The Human Torch
From the patio's porch swing to the sweetly made sweetbreads, DICK &
JENNY'S knows how to make people feel at home.
By Sara Roahen
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All in the family: DICK AND JENNY'S co-owners Richard and Jenny Benz, here with their daughter Ruby, provide upscale cuisine with a laid-back atmosphere.
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WHAT: Dick & Jenny's
CUISINE: Contemporary Louisiana
WHEN: Dinner Tuesday through Saturday
WHERE: 4501 Tchoupitoulas St., 894-9880
CARDS: Major
RESERVATIONS: Not accepted
Almost a year ago to date, I fell for a salad, hard. The combination of
watercress, sizzled bacon bits, heady bleu cheese, and toasted pecans wasn't
exactly original, but the presentation was a gorgeous scattering of autumn; if
there was a more seasonally accurate melding of flavors, it would have to fall
from a tree. Last summer, it happened again. I'm usually not so fickle, but the
tossed greens with raw vegetables and picnic-perfect devilled eggs were how
everyone likes to think their childhood summers tasted. I suffered another
spell last week: Jenny's Winter Salad with lemon-infused Stilton cheese. This
time next year, I will be writing sonnets about Dick & Jenny's, that
lopsided restaurant on the Uptown corner of Tchoupitoulas and Jena streets.
It's the sweet way they run their shop that makes me comfortable
gushing so openly. If the restaurant's name had a subtitle, it would be
something like "made with love," or "our house is your house." Christmas lights
and flower boxes decorate the brown and gold building. Inside the dramatic,
burnt-orange walls of the 42-seat dining room are a hanging gallery for the
chef's own artwork. Because they don't take reservations, Dick's mother steers
customers to the barely roofed outdoor waiting area in back. It is her
"volunteer job" to juggle the crowds when Jenny takes the night off to care for
Ruby, their 5-month-old baby girl.
Cluttered with a porch swing, potted plants and plastic chairs, the
patio steams with kitchen smells in the summer and leaves a perfume of campfire
on hair and sweaters from the crackling wood stove in the winter. The
patchwork, sometimes-childlike friendliness also shows up in a stapled menu
that looks like a homework assignment but reads like an ode to all flavors,
from a foie gras appetizer to the chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich for
dessert.
Richard and Jennifer Benz's family joint would max out on cuteness
if it weren't for their very real knowledge about what people like to eat and
the elegance in their seasonal presentations. As chef at Gautreau's and
Upperline restaurants for a cumulative six years before airing out the long
vacant building on Tchoupitoulas, Richard developed a precise style. When I eat
his food, I feel like he is cooking for me personally. After my first
taste of the half dollar-sized medallion, I wondered how he had discovered
exactly how I liked my sweetbreads cooked. A solid, crusty layer of tight
pecans solved the persistent disappointment of oily, mushy lobes. I swabbed the
nutty, succulent bites in his thyme-mushroom sauce and gladly forgot all the
runners-up that came before it.
I wasn't the only one moved. Everyone at my table practically
embraced our server with glee at what was happening in our mouths (she,
strangely, didn't seem to get it). One of my companions cursed constantly with
delight. Another insisted upon feeding me from his platter of tomato-soaked
seafood. I could smell the fennel in his cioppino (an Italian variation on
bouillabaisse) from across the table. Sweet anise and sharp oregano branded the
smoked shrimp, calamari rings, and mussels of the chunky stew. At the bottom of
the seafood pile lay a fried redfish filet, soggy with the appeal of a hot
French fry sopping with ketchup.
Come to think of it, Dick & Jenny's is an upscale restaurant
that stops just short of setting the tables with ketchup. The food is fine and
exceedingly delicious, but the atmosphere is so unintimidating that you
wouldn't blush at being caught with your elbows on the oilcloth or drinking a
chardonnay with your tournedos of beef. Though it would be an exceptional
chardonnay. The short wine list is a serious one, with a wide range of domestic
and imported vintages priced from $22 to $117.
I have to wonder if Dick and Jenny eat out. I do. I know what
people are willing to pay for such pleasure. I know what a steal their food is.
This winter's $11 vegetarian entree, for example, is a beheaded and roasted
acorn squash cleaned of its seedy entrails. A saute of tiny cauliflower
florets, crunchy red onion, eggplant and zucchini in a loud coconut curry sauce
spill over the squash like a colorful wig. It's amazing how Benz can make a
Thai-styled dish taste just like autumn in America. The best bites of a bargain
$13 hammy pork chop were when I could manage to spear a cinnamon apple, some
braised collards, a smear of garlic mashed potatoes, and a smidgen of pig
glazed with sweetly acidic pan juices all on one dinner fork.
But it's missing dessert at Dick & Jenny`s that would be
missing the point. Like the weighty pound cake dipped in egg batter and
pan-fried that I swirled in a syrup of cinnamon apples and pecans. I couldn't
put my finger on that familiar, burnt taste. It began at the back of my mouth
and traveled up into my nose until it was more aroma than flavor. And then it
hit me with all the homey power one family restaurant can muster: French toast
for dessert.
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