Dinner at Dickies
There is a reason things seemed familiar–we were having dinner at Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse, two blocks from the Marriott, and I noticed that the bread came in a wrapper with the logo of the Palace Cafe and the Bourbon House as well as Brennan’s and another restaurant or two–they are all owned by the same company, all run in the same manner. The food is different, the service is the same: excellent.
New Orleans is a cosmopolitan place–the restaurants open at 5:30, not 4:00. We had to wait for the staff meeting to finish before we could be seated, then were led into the heavy, dark, quiet dining room with the white tablecloths, well dressed waiters and an air of elegance and seriousness. Just my kind of place.
To start off, I had the Tomato Blue Cheese Napoleon:
Tomato Blue Cheese Napoleon–a big stack of salad.
Slices of very ripe tomato are layered with crumbly blue cheese and then covered in remoulade sauce, which seems to be New Orleans-ese for Russian Dressing. When I was 6 or 7 I got to make the “Russian” dressing by mixing mayo and ketchup. They may have a 7 year old in the kitchen at Brennan’s–the taste was the same. The odd slice of bread on the plate, sans butter, is just a puzzlement to me.
Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse is big on steaks and prime rib, obviously, but for my entree I went for the garlic crusted speckled trout.
Garlic crusted speckled trout, roasted new potatoes and steamed spinach. Yum,
Gail and Linda had the trout as well, so the three of us went back to the tournament reeking of garlic. Maybe it helped our evening scores. In any event, the fish was cooked perfectly and we all enjoyed our meals.
It may well be against the law to operate a dining establishment in New Orleans that doesn’t offer bread pudding, and Dickie Brennan’s wouldn’t want to run afoul of the authorities. The version they offer is the combination model, dressing up the dessert with bananas foster.
Bread pudding bananas foster a la Dickie Brennan
I’m of two minds about this–I’m a purist about my bread pudding, but I like the rum-based sauce from the Bananas Foster. It was a good dessert, but not great. Better they should stick to one thing and do it well than try to kill two birds with one pudding.
Dickie Brennan’s is a very pleasant place to have a dinner that will make you feel like you are rich and respected. The food is good, the service is first rate, the facility just feels like old money and breeding. Yes, you could say I liked it.
Totally Unauthorized 
I liked it too 😃
FWIW, Dickie Brennan passed away on March 14th, aged 83. RIP.