New Orleans Part 4 of 10 (Cochon)

Deemed “the Oscars of the food world,” by Time magazine, the James Beard Foundation Awards are the country’s most coveted honor for chefs. During our visit in New Orleans, we were able to dine at Cochon where Stephen Stryjewski had won the James Beard Award for Best Chef in the South. It was easy to see why he was given this prestigious honor.

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I arranged for a group of my clients to join us at Cochon for a late reservation. This worked out really well, because the menu is designed with many small plates. Thus we were able to order several different plates and share in a "tapas style" manner.

We first started off with a round of drinks. The drink for me was decent, but not spectacular. All I remember is that there was watermelon in the drink. It also took a while to receive our drinks, though to the restaurant's credit, it was a packed house. (There were 20,000 librarians in town!) As I could tell that all of the menus were printed frequently, I decided to order by writing on the menu what the table wanted. The waiter said that was unique and the first time anyone had done that.

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About 15 minutes later and all of our dishes came out simultaneously. Here they are in no particular order. We have here Artichoke & crab stuffed crab. It was very tasty with the accompanying crisps (perhaps pita?) adding a nice textural contrast.

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Next is the wood-fired oyster roast. What a great preparation of the oyster, served very warm. 

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Here was the dish I was dying to try: Fried alligator with chili garlic aioli. Though the alligator is a little chewier (not rubbery, just meatier) it was super delicious. The chili garlic aioli gave it a wonderful tang that I can still taste two weeks later. 

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One small plate was simply named hushpuppies. That being said, there was nothing simple about them. They we're phenomenal. The sauce accompanying it was fantastic! One of my clients does not like hushpuppies at all, but fell in love with this version. Everyone also loved the sauce, wanting to have it bottled up. By the way, we loved the hushpuppies so much that we ordered a second round.

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Cochon is french for pig. Thus a visit to Cochon wouldn't be complete without trying some pork. Thus we ordered the boucherie plate. I don't recall all the various pieces but it did include the following: 

Headcheese - My first experience with it and the texture is off-putting to me personally, though it had good flavor.

Pork Rillette - Again, a first for me. A rillette is a paste that is put on bread. The problem was that we didn't get enough bread. On its own, again it had flavor, but it needed the bread.

House Made Bread & Butter Pickles - This is my favorite type of pickle and...WOW... just WOW! They nailed the pickles. Perfect amount of tang and bite. Could've eaten a jar of them. 

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One of my clients ordered a zucchini salad. Huh?, I thought. A Zuchinni salad? At a restaurant with pig as its name?.... I'm glad they ordered it. It really helped to balance the meal. Most of the other dishes we ate were warm dishes. This salad, which had so much wonderful flavor, was a cool dish and thus added a great balance in temperature. Lesson learned: don't knock a salad at Cochon.

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 About 5 minutes after we submitted our "menu order" to our server, he came back and said that the "spicy grilled pork ribs with watermelon pickle" (another anticipated dish) was gone for the night. In lieu of the ribs, our waiter suggested the Pork Cheeks with lima beans. They were enjoyable and still tasted similar to braised ribs.

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The third dish I was personally anticipating was Rabbit and dumplings. This was another first for me. (Do you notice a pattern emerging?) The rabbit was juicy and succulent. With the accompanying gravy it was very similar to turkey in taste and texture.

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One of my clients, before ordering, asked what the "Smothered Green Beans" were smothered in. Our waiter said, bacon, wine, butter... Thus she ordered them. Bacon? YUM! They were a nice side to the meal.

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One of my low-lights of the evening was the chicken and andouille gumbo. For me, it was over salted. Two others really enjoyed it, so maybe I just got a bad batch?







One of the sad but funny things of the night was Dessert. Our waiter came and said, "I wanted to let you know that we currently have 20,000 librarians in New Orleans... and... well... they ate all of our dessert." He went on to inform us that they noticed that librarians really enjoy dessert and they had planned for an increase in food, but not as much for dessert... He did offer a few options of ice cream, but we were quire content at that point and declined.

Chef Stryjewski lived up to the prestige as a James Beard award winner. Next time we're in town, I'd like to try Herbsaint, Donald Link's (Cochon Owner) other restaurant.