Memories of Irene's

Dave:

What can I say?  Memory is an odd thing. Sometimes you will say to yourself  "Oh, I'll remember that moment for the rest of my life".  While other times, it sounds closer to "Honey have you seen my car keys?"  I am going to reconstruct a dinner I had in New Orleans' French Quarter. 

My wife, brother-in-law, sister-in-law and I had a great dinner at  Irene's Cuisine.  Now, The French Quarter is no stranger to great places to eat but what I believe separates Irene's from the others is the menu.   Irene's serves Italian food.  Not French, not Creole, not Cajun nor Spanish but, Italian.  Why? I don't know. What I do know is what they do they do exceptionally well.

Arriving through The French Quarter I am enticed by the magical smells of garlic and tomatoes tempting me to enter a magical wonderland of the unknown. This was my first trip to Irene's and I wanted to see what was behind the door and into the unknown.  Irene's is a busy bustling hive of activities. This not a bad thing.  It's quite the opposite.  It means people are happily enjoying themselves. 

Here where my faulty memory comes into play. With no menu or web page to jar my memory my task has became Herculean effort. I will endeavor forward dear readers to reconstruct what was for diner. At this point I might start pulling my hair out. Fear and frustration now grips our hero “wannabe food blogger”.  Looking for a quick exit from this quagmire I do the only rational thing… “Honey!”

Dorothy:

This has now become a collaborative posting since Dave seems to have mislaid his “notes”.   That’s not to say that we’ve become such food geeks that we immediately journal about great food, but we do snap photos on occasion.  However, I am clever enough to Google “Irene’s Cuisine Menu” and get a quick refresher on what we enjoyed that evening.

First, I’d like to mention that the service at Irene’s Cuisine is outstanding.  As it turns out our server, Sonny is also the fiancé of our friend Tracey, with whom we enjoyed Jazz Fest a few short days later. 

I had been at Irene’s once before in 2011 when I went to Jazz Fest with Tracey’s family.  It was great then however, I never made the connection between Tracey and Sonny until much later.  Regardless, Sonny and his colleagues are terrific servers!  The atmosphere in Irene’s is frenetic, bustling and watching the service staff practically dance through with all the remarkable food to be had is almost like a floorshow.

Being back in New Orleans a year later, with my soon to be husband, it was even more fun to explore the terrific food at Irene’s and enjoy the ambiance.  Now, on to remembrances of the menu and the meal.   Irene’s is Italian food, but not your typical pasta, meatballs and marinara joint.   They have an eclectic, Tuscan style menu on which it’s not uncommon to find rabbit, quail or other game right alongside raviolis.

My brother-in-law, who is not an adventurous eater, went way out on a limb during this trip to NOLA.  I must say, I was really impressed with his open-minded culinary explorations.  He ordered a seafood dish called Sautéed fish with shrimp, roasted peppers and corn macquechoux.  My sister ordered Pompano Amandine.  They switched dishes.  Macquechoux was a little confusing for Jim.

Dave ordered ricotta and spinach ravioli; handmade, beautifully tender morsels filled with a farm fresh local ricotta.  They were like little clouds of heavenly manna.  I am a carnivore.  I ordered the duck St. Phillip.  This was a delightful, tender duck breast with a raspberry and pancetta demi-glace.  I was in heaven!  Rich, tender, tart, savory, sweet – this dish had it all.  My taste buds were dancing in glee.

For dessert, we enjoyed my second annual (and hopefully one in a long line of) their mini flourless chocolate cake with hazelnut glaze.  It is to die for, delicious!!!

We ate really, really well in New Orleans.  There are dozens, if not hundreds of restaurants there that I have on my list of places to try.  However, every trip I make to NOLA will have to include a trip to Irene’s just as a matter of principal.  It would be like going to Paris without enjoying a view of the Eiffel Tower.  Irene’s is my landmark choice in New Orleans.

DAVE:

I feel hostage by my faulty memory. Like any good writer who is willing to admit they’ve forgotten where they were going with a story, a good out in a bad situation is to kill off the hero and introduce a new one in their place. That doesn’t only happen in B-movies or pulp fiction. Life very seldom delivers us simple answers. In this case another tactic was used, instead of killing off the hero. In this story, the hero would have been me, so I deployed another tactic. I used a ghostwriter. Any good writer would have done the same. Thanks to my wife Dorothy who came to my rescue.

The meal at Irene’s was exceptional even though my memory is not.

Here’s to great eating!

Dave and Dorothy