Friends,

Perhaps six months ago I was sitting at a booth at Thai Diner, where Chinatown encroaches upon Nolita. A woman approached me, surprising me with her boldness to approach a complete stranger. It was not my outerwear that attracted her. It was the fact that I had spent the last ten minutes speaking with my waitress. She had overheard the conversation, noting that I was from New Orleans and was impressed by my food itinerary that weekend.

She eventually explained to me that she was a food critic for one of the nation’s most prestigious periodicals and was about to go to New Orleans. She wanted my take on some of the places she was going to try. I was all too happy to share with her my knowledge of America’s second dining city.

Her knowledge of New Orleans food was superficial – an outsider’s knowledge based on the writings of out of touch critics who may have lived in New Orleans at one time but whose expertise shows the deficits of geographic detachment.

“What do you think about Turkey and The Wolf?” the inevitable question New Orleanian diners have regretfully had to answer from TikTok-Instagram out-of-towners.

“It is not a New Orleans restaurant. It is average. It is expensive. I have never recommended it to anyone. Nor will I.”

She was under the impression that it was a local favorite and jumped right into the next question, “Did you know they are opening up a new place soon? Hot Stuff. It is going to be a lunch counter cafe – a meat and two sides type of place – and I am going for some recon.”

“Do you not just hate when people fiddle and start aping ideas? Picadilly has always been our cafeteria with an entree, two sides and a roll. Piccadilly is the pinnacle of cafeteria dining, but even in New Orleans, as the older generations leave us, that style is going the way of the upscale French restaurant. We only have two left in the entire Metro, when we once had five.”

The conversation moved on, and she bought me a dessert there before I headed to Parisi Bakery, for arguably the best sandwich in New York, The Dennis, whose chicken cutlets are nearly as thin as the prosciutto slices that top it. Her words about Hot Stuff, though, stuck in my mind.

Over the summer, I finally tried Hot Stuff, which according to Esquire, was one of the 35 best restaurants to open in America last year. I went only once, walking from our Mid-City home. It was not that long after The Times Picayune did a short about it. Surprisingly, it was not crowded.

The room was unceremonious, a far cry from Piccadilly in its heyday. Tables were cheap and the floor was a mess from former diners whose crumbs were not cleaned. There were just a few entree items, none of which looked appealing to me. I settled on the most prosaic and the least likely to taste poor – the fried catfish.

These fried catfish made the Lilliputian Canes chicken tenders of today look like they were made for the Fee-fi-fo-fum Giant. I expected to get at least ten, just based on the size. But I was given just two. The server said they were locally farm raised and expensive, which was why they only gave two. He ignored that there was less than an ounce of catfish in those two strips.

Mother ordered the fried pork chops, which looked good and tasted good. But they were sliced nearly as thinly as the chicken at Parisi’s. The weight of two pork chops was around 1.5 oz, with much of that being batter. My two sides were macaroni and cheese and green beans.

The beauty of good macaroni and cheese is, like Ellsworth Kelly’s Blue Panel, its simplicity. Some people cannot leave good enough alone and this mac and cheese had onions and a spiciness to it, which ruined both the pasta and the cheese. It was the most disappointing mac and cheese I have ever eaten. The green beans were likewise adulterated with onions and a vinegar that offended me. The roll did not appear or taste to be housemade.

The meal was a significant disappointment, and even though I went through a line and cleaned up the table, there was a service charge added to the bill with another section for a tip. I dutifully paid both. The meal was 50% higher than Piccadilly and significantly inferior to a Piccadilly meal. This emperor has no clothes.

Yours,
TulaneLSU