Ian McNulty

Hey ladies, don’t miss this martini at @pechenola (gents, don’t either).

Chef @nikkicabreramills hosts this week’s edition of Ladies Night NOLA, a roving happy hour series conjured by @ninacompton and friends to jazz up summer with mutual support.

Peche has an oysters and bubbles special (see their account for details).

But based on my dinner last night, you’ll want to add the mother of pearl martini, all briny and smooth.

The shrimp toast is great and the fish “parts” like the tuna collar we had are always worth the trip.

Special thanks to the guys at the table next-door for breaking off a piece of the night’s very last grilled tuna belly, brisket like and luscious, which I must return to try in full .

The chocolate peanut pie , via @laboulangerienola , is amazing as always — like a pecan pie crossed with a Snickers bar.

See the Peche page for Ladies Night details tonight . And yes it’s open to all (not just ladies).

#wherenolaeats #nolaeats #igersneworleans #nolaeats #nolafoodie Less

Three things I know for sure about New Orleans after a recent dinner at @gautreausrestaurant :

September is still deep summer

It’s still the best time of year to dine out

And even though it’s been around 40+ years, this counts as one of the city’s best new restaurants.

Here’s the math:

The Uptown institution recently began a new era with new owners and operators and really is a new restaurant now, carrying on the classic contours and in some ways the roles of its older self.

But it is now hitting a higher gear, sometimes daring, sometimes dazzling, and, for the next month, it’s all wrapped around an extended summer dining deal — an unorthodox Coolinary menu extended to the end of September, with two courses each with a wine pairing built in for $56.

Link in my bio has the full read on this.

Here are a few hits from the Coolinary and regular menu (because I can never help adding on...)

#wherenolaeats #igersneworleans #nolaeats #uptownnola #coolinary

Chilled corn and truffle soup finished with charred leeks and olive oil (Coolinary menu)

Oysters are topped with bacon and Herbsaint butter, like a hint of Rockefeller with the meaty heft of Bienveille (Coolinary)

Lobster crepe topped with mushrooms and herbs and finished lobster bisque (regular menu)

Crab toasts made on house-baked milk bread shot through with crunchy noodles and served with a cool chutney and spicy sambar curry (Coolinary)

Watermelon salad finished with whipped blue cheese (regular menu)

Three bean chaat topped with caviar, moated by yogurt sauce and topped with threads of Flamin’ Hot sev (Coolinary)

Wagyu steak with a stuffed pepper and a “braised beef doughnut” bao (regular menu)

Katie Adams and chef Rob Mistry , keeping it cool Less

There is no place quite like @moi.nola , a Vietnamese restaurant that foregoes pho and instead focuses on a range of dishes of the type normally only found around the family table or maybe a festival.

I’m enthralled by the pockets of tofu stuffed with pork meatballs and braised in tomato sauce.

The calamari salad starts with a base of chopped cabbage and adds the crisp sweetness of sliced green apple and wisps of fresh herbs around the cool, tender calamari strands, with a pop of fish sauce.

Get the fermented shrimp platter (bun dau mam tom) and you’re combining bits of roast pork with fried tofu and pieces of mashed shrimp paste torn from sugarcane skewers.

Now make little lettuce wraps with all of this, adding a strip of pressed rice noodle cake and a dose of the darkly pungent fermented shrimp sauce on the side.

It’s BYOB, and helpfully @faubourgwines is right next door to hook you up.

#wherenolaeats #igersneworleans #nolaeats #nolafoodie #nolafood Less

Here’s your Monday antidote:

The Coolinary menu at Charmant is fantastic in culinary wow factor and value and on Monday (which, turns out, is today), the restaurant does a $5 martini special all day with a whole menu of martini possibilities.

We did this last Monday, and it’s been on my mind ever since.

“The gorgeous Borges” is their classic martini.

Don’t miss dishes:

Summer tomato salad with melon consomé

Lamb meatballs in a flavorful gravy

Shishito peppers with trout roe

A double cut pork chop, thick as a Victorian novel and easier to get through, perfectly cooked, abetted by a summer harvest of okra and corn and mushrooms.

Cheese plate for dessert with peanut biscotti.

Lots across three courses, $47.

If you haven’t tried this place, yet, this is your sign. Less

I thought I was going to @seithers_seafood Seither’s Seafood to check out the quiet side of one of my favorite seafood joints.

Seither’s is known for crawfish after all, and this is the off-season for crawfish. Maybe this time, a lunch with a colleague who’d not visited before, I’d finally get the roast po-boy again.

But I was quickly reminded that there is no off-season for Jason Seither.

This weekday lunch turned into an extravaganza of local crab at its peak of goodness in deep summer.

So it was with the plump fried crab claws under a galaxy-swirl of spicy mayo and sweet eel sauce.

Next, the “crazy soft shell crab taco salad” arrived and must win the award for the biggest stretch of the term “salad.”

Now more crab:

A crabcake topped with lump meat riding shotgun on the plate with a flank of grilled redfish and another fried soft shell, this time with bechamel sauce with more crabmeat.

And finally (almost) a summer special with a dozen boiled crabs with sides for an eye-popping $25. And yes, they are packaging quite a few of these boiled crab hampers to go.

Don’t skip dessert. The summer special, “Miss Katie’s bomb blueberry bread pudding,” is fried for a crisp-then-chewy, tooth-sticking sweet delight.

#wherenolaeats #igersneworleans #nolafoodie #neworleansfood #harahan Less

With the debut of @procidarestaurant , now open, New Orleans has showplace for the regional Italian cuisine of Campania and especially Naples and the seafood-loving Amalfi Coast.

Chef Valeriano Chiella and his partners Alessandro and Ali have created an ode to the old country blends elegant and rustic in that seemingly effortless Italian way.

For those accustomed to chicken parm and spaghetti Bordelaise, Procida’s opening menu is a trove of different, often lighter flavors, and perhaps some new food terms as well.

Crudo platters composed from four different cuts of raw fish ripple with colatura di alici, Italy’s amber-hued, umami-laden fish sauce.

Scamorza, a cheese that’s like the smoky, denser cousin to mozzarella, is used across the menu, in pastas and in Sicilian arancina, a bulb-shaped rice fritter filled with a mix of chopped seafood.

Bucatini aglio e olio is finished with pangrattato, the tiny breadcrumbs fried in olive oil to make a crunchy contrast to the sweetness of crab and the slurp of the noodle.

And yes, that’s Stanley Tucci’s current pasta crush, anolini alla Nerano with zucchini and squash blossoms.

Currently open for dinner Wed.-Sun.

Here’s a look around, link in my bio has the full read with much more.

#wherenolaeats #igersneworleans #nolaeats #nolafoodie #marigny

Procida is open in the Marigny, just past the Frenchmen Street clubs

Crudo platters with tuna, toro, amberjack and cobia are drizzled with colatura di alici, the fish sauce of the Amalfi coast

Alessandro, chef Vale and Ali opened Procida together

Smoked swordfish carpaccio has a whiff of both salty sea and smoky earth

The restaurant and bar serves dinner now with a happy hour and brunch starting soon

DOP buffalo mozzarella is listed under “salads,” my kind of menu

The restaurant and lounge have transformed a Marigny corner spot

The arancina is filled with seafood and scamorza cheese

Flounder Siciliana is poached and finished with crabmeat

Anolini alla Nerano are filled with scamorza, like a smoky, denser mozzarella, with zucchini and squash blossoms. Link in my bio has the full story with much more. Less

The atmospheric downtown townhouse-turned-restaurant and cocktail spot @bar1865nola is home to one dish that feels like the ultimate drinking snack:

skewers of smoked oysters, pinned to juicy Castelvetrano olives and pickled pearl onions, covered in an almond garlic chili crisp.

Like a deluxe version of a Gilda, the Basque tapas bar standard, it’s a progression of briny, salty flavor and a match made in heaven with a martini .

Turns out they make a smashing one here too (but note the abbreviated hours, serving dinner Thursday to Saturday).

This is one from a bunch of top dish picks on my mind now in deep summer — link in my bio has the full read with all of them.

#wherenolaeats #igersneworleans #nolaeats #nolafoodie #downtownnola Less

Swordfish schnitzel at @pigeonandwhale - a dish that is a controversial at my table, and even in my own head.

I shouldn’t like it, but I really do.

Normally, I like swordfish best when it’s been messed with least - and preferably raw and dressed for crudo.

But here they bread it, stuff it with prosciutto and ladle on tonnato, a creamy sauce zingy with anchovies and capers.

This is how you spell umami , and thus, time and again, I order it and find it utterly compelling.

Through August, it is also part of a three-course Coolinary menu for $58, so there’s a chance to assess it yourself with a lower barrier of entry.

Try a negroni from the extensive cocktail list, and never skip dessert here.

This is one from a bunch of top dish picks on my mind now in deep summer — link in my bio has the full read with all of them.

#wherenolaeats #igersneworleans #nolaeats #nolafoodie #coolinary Less