel Boulud, Rick Moonen and others will address various aspects of this theme in their presentations. I find this compelling and am curious as to how eGullet member chefs and cooks feel about this. Do you, as a chef or a cook, feel that you have a greater responsibility to society beyond simply preparing good food? How do you approach being a good citizen in your job if you approach it at all?

I like good food photography - but most amateur stuff is pretty bad. I think you can find great food pictures if you hunt around on the internet. This is IMO a nice article about the food at GE in Chicago from Interiors Magazine (you have to click on "pictures" to see the individual pages in the digital magazine). Robyn ← You are right that most amateur stuff is pretty bad, however, there is a learning curve and for many, those shots that initially are pretty bad, eventually become pretty good. While I am not a professional photographer, nor are my in-restaurant photos as good as many professionals, I look back to when i started to more recent examples and the difference is significant. One doesn't improve without doing it. The biggest issue is available light. No one is forcing anybody to look at the photos, whether they be here on the eGullet forums, Flick'r or elsewhere. Many, however, find enjoyment via experiencing others photos, whether professional or amateur.

That is not a bad idea, Dave, however, the problem with it is that it presents an idealized dish and not necessarily what the diner received. From a purely photographic standpoint, yes, the dishes would look better than 99% of what diners take, but part of the allure is to show for yourself and others, if done for sharing, what one actually had and ate, for better or worse.

If a restaurant really doesn't want photography in their dining room, the solution is easy -dim the lights and ban flash. Low light is frustrating as it makes it difficult to get worthwhile pictures, but then why go through the trouble of making food that is beautiful to look at? Short of the actual gustatory pleasure that food gives me, I really enjoy visual presentation, so even without photography, low light restaurants are a turn-off for me. I can understand people getting bent out of shape by flash photography of every course just as I can understand other obtrusive behavior, however, restaurant photography can be responsible and not a drag on anyone's meal including the photographer's. I will take one or two photos depending on the overall situation. If they come out great. If not, then too bad for me.