Steve's Alibi

Mosca's

You navigate over the impossibly narrow and twisting Huey P. Long bridge to the west bank of the Mississippi River, take Highway 90 west until you find a little white roadhouse in Avondale. A small sign alerts you to Mosca's Restaurant, one of the great traditions in New Orleans food. I've been going there over 25 years, beginning when Ernie the Attorney and I somehow found ourselves there one Friday evening while we were in law school. Then, as now, we feasted on the luscious and very rich Louisiana Italian dishes served in the small dining room and adjoining bar. Crab Salad, Italian shrimp, Breaded Oysters, Chicken A La Grande, the entrees all dripping olive oil and butter and heavy with garlic.

It's spectacular. And very different than your modern joint. Cash only, open 5 evenings a week and closed for August. I've been ordering those same dishes all these years and they never disappoint. Click on the blue Mosca's above for a menu and some more pics.

Eight of us recently made the journey on a beautiful spring Saturday evening. I swear it was better than ever. I recommend that you get a driver to help you back as they serve good red wine in small bar glasses and you still have to get back across the river.

It's so much fun.

104 weeks ago today I took my final radiation treatment and left Houston for New Orleans. The actual two year anniversary will be Saturday and I hope to celebrate out on the Gulf of Mexico catching a fish or two. I'll let you know if the trout are biting.

A Little Good News About New Orleans

Anyone who lives here or visits New Orleans knows we have great food. Despite what you might read in the national press, the food here really is better than ever. I'll write more later about where we've been eating, but here's local food critic Tom Fitsmorris' take on the local restaurant scene. This is a portion of a recent article from his site.

www.nomenu.com

Tom is leaving out the fast food chains, gas stations that serve hotdogs and the like.

Our Restaurant Scene Is Whole Again

It took 595 days to rebuild it, but New Orleans once again has a whole restaurant scene.

Yesterday, April 16, Mr. B's Bistro opened for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. It became the 809th restaurant on the New Orleans Menu Daily Restaurant Index, which tracks the open restaurants of note in the New Orleans area.

A list made according to the same criteria on August 28, 2005--the day before the hurricane--also would have shown 809 restaurants.

The two lists wouldn't be identical. Many restaurants that thrived before the storm have not reopened, and may never reopen. But for each one of those losses, a new restaurant has appeared.

Qualitatively as well as quantitatively, the New Orleans restaurant scene has reached parity with its pre-hurricane levels. The number of grand gourmet places is about what it was before the storm. So are the numbers of poor boy shops, neighborhood cafés, sushi bars, Middle Eastern restaurants, and bistros.

About the only segments of the restaurant business that show a significant percentage change in their numbers are steakhouses (about twenty-five percent below pre-storm levels--but it was clear that the category was overbuilt then) and Thai restaurants (about twenty percent more of them now).

It's almost too good to be true. But it is true.

I began keeping a list of which restaurants had reopened at the request of readers on September 22, 2005. After starting at zero three weeks earlier, the list on that day had twenty-two restaurants. It seemed like nothing more than a symbolic gesture in those dark days, when we were looking for any living particle from our former life that might grow back.

Well, it may have looked like a symbolic gesture then, but this news is one of the really positive stories in the New Orleans recovery.

Masters 2007

Here's Phil Mickelson teeing it up on the 9th hole of the par 3 course at Augusta National (click on the picture to enlarge.) The 9th hole is about 140 yards played over Ike's pond. The pond was named after it's location was scouted out by member Dwight Eisenhower. The Par 3 Tournament is played the day before the Masters starts and is great fun. We settled in behind the 9th tee and saw all the legendary players come through. I posted this picture because Phil is Mom's favorite golfer. Unfortunately he fell out of contention during the Masters and finished well back.

I haven't written in a while but I'm going to start at it again. I've got a lot of news including the state of things in New Orleans, Mardi Gras and, most importantly, the beginning of fishing season.

On the health front, all the news has been positive. I've had seven appointments since I completed treatment with no sign of cancer. That's about as good as it can get.

Thanks for reading.