A wonderful lunch at Herbsaint

Herbsaint has for quite some time been my favorite of the newish (that is, opened the last 20 or so years– in New Orleans, newness wears off more slowly) restaurants in New Orleans.  The kitchen there is consistently creative at a very high level.  Day before yesterday, my wife, daughter, and I had a tasting menu for a late lunch, there, and it was superb.

The meal opened with chicken, andouille, and tasso gumbo.  I share Susan Spicer’s opinion that Donald Link makes the best gumbo in New Orleans.  Characteristic of his gumbo is a very dark roux– I’m guessing he cooks it past milk chocolate toward dark chocolate, the use of his own cured meats, the addition of scallions at the time it’s served, not a lot of rice, and a fairly high proportion of roux-to-stock, which produces some “gravy” effect even with the way cooking flour that long breaks down its thickening abilities.  There’s also a mix of kinds of pepper, in a well-balanced way– his recipes in his cookbook call for both fresh (in the form of a chili poblano and jalapeno) and dried (in the form of chili powder), although I could not detect them individually, particularly the jalapeno.  His recipe also says not to use an intensely smoky sausage; I think that the combination of dark roux and some smoke in the sausage produces a subtle smoke taste.  In any event, it was great, very well-balanced gumbo, and I’ll later start a gumbo thread by popular demand where this and others will be open for discussion.

Next were two dishes– a smoked mackerel salad on an apple pancake, and sliced tongue with some sort of local greens.  The mackerel was diced and loosely bound; the tongue was extremely tender and juicy, with a clear flavor from the herbs or whatever it was slow-cooked with it.  Two wonderful salads, with the best elements being the mackerel, the pancake, and the tongue (by far the best tongue I’ve ever eaten. It won over serious doubters at the table).

The third round was fideo and shrimp, along with a sandwich made with a roast duck (the crispy skin was the best part of that!) and a very thick crust flatbread pizza with shrimp.  Again, all three were great.  Fideo is of course Spanish for noodles, and is also a process for cooking them– they are sort of pan roasted in some oil and then a tomato sauce made in the pan with them.  This, and the tongue (which reminded me of the way tongue is tender/juicy when made for tacos), and the use of capsicum peppers in the gumbo made me think that in a subtle way that only becomes even noticeable looking at a number of dishes, there’s a Mexican influence on the cooking at Herbsaint.  It’s woven into the food in a way that is seamless and really only visible by noticing the pattern over a number of dishes, but I think it’s there.

Finally, there were deserts:  A coconut pie with salty caramel drizzle, and a citrus parfait.  I liked both, but my love of cream coconut pies made me focus most seriously on that one. Salty caramel is addictive– think of the salty/sweet pleasure of getting a bit of the rock salt caught up in the homemade ice cream coming out of a ice cream maker.

I want to thank Chef/Owner Donald Link, Chef Ryan Prewitt, and my son T.H., all at Herbsaint, for a really wonderful meal, particularly under the manic crush of the just-about-to-happen victory parade in the middle of Mardi Gras (observers may have noted that my pictures of the black-and-gold parade had as a backdrop the corner of the Lafayette Hotel diagonally across St. Charles from Herbsaint).