Anniversary Lunch

Recently, Big Man and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. With Big Man's regular gig on Bourbon Street every night, we couldn't do dinner, so we planned on lunch. Big Man laid down the decree: "Hundred dollar lunch! Really celebrate!" So we ran down the list of restaurants to see where we wanted to enjoy our anniversary lunch. (Of course we have a list! Doesn't everyone in New Orleans have a list of the restaurants they've heard about but haven't eaten in yet?) We toyed with several possibilities, read a bunch of online reviews, and finally decided to go to Boucherie on Jeannette off Carrollton. Trying to describe it to Big Man, I said, "It's like they take typical South Louisiana cooking and then bring it up a level" and he came back with, "South Louisiana cooking is already regular cooking that's been brought up a couple levels!" So I replied, "Think of this then as cooking several levels up!"

I had eaten at Boucherie about a year or so ago with my sister D, as a pre-theater dinner before we saw a production of "Member of the Wedding" at the Bean Theater at St. Matthew's on Carrollton. We had been super-impressed with the menu and the food, and I had mentioned the place to Big Man back then, and even brought him a menu, but we had not yet had a chance for the two of us to go. Since then, however, the place had really taken off, and has been written up favorably in several national publications. The online reviews were off-the-charts positive, with the worst thing anyone said being that the service at night was awful and the place packed. Tells you something.

So we made a reservation and off to lunch we went. We got a table right away, in the main room inside. (Tables were available on the front porch, but it's still too hot in New Orleans for that.) We began perusing the October menu (offerings change seasonally at Boucherie) and trying to make decisions. But Boucherie makes things easier for you by having "small plates" and "large plates." While a few of the large plates looked tempting, the idea of ordering a lot of small plates really grabbed us -- because, as Big Man likes to say, more is more.

While we worked on our choices, we savored their delicious strong coffee -- really, some of the best coffee I've had in a New Orleans restaurant. They serve it with a few lumps of raw sugar, which is not only a nice touch, but is less sweet than regular sugar. Good thing we don't keep that stuff around the house, or I'd be putting sugar in more things. I mean, I don't even put sweetener in my coffee, and I liked the taste of that.

In the end, this is the list we came up with, splitting everything: grilled romaine caesar salad (sounds crazy, but was still crispy and cool, with a great smoky flavor); French Market pumpkin stew with rashers [of their own smoked bacon] (this was totally amazing! chunks of pumpkin in an amazing broth that turned out to be *duck broth* -- OMG -- with big thick slices of bacon -- I will so totally be trying to duplicate this for Thanksgiving!); the steamed mussels over collard greens with crispy crackers made of *grits* (tender sweet mussels, vinegary spicy greens and *oh wow* those crackers!!); grilled shrimp over grits cakes (yes I know that's two kinds of grits in one lunch, but still); duck confit (this was the hardest small plate to split, as it was just one good-sized duck leg with crispy skin on the outside and tender-as-butter meat on the inside -- but as it was our anniversary, Big Man got the bone to gnaw on); fried boudin balls with a creamy horseradish dipping sauce (they make their own boudin, so it was meatier than expected and less rice than expected).

By the time the boudin balls came around, we were nearly satiated. In fact, to be truthful, we had to ask them to package up the last three boudin balls and the sauce to take home. But please don't think we skipped dessert altogether! We do not have that kind of self-control. Big Man ordered the warm bacon-brownie (yes, that's right!) and I had to try the Krispy Kreme Donut Bread Pudding ('nuff said).

We had let it slip to our waitress that it was our wedding anniversary, and so both desserts arrived with lit candles. We blew them out to general applause and took little nibbles of our desserts. OK, that's when we started groaning, as in, "Oh my God, this is SO incredible." We had to ask them to package up the rest of the desserts to take home to moan over later. The bill came, and with our usual generous 20% tip, it came to $85.

So we ate like royalty til we were stuffed at a 4-star level place, and it didn't even come to $100. Y'all be sure and go.