Murray's New Orleans, Boni High Street

I figured out why unfortunate things tend to happen to me in restaurants. It's simple really, it's just a matter of law of averages. For every bad experience you have, there is always one good one around the corner. After that Salpicado story (see first post of this blog, which is isn't really that bad at all), my bad experience investment paid dividends just two days after, in the form of an excellent meal with my Father in Murray's - New Orleans, Boni High Street.

I did not have enough sleep the night before (Actually close to none). I had two cups of coffee in the morning, had one strong cup in the afternoon, and a can of coke at dinner time, so I wasn't really surprised I was able to watch both the late evening and early morning screenings of Deadliest Weapons on Discovery Channel, plus snippets of several movies.

I manage through the Monday morning meeting, and an afternoon of buffet Excel and Powerpoint without much fanfare. Nevertheless, I was aching to head home when the clock hit seven (Monday is unfortunately my coding day).

On my way home, I give Papa a call. He asked me if I wanted to have dinner at the Fort. I've been wanting to eating at New Orleans, Boni High Street, for a few weeks already, after having seen an old-style jazz quarter playing there one Sunday night, and have already heard good things about the Baby Back Ribs from two of my workmates. Sleep could wait for a couple hours more, and off to High Street I go.

The afternoons and evenings have been quite pleasant lately, with the December breeze, starting to come around. While I was slowly traversing through the corridors of High Street, I thought to myself, this should be a nice evening and putting of sleep for a few more hours was the right thing to do.

I arrive first, and take the opportunity to take in the scenery. New Orleans, is not a really big place, it's dimly lit, and the dark wood furnishings do not aid the lack of illumination, which I guess is really the purpose of the design. The combination of a high ceiling, walls painted like old stone houses with cheezy colors, and strategically placed lamp fixtures, does the trick in nailing the ambience for this place. Finally, Papa arrives, and we place our orders.

Papa orders a three bean soup, while I order a roasted Garlic and almond soup. For appetizers, we choose Barbecue Shrimp with Garlic, and for our main course, we decide to share a full slab of Baby Back Ribs.

Having soup before any meal is an ingrained program in my Dad's operating system, so he devours his Bean Soup with his usual gusto. I was pleasantly surprised with my soup. It was thick, warm, filling, but not heavy. The garlic and almond did not overpower each other, and both were equally present (My adjectives for food are plagiarized from Iron Chef America). It did a great job to stretch my gastric muscles for the main game coming up.

My Father then points out to waiter that our soup already has arrived, but our appetizer hasn't yet, and appetizers always have to come first. (Just a few minutes later, I overhear a distinguished Chinese gentleman gently chide the waiter, our appetizers have already arrived, and the soup always has to come first. Poor waiter.) Promptly after that notice, the shrimp appetizer arrives.

We go through this dish with much ado. Not diminishing the value of this dish; the shrimp was fresh, it was grilled perfectly with olive oil and garlic, but our main agenda was really the baby back ribs.

I do not want to ruin this dish with contrived adjectives (I haven't seen baby back ribs in Iron Chef America yet), but instead, I would like to present some evidence of how good the ribs were.

1. Look at the Picture above.
2. My Father claims that he ate more ribs than me because he grew up with 8 siblings, but actually, when he deals with us kids, especially with food, he is always the generous one. This time, it was every man for himself.
3. When all that remained on the plate were a couple of stripped ribs, and a few grains of rice, a waiter passes-by, takes a quick glance at the plate, nods in satisfaction, as if he was saying 'good, we did it again'.
4. On a good day, I think I can finish this whole dish by myself.
5. I forgot to take a picture of the aftermath.

All in all, that was a pretty good evening. Needless to day, I slept like a baby that night.