“Local” (ethnicity)

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By Danielle Boudreau

The last concept of local we should examine is a bit hard to articulate.  It involves representing the concept of “local” for those who may be far from home.  El Rinconcito, Taqueria Guererra, and even Canal Street Bistro, on some levels, all successfully accomplish this task for the immigrants and transplants who have been here since Hurricane Katrina.  In terms of decor, el Rinconcito and Taqueria Guererra both remind me of the many restaurants I visited in Central America.  Spacious, brightly colored, and with minimal decorations, the focus of the experience in these restaurants is on the authenticity of the food and the company one keeps while there.

Taqueria Guerrero is a restaurant that is “true” to the Mexican culture, offering up native dishes such as “Pollo Empanizado”, “Chiles Rellenos” and “Arroz con Frijoles” (a Mexican alternative to the New Orleanian Red Beans and Rice).It also serves as a place for local immigrants to maintain contact with their respective families back home- there is a separate counter where people can purchase prepaid calling cards and other items, a set-up similar to the Hispanic “pulpuria” (a convenience store sometimes located in restaurants or other popular gathering spots).

El Rinconcito translates literally to “the little corner”, and one can see that a more casual meaning of this restaurant’s name refers to the little corner of the world that it represents- that is, a loyal rendition of Central American cuisine. The name further translates to a place where the Central American immigrants find comfort in companionship after a hard day’s work. One does not find this place empty after 4pm- on the contrary- the bar has only room to stand, as does the room with the pool table, while the tables of the restaurant are full of those wishing to unwind and experience a little piece of “home” in their own little corner of the world, located in New Orleans, as well as local neighbors wishing to taste some “authentic” Central American cuisine.

As for Canal Street Bistro, Chef Peters attempts to use ingredients from the five native cultures of the Americas that may not be commonplace in our local New Orleanian culture.  Not only do American residents get to taste and experience these other cultures, but it provides some familiarity and comfort for those who are immigrants to get an authentic taste of “home”.

 

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Continuing The Restaurant Row Recovery Project

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Contributed by: Deyna Cimino

In 2010 David Beriss began the Restaurant Row Recovery Project with a small group of grad students in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Orleans. Two years later Beriss is continuing the research on just what the cluster of restaurants means to Mid City, New Orleans. Our Applied Anthropology class, consisting of mostly undergraduates and a few zealous grads, are once again tackling the question: “What makes it work?”  Our class has been paired into groups of two. Each team responsible for two-three restaurants from Little Tokyo to Juan’s Flying Burrito and from Mandina‘s to Café Minh successfully covering the Canal/Carrollton dining possibilities (in case you’re like me and need a visual here’s a map-courtesy The Times-Picayune and Erin Kinchen).

It is our aim to use whatever weapons necessary, whether they are guidebooks, written archives, or our fellow 2010 researchers to do our best in finding out why the restaurant row exists and what keeps it ticking. I, Deyna Cimino, have been paired with Jenny Frerirchs. Our assignment is to research Venezia’s (located at 134 N. Carrollton Avenue) and Lemonade Parade (4709 S.Carrollton Avenue).

Photo borrowed from InthekNOwla.com

Lemonade Parade is a brightly colored shack-styled one-stop-shop for drinks and desserts. Their menu has a bunch of refreshing items to offer so check them out. Venezia’s is an authentic red gravy savory Italian adventure. Looking forward our fieldwork so that I can try their Eggplant Vatican.

Photo borrowed from: hickswrites.blogspot.com

While researching the area for our initial post, I’ve enjoyed the pictures and history that we’re unearthing. My parents have deep connections with the area—as children, young adults, and also during their professional careers. Talking with them about their take on the block, what it used to be and what it is now, has definitely reinforced that New Orleans’ food culture is ever-changing yet manages to take its own comforting shape in past, present, and hopefully future generations. Lemonade Parade used to be Manuel’s Hot Tamales (est. 1933). It was a small roll-down stand where both my parents remember anticipating a hot batch of Manuel’s finest.

So far in our research, we’ve looked at reviews from the Virtual Tourist where user Virtous_Tourist describes Venezia’s as “softly lit and not terribly fancy […]white table cloths share space with plain vinyl chairs, [where] decades old wall hangings set the stage.” Looking at articles about Manuel’s, the restaurant is almost always described as nostalgic, a legend, or as definitively New Orleans. Lemonade Parade feels like their famous “Rising Sun” (a tangerine, orange, banana smoothie) tastes. Their building is bright and screams summertime and sprinkler fun—even in the winter. So far, it looks like they’re living up Manuel’s reputation. GoNola describes them as “nostalgia for all ages.”  In a Restaurant Spotlight by InthekNOla.com, Mike and Lori Bettencourtt, owners, explain that they originally intended to make the shop a po-boy shack called The Porch. With smoothies this good, I feel like they made the right choice going with Lemonade Parade.

Jenny and I will work with the rest of our classmates to see how this Restaurant Row fits with the current plans with the Laffite Greenway Project and the Mid-City Market scheduled to break ground as soon as this month and reach completion in 2014. We plan to ask the following questions:

1.    What neighborhoods contribute/are affected by the Restaurant Row?

2.    How does the Laffite Greenway Project and Mid-City Market compete/assist the established area?

3.    Why is this a Restaurant Row?

4.    How did it get to be a Restaurant Row?

5.   What is the future for the area?

6.   How are the restaurants related with the community/ with activists inside the community?

Jenny and I are working up interview questions and are planning to visit both places this week. Hopefully we’ll have interview results for the next blog post (depending on owners schedules). That’s all for now. Handing the torch to Troung. Good luck you guys.

Blogosphere Realizations of a Noobie Blogger

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As some of you already know, an on-site (and online) exhibit at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum is going to accompany our Restaurant Row Recovery Project. We are working on the possibility of publications in scholarly journals as well. All of this seemed relatively standard for this type of project, but as to how blogging fit into this, I was clueless.

Rising Tide NOLA 5 New Media Conference Poster. Graphic Art by Greg Peters of Suspect Device (click the photo for a link to more of Greg's work)

On August 28th I discovered that we had at our disposal an entirely new media format for our project to tap into: blogging. I know this sounds odd since we have been blogging about our project for weeks now, but I never really understood the potential of such an avenue until I attended the 5th annual Rising Tide NOLA New Media Conference. Until that rainy Saturday I thought of our blog as simply a method of providing some chronological feedback on our progress, and as a possible source of topics for further exploration.

Prior to this project I was not a blogger. Until this conference I never truly understood the power, and access, blogging could provide. The new media conference (subtitled A Conference on the Future of New Orleans) changed that.

What I am somewhat familiar with is the jambalaya of emotions that go along with doing field work in New Orleans. Self doubt gets sautéed with shyness and preemptive humiliation to create the perfect discomfort food, and I had a feast before me. What did come as a surprise were the jitters I had about making our project public. The bloggers I met at the conference seemed immune to such thing. In fact, they actively strive to be public.

At this point in my life all of the conclusions and analysis of my previous work remained in a closed academic system, thus lessening potential shortfall fears. The final outcome resulted in grades in a grade book, some brief experiences and encounters with the public, and a new semester of classes. In other words, no harm, no foul. But this project is different; this project is not just for a grade. This project is for adding to the knowledge base of Anthropology, for shedding more light on the role restaurants play in New Orleans culture, and for contributing to the understanding of a New Orleans post Katrina neighborhood recovery. All of this sounds fantastic on paper (and in theory), but how can it become practical? How do we add our findings to the elusive knowledge base? How does our research, and academic fantasizing, make the way from bits of collected data to printed literature and disciplinary journals to public knowledge and discourse?

The bloggers and conference attendees– active and aware citizens – are providing us an alternative answer: new media. Part of the same media some the restaurants on our Row use to tell their own stories (a topic covered on this blog by David Beriss). Key note speaker Mac McClelland of MotherJones.com and author of For Us, Surrender Is Out Of The Question: A Story From Burma’s Never-Ending War, went so far as to say that the rise of “citizen journalist” was evidence that new media was a forerunner to pushing for cultural change and cultural awareness. I came away from this event in agreement.

Keynote spearker Mac McClelland. Photo by Bart "Editor B" Everson of b. rox (click the photo for a link to more of Editor B's work)

McClelland also spoke against the recent government, and BP, reports on the amount of oil still present in the Gulf. She argued the oil is not gone and that the seafood and restaurant industry are going to be reeling from this for a long time, a sentiment echoed by two of the restaurant owners I have interviewed. McClelland praised the blogging community of New Orleans for its dedication and passion for the city. The New Orleans blogosphere (and now us, the RRR team, to a lesser extent) are creating transparency and focus to a city in recovery.

Taking this one step further it is now apparent to me that new media can be tremendously useful for future academic recovery projects like this one. Gone are the days of the lonely anthropologist heading off to some far away exotic locale with a notebook and pencil. Technological advances like new media allow us to not only document our ongoing work, but also to achieve a level of transparency previously unattainable. Analysis and conclusions can be viewed as a process instead of an event. Consultation can come from a variety of far away sources, and perhaps most importantly, our study subjects can be involved like never before.

New media is a powerful tool. I am honored to have been invited to the conference, and am inspired to further utilize this avenue for my future anthropological and social justice work. I would like to say thank you to all those who continue to provide the community with an alternative voice.

Telling Their Own Story

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I will start with the obvious: chefs and restaurants are trendy.  Above all, chefs in fancy white tablecloth restaurants have become important players in the making of the symbolic economy (that is the one in which you buy things—a sports car, a zucchini, a house, shoes—because it means something to you, not just because you need it).  Eating in their restaurants, reading and watching their interviews and TV shows and buying their cookbooks and other products are all part of the process by which we consumers make ourselves into the kind of people we think we want to be.  Through all of the media they create, these restaurateurs tell their own stories and make themselves into who we think they are…and help give meaning to our own dining and cooking experiences.

The process through which some of the more savvy chefs define themselves is fascinating to watch.  One of the difficulties faced by social scientists who want to study restaurateurs is precisely that they are great at telling their own stories.  They are good at connecting with the desires and ideas that permeate our societies.  The stories of chefs’ lives, of the highs and lows of kitchen life, of the creative process in the restaurant, of difficult customers or unusual settings to prepare a meal all help create a kind of template that the rest of us can use to frame our lives, culinary or otherwise.

There are no famous chefs or media stars in our Mid-City restaurant cluster.  But there are stories to tell, as we have already documented here.  Perhaps more importantly, the restaurateurs are, in many cases, already telling their own stories.  They use web pages and social media, along with more traditional media, to create this narrative.  Restaurants like Mandina’s and Brocato‘s have quite elaborate web sites, outlining their histories, including pre and post Katrina events, details about rebuilding and links to outside writing or video about them.  Of course, they also include menus, addresses and hours as well as contact information.  Not all the neighborhood restaurants have web sites (we list those that do on the right side of the blog) and not all of them have extensive information.  Some of the restaurants also have Facebook pages and some may also use other social media as well.  I am linked to several of them in this way and mostly get regular—and mouthwatering—reports of daily specials.

Still, the media are there and the restaurants are beginning to employ them to do more than simply announce specials.  They are using them to tell their stories and thus shape the way we think about them.  This is rapidly becoming an important part of how we can think about forces shaping the neighborhood and city.  The manner in which the restaurant owners represent themselves through their web sites and social media shapes our knowledge about them and will eventually help contour our understanding of the neighborhood beyond their doors.  All of this raises a lot of questions: why do some restaurants pursue this while others do not?  (In our study, restaurants catering to recent immigrant populations seem less likely to have extensive web sites, for example.)  Who reads the sites and what do they take away from that?  As restaurants reach out in this way, are they fundamentally changing the dining experience?

The fact that the people we are studying are telling their own stories through these public representations raises another set of issues as well.  What kinds of insights do anthropologists (or other social scientists) have that might be different from or complementary to information presented by the restaurants themselves?  If we are going to make our work useful, we have to be able to put the restaurant stories into a broader context.  We have to show how the restaurants in our cluster fit into and shape the contours of the city’s broader culture and history.  As the summer winds down and we start to look closely at our data, we will be concentrating on this.  The restaurateurs continue to tell us their stories, both directly and through their public representations.  Our job is to put this together and see if something emerges that gives us new ideas about restaurant clusters, neighborhoods, Mid-City and New Orleans.  Stay tuned!

Minh-City Cafe

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One of my research adventures took place at Cafe Minh. It is located in what used to be Michael’s Mid-City Grill before the storm. When the latter restaurant did not re-open Post-Katrina, Chef Minh Bui decided that it would be a fitting abode for his Cafe Minh.

With his roots in Vietnam, Chef Minh got his New Orleans start cooking at places such as Emeril’s and Commander’s Palace. After mastering his skills, he developed a Vietnamese-French fusion cuisine that contains hints of local Creole cooking. His first restaurant Lemongrass was opened next to Angelo Brocato’s on Carrollton Avenue. A second location of Lemongrass located in the International House hotel was opened, and a third restaurant called 56 Degrees was also opened in the Whitney Hotel. Before Katrina, both the Carrollton location and 56 Degrees closed. After the storm, Chef Minh decided he wanted to return to Mid-City and opened Cafe Minh at its current location.

Cafe Minh fits perfectly in the Restaurant Row even though it is not physically in line with the others. About a block into Canal Street, it is still in close walking distance of the area, however. One thing we can recognize about the Restaurant Row is that even though there may be similar types of food (for instance, Wit’s Inn, Venezia, Theo’s, Papa John’s and Domino’s all have pizza), there is still enough variety throughout the restaurants that they are all able to survive. Among the Asian restaurants, you may find that Little Tokyo, Doson’s Noodle House, Yummy Yummy, and even Cafe Minh have similar items on the menu. Yet because of the creativity of the chefs, the different environments of the restaurants themselves, and the specific cravings of those searching out food, co-existing is not a problem for these places.

Another similarity I have noticed between the Asian restaurants is that the owners or head chefs all learned to cook in their birth countries. This seems to come full circle as they originally learn to cook in the authentic way of their birthplace, then they end up drifting into another type of cuisine (whether it be another Asian cuisine or something completely different), and in the end, they come back to their original style of cooking, adding a bit of their own flair. That little bit of flair and originality is what sets each of these restaurants apart from the other.

During my visit, I discovered that the food at Cafe Minh is excellent, however, when one typically thinks of the item he or she is ordering, one might not get exactly what they are expecting. For instance, when I ordered the fried eggplant, I did not expect it to be topped with mozzarella, on top of tomatoes, on top of a bed of lettuce, on top of toast. It was amazing nonetheless. This is an example of Chef Minh’s genius at work.

For dessert I had the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, and it was divine. Colorful and divine.

Also, while visiting Cafe Minh, I immediately noticed all of the artwork on the walls. With the high ceilings and ambient lighting, I almost felt that I was in an art gallery for a moment. The bartender even told me that the artwork is rotated by several local artists throughout the year.

When wandering Mid-City and you find yourself wanting something different than the norm, try stopping by Cafe Minh. If anything, the experience is one you’re unlikely to find anywhere else on Restaurant Row.

Paul Ballard, A New Orleans Inspired Wingman

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Wow!

This past week I had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Paul Ballard, president and CEO of WOW Café and Wingery. Mr. Ballard is a larger than life kind of man with a captivating grin and a presence that leaves listeners hanging on his every word. His strong family ties and love for all things New Orleans were evident within the first several minutes of our encounter. We were just sitting down at a table overlooking a rainy Orleans avenue sipping cold brewed coffee when Mr. Ballard first surprised me by immediately thanking me for our interest in his company. For the first time in a long while I did not feel as though I were pestering someone who had more important work to do than indulge the curiosities of a budding young anthropologist. It was also about this time that I learned Paul was a title that Mr. Ballard was more comfortable with.

Paul is a first generation New Orleanian, who grew up in a music store, Tape City USA, owned by his parents. They operated locations in Metairie, the CBD, and on Carrollton Avenue. Paul said it was a big day for them when then franchisee Nancy Bounds opened the Mid City location. “It was exciting for us to be back in the neighborhood”, Paul said with a smile. This excitement, he later claims, was one of the main reasons he and his brothers, also his partners in WOW, thought it was important to get back open after the storm.

Paul graduated from Tulane University with a degree in History and an intention of going on to Law School. It was while he was attending Tulane he met his wife, and future mother of his 4 children (the youngest only a matter of weeks old). Like many of New Orleans’ college students he found work at several bars and restaurants around town. Sal & Sam’s, which he defined as New Orleans Italian fine dining, required he wear a tuxedo and understand the importance of a good sauce, a notion that stuck with him as the WOW franchise began to grow.

Paul also recounted his experiences as a bartender at Rosie’s Big Easy on Tchoupitoulas. “Having been around for the progression from 4 track and 8 track players to LPs and so on, working at Rosie’s, just down from Tipitina’s, was a blast. We grew up around the music”. He went on to say how he feels very connected to New Orleans culture. He spent parts of his childhood all over this city, and says that when he sees a WOW in some of his old stomping grounds he cannot help but feel good.

Paul’s narrative is a great example of how culture reshapes itself. He grew up part of New Orleans music and food scene. Now he and his wife are raising their own children in an entrepreneurial environment. They are exposing them to an avenue that is clearly one of the cornerstones of New Orleans identity: food. Hot wings and beer may not be the first thing you think of when you think New Orleans food, but the Ballard family has dedicated themselves to creating and spreading representations of New Orleans. I will explore more of this next week when I discuss the connections that Paul has established over the years including his links to PJ’s Coffee founder Phyllis Jordan, and Chefs George Rhode and Paul Purdhomme.

Distinguishing Nationality and Ethnicity: The Food Factor

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Where does nationality end and ethnicity begin? On the surface there seems to be an easy answer. Nationality is expressed in the form of governmental controls in which the individual pledges some type allegiance and in turn receives protections and other social services. Ethnicity on the other hand seems to supersede those limitations by including anyone who speaks a particular language, shares in origin beliefs or customs, and/or claims heritage in similar roots. Ethnicity when framed in this way seems much more inclusive.

Foods, and more particularly food ways, seem to challenge the broad sweeping inclusiveness of ethnicity. Nearly all of the restaurateurs gracing our study area seem to strive to stand out as individuals while simultaneously maintaining an adherence to the broader expectations of their potential customers.

Part of the dinning decor at El Rinconsito 216 S. Carrollton Ave.

I began recalling that the meals I have eaten at El Rinconcito – Breakfast, lunch, or dinner – have all been served with soft warmed tortillas. This did not seem out of place prior to my Colombian trip– hence the lack of blog entries – where I feasted on amazing national and regional foods. None of which included even a single tortilla shell. There were close equivalents, of course, known as arepas, but their function seems closer aligned with the pita. Arepas are often stuffed with a meat, cheese, or egg, and either grilled or fried pre or post stuffing. The breakfast ones served on the coastal regions often contained fish or shrimp and were by far my absolute favorite.

Excited to share in this cuisine with my wife I quickly looked over the El Rinconcito menu when I got home and found that despite the obvious Colombian influence, the menu was lacking in the unique food stuffs I found in either urban or rural dinning. Warm tortillas now seem out of place when I go there. Despite their lack of belonging in the South American foodways, however, I do still eat every one.

La Taqueria Guerrero at 208 S. Carrollton Ave. New Orleans

Some locations, like Taqueria Guerrero Mexico, Angelo Brocato’s Italian Ice Cream & Pastry, and soon an Italian Pie, are able to easily present national, and even regional, foods because ethnicity and nationality have become synonymous within some categories. Other places, like Theo’s Pizza, Mandina’s, and Juan’s Flying Burrito all claim a type of individuality by expressing a possessiveness over their cuisine variations. Whether the claim is to a particular lineage or place many of the restaurants in our study area claim a similar possessiveness.

Menu for Fiesta Latina of New Orleans

Among the restaurants I am currently studying –Fiesta Latina, El Rinconcito, Taqueria Guerrero, and WOW Café and Wingery – each applies differing regional ties to their menus. Fiesta Latina claims to specialize in Mexican and Central American foods, while Taqueria Guerrero offers more familiar Mexican cuisine. El Rinconcito defines itself as serving Central American and South American dishes. And WOW Café and Wingery – a Louisiana original – has sauce selections named on ethnic expectations – Asian, Bombay, and Polynesian – as well as more regionally specific selections – Texas, Acadian, and Kansas City.

What I want to know is this: what are some national and ethnic foods that you are most fond of? How do the versions of those foods stand up when exported out of their original place of consumption and creation? Do restaurants need to adopt some form of homogenization in order to be successful?

Pizza Galore

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I spoke with two guys about pizza this week.  One was James “Jammer” Orintas, one of the owners of Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza, located on Canal, right near the intersection with Carrollton.  The other was Dennis Scheuermann, the owner of Wit’s Inn, which is on the corner of Carrollton and Iberville.  Both had great insights into the neighborhood and the restaurant business.  Orintas, along with his partners, is from Arkansas.  Scheuermann grew up in the 9th ward and has deep roots in New Orleans.  This contrast alone suggests that they both personify New Orleans at this point.

Both restaurants sell pizza.  I am pretty sure that their pizza pies are made in substantially different styles (I’ve eaten Theo’s pizza many times, but I have not yet tried Wit’s Inn pizza…I’ll try to make up for that soon).  Theo’s is a thin crust pizza that is often referred to as “St. Louis Style.” I have heard that Wit’s Inn pizza has a thicker, chewier kind of crust.  They both seem to have a lot of fans (I am not going to try any restaurant criticism here, so you’ll have to do your own research if you want to decide which one you like better).  Theo’s has only been in the neighborhood since mid-2009 (they have another location on Magazine Street), while Wit’s Inn has been around much longer.

Interestingly, they do not see themselves as really competing with each other.  Theo’s serves beer and wine, but is primarily, as Jammer told me, a destination for families with kids who want an affordable and relaxing night out (indeed, I can verify that the place works for that – I’ve been with my kids, other people’s kids, hordes of kids…).  Wit’s Inn has a full bar and a more diverse menu (they also do brunch on Sundays), pool tables and various electronic games-of-chance that only adults may use.  Indeed, you must be 21 to enter Wit’s Inn.  Wit’s Inn seems to be a mixture of sports bar and neighborhood hangout, with the addition of a full kitchen and professional chef.

All of which seems like a happy situation, with the potential for both businesses to thrive.  Except that they are not the only pizza purveyors in our restaurant row.  Venezia, just across Carrollton from Wit’s Inn, is famous for its pizza.  Just up the street, across the Great Divide, there are outlets for Papa John’s and Domino’s.  If you are willing to travel slightly out of our research area, down to Banks street, you will find the Crescent City Pie and Sausage Company and Lazaro’s Pizza, which is nearly a secret pizza purveyor as far as I can tell. (Just to confuse matters, the owners of Juan’s Flying Burrito, which is around the corner from Theo’s, also own Slice, another local pizzeria, but they do not have a location in the neighborhood.)  New Orleans is not a town known for pizza.  And yet, you might think we have more pizza places than po’boy shops.

And now, the Italian Pie folks are opening a new store at 125 N. Carrollton, on the same block as Fiesta Latina, Doson Noodle House and Wit’s Inn.  Italian Pie is a local chain with a fairly large number of stores across the metropolitan area.  I have no idea what the new place will look like, but I do know that their pizza is popular with many people in New Orleans.

Which raises a question: is it possible to have too much pizza in a neighborhood?  The immediate issue is one of competition and survival.  Can all of these places thrive with so many different pizza options?  There are subsidiary issues, like parking, that come to mind.  Perhaps the different kinds of pizza make these all substantially different kinds of restaurants.  Jammer pointed out that one of the things that makes the neighborhood attractive is the wide range of affordable dining choices, from various types of pizza, to different kinds of Latin American food, Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.  Do people see the pizza places as too much of the same thing or do they differentiate between them, so that each draws on their own clientele?  Does the collection of affordable restaurants bring in business for everyone?

What kind of mix of businesses, or just restaurants—succeed in neighborhoods?  How do urban planners and policy makers think about this?  There is some interesting stuff written about this—in urban planning literature, as well as in hotel, restaurant and tourism business literature (and if you have a favorite article or book to recommend, let me know!)—but take a look at this meditation on business diversity in Washington DC (part 2 is here).  It raises an interesting set of issues about restaurant and business clusters that are worth thinking about.  What has your experience been, in our restaurant row or somewhere else where restaurants congregate? Is there a pizza tipping point? Or even a point at which a neighborhood has too many restaurants?  Or maybe not enough?  And would that point be different in New Orleans, where people love eating in restaurants, than in a different city, where food is less central to the way of life?

Doson Delivers

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On Thursday of last week, our RRR group met for lunch at Doson Noodle House. While enjoying our meal, I noticed Mr. Ha sneak in with his briefcase. Luckily, this gave me the opportunity to catch him and arrange an interview. When I asked, he said he was free right then and there (which would have been perfect had I not forgotten my notes!) so I decided that I would wing it. Even though I was improvising, I was still able to find out a lot about the history and inner-workings of Doson Noodle House.

Mr. Ha got his first taste of the restaurant business while he was working as a busboy in San Francisco. While there, he met a chef from Shang-Hai who taught him the Chinese style of cooking. In 1978, Mr. Ha moved to New Orleans, and he has been there ever since. In 1997, he opened Chinese’s Chinese on Oak Street. The name eventually changed to Doson Noodle House before the restaurant made its move. One week before Hurricane Katrina, Doson Noodle House’s new location (135 N. Carrollton Ave.) was set to open. After Katrina struck, the restaurant had to be completely redone, yet Mr. Ha says that Doson was the first restaurant to open on N. Carrollton after the storm. He said that there were days when he would open to a line that was at least three blocks long.

When things settled down, Mr. Ha says that he noticed many of his customers from Oak Street had migrated to the new address. I asked him if he knew many of his customers by name, and he said absolutely. He then pointed to several tables in the restaurant explaining who people were, whereabouts they worked, and that many of them frequented Doson’s several times a week for lunch. He also said that I would be surprised by the amount of deliveries the restaurant makes during the week.

While talking with Mr. Ha, I also had to opportunity to take a tour of the kitchen. Everything was spotless and several cooks had their own personal stations. One lady was hand-rolling the spring rolls (which are amazing by the way!) until they looked just right. Another lady was making Pho with fresh ingredients. The walk-in freezer was humongous, and I saw the biggest wok I had ever seen. While touring, Mr. Ha informed me that most of his vegetables come from local farmers and that if he, himself, would not eat something, then he most definitely would not serve it to someone else.

Not wanting to overstay my visit, I thanked Mr. Ha for his hospitality and gave him my business card. I’ve been invited back whenever I wish, and he said next time I’m welcome to talk with some of his regulars if they’re willing. So if you’re a regular to Doson Noodle House, beware! Other photographs and more to come next week.

The Great Divide

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N. Carrollton and Bienville

Every restaurant in New Orleans closed during Katrina and the subsequent floods.  As the flood waters receded, restaurants cleaned up and re-opened, each one a sign that life was returning to the city.  In fact, the return of food-related businesses (including grocery and convenience stores, gas stations, drug stores, as well as restaurants) became a kind of index that could be used to measure the city’s progress toward recovery.

But what exactly did that measure?  The question of what constituted a sign of recovery became the object of a brief, but telling controversy.  In August 2006, a year after the floods, the Louisiana Restaurant Association published a survey indicating that only 46% of the businesses in the area had been certified for reopening by state health officials.  Only 34% of food businesses in New Orleans proper were certified at that point.  This suggested that progress toward recovery was very slow.

One of the more prominent local restaurant critics, radio personality Tom Fitzmorris, wrote an open letter disputing the LRA’s numbers.  Fitzmorris argued that a meaningful measure of recovery would focus only on the restaurants that “mattered,” in determining the health of the local economy and culinary culture.  High-end restaurants in the French Quarter, he asserted, were “real” because they shaped the image of the city for both locals and tourists, while the neighborhood Chevron, selling doughnuts and hot dogs, or even Starbuck’s, did not.  The core criterion, he wrote, is that a restaurant be of “real interest to people who like to eat.”  Fitzmorris had been tracking the re-opening of the restaurants he thought mattered and, at that point in late 2006, by his measure, over 80% of the city’s restaurants had reopened.  That suggested a more vigorous recovery was underway.

It seems that Fitzmorris won that argument.  At least in New Orleans, it is unlikely that anyone would dispute that the restaurant scene is quite lively.  He continues to measure the number of restaurants open and, interestingly, he claims as of July 23, 2010 that there are 1,106 restaurants (that matter) open in the area, which is a few hundred more than were open before the 2005 disaster.  This is quite remarkable, given that a recent study, published in Nation’s Restaurant News, points out that there are actually fewer restaurants nationally now than a year ago.  We can probably assume that the NRN counts restaurants that Fitzmorris would not include, so the divide between New Orleans, with its interestingly vigorous dining scene, and the rest of the country, is probably even greater than the mere numbers show.

In fact, the national numbers suggest that independent restaurants are declining the most, while chains are doing somewhat better.  In New Orleans, it would seem—and I do not have numbers to back this up, just a sense from reading local critics and wandering around town—that the opposite is true.  We seem to have fewer chains and more local independents.  This leads me to the Great Divide in our Mid-City research area that inspired this set of observations.  There are a few dozen restaurants in the vicinity.  Most of them are independently owned and local establishments, although a couple (Juan’s, Theo’s, Fiesta Latina) are the second or third restaurant in a locally-owned group.  However, there are also a few representatives of national chains in the area, mostly at the northern edge of our study area.  These include a Subway, a Papa John’s, a Wow Café, a Domino’s Pizza and a Quiznos.  (Just for the record, Fitzmorris includes the locals with multiple shops, including those I note in this paragraph, but he does not count any of the national fast food chains mentioned here.)

On N. Carrollton

We are trying to include them in our research.  After all, they do serve food and they are quite visible.  It is unclear at this point how much we can learn.  The restaurant owners of the local establishments have been almost universally eager to join in the project.  Of course, they want to be in our planned museum exhibit and they no doubt want the publicity, but I think that they are also clearly engaged as members of the neighborhood and of the city.  This is where they live, after all.  We have had a very hard time making contact with the fast food owners and franchisees.  First, we have to track them down.  When we speak to the local shop managers, we are often (quite brusquely) informed that they cannot speak with us and that we will have to contact corporate headquarters.  Following up usually results in a parade of voice-mail menus, emails that never receive replies and, generally speaking…a vast void.  There are, of course, public records and a great deal of data we can incorporate.  We have photographic evidence they exist, as you can clearly see.  We do not know yet whether or not these establishments want to be seen as part of the community.  We have not (yet) included them in the web site list on the right of this page, precisely because they do not have local sites that we can find, only national ones.

The divide between the local and the national chain seems, in this case, to be rather sharp.  Yet these shops clearly employ local residents and serve local customers.  They are right there, in the community.  We are not ready to count them out.  In fact, we are still determined to include them in our research.  Any advice on how to do that would be welcome!