St. Charles Avenue Magazine Food Column, September, 2003
By Michael Depp

I consider myself to be a relatively intelligent person, but the people at Finn McCool's, a remarkably authentic Irish pub in Mid-City, have me wondering if all those years of college and graduate school were for naught. That's because I've been spending my Monday evenings of late participating in their painfully difficult pub quiz night, a weeknight tradition beloved in Ireland and the U.K. and met with similar enthusiasm here since they started doing it about a year ago, not long after the pub opened last July.

Finn McCool's is owned by a quartet of friends, three of them from Co. Armagh in Northern Ireland. Each was a veteran of the local Irish pub scene for the past decade until they pooled together for their self-renovated Bank Street location. "We just wanted to have a neighborhood pub that you would find at home where it's relaxing," says Stephen Patterson, who, with his wife Pauline, is one of the owners.

I was tipped to the pub by a visiting London journalist friend who swore by its inexpensive draughts and the aforementioned pub quiz night, which shortly thereafter made Mondays a tolerable day on my calendar. One instantly feels at home in the pub's cozy interior, a hybrid of old Ireland and old New Orleans artifacts that's peopled with an eclectic mix of expatriates, Celtophiles and those who'd rather not pass their weeknights in front of the television.

Patterson says next up for Finn McCool's is a kitchen renovation so they can start serving up some respectable pub grub, e.g. sandwiches, shepherd's pie, Irish stew and, most encouragingly, fish and chips. For those like me who forsake dinner for the 8 p.m. start time, it'll be a welcome improvement, though they do infrequently offer food during pub quiz night and at the pool and darts league nights during the week.

In the meantime, the Pattersons and co-owners Stephen Collins and Jami Bryan have also been busy supporting the Ulster Project, a local group that brings Protestant and Catholic kids over from Ireland to spend summers here, as well as drumming up support for the New Orleans Shell Shockers, the city's new Premier Development League soccer club. If you want to know more about either, ask them at the bar. And if you decide to take a crack at pub quiz night, try and round up some of your smartest friends. I'm bringing mine, and one of these weeks I may just validate all those years I spent at school.

More Irish Fare

Lest I overlook another significant development among Irish pubs around town, O'Flaherty's Irish Channel Pub in the French Quarter has undergone a complete overhaul of both its menu and kitchen. Owner Danny O'Flaherty has put chef Steve Miller at the helm of an expanded and improved kitchen that will now run a larger menu of Irish, Creole and Cajun offerings including shepherd's pie, Irish beef stew and specials like house cured salmon with herbed cream cheese and soda bread. I'm told that they'll also occasionally feature a traditional Irish breakfast of bangers, mash, rashers and grilled tomatoes - a rare thing to be had in these parts. Miller is a veteran of Emeril's Delmonico, which, I suspect, is a fair enough substitute for having an Irish mother make your breakfast.

O'Flaherty's has discontinued its own pub quiz night, but if you're looking for another venue to test your mettle, the Crown & Anchor in Algiers Point has a formidable pub quiz night of its own on Thursdays. If you haven't been there, it's an excellent British pub worth crossing the river for with an impressive artillery on draught including Boddington's ale (hard to find outside of a can around here) served with an authentic pump-tap. The Crown & Anchor also has a selection of meat and vegetable pies (albeit the microwave kind) to fortify you for that river crossing.

Buy This Book

Local food columnist Connie Snow has pulled off an extraordinary feat in Gulf Coast Kitchens (Clarkson Potter), a compendium of home recipes stretching from Florida to Texas and down to Mexico. The product of two daunting years of research, Snow's book is the first to truly encapsulate some extremely diverse cuisines in the region and to draw the connecting points between them.

"It was a lot of fun researching the book to find out how different cultures prepared the same ingredients in such different ways and also recognizing that there are a lot of similarities, too," she says.

Highlights include panko crusted crab cakes with papaya salsa; Vietnamese sweet and sour seafood soup; roasted poblano soup (hailing from Texas); Mayan chili (a vegetarian dish you can make with pumpkin or butternut squash); and "Rasta pasta" from Key West. She's also got some great recipes for seasoned butters (use the Mauthes' butter from the Crescent City Farmers' Market for best results) and an Indian-style crawfish stir-fry.

Snow has a great style, she's generous with interesting anecdotes and these are some of the most original recipes availing themselves of local ingredients that I've seen. She's now at work on a book of "peasant food" recipes, which will undoubtedly be just as engaging.

An Opening, An Anniversary

Building on the momentum he has been gaining from Restaurant August, chef John Besh opened the Besh Steakhouse at Harrah's Casino in July amid high expectations. All indications are they're being met. The restaurant, which is tucked into a Poydras St.-side corner of the casino, is shielded from much of the casino's noise (for those who don't care for slots with their filet mignon), and the menu is terrific, even for non-steak lovers. I can personally vouch for the wonders of the jalapeno and Mascarpone roast oysters and, of course, the filet mignon, but I plan on going back for the seared Ahi tuna steak with roast foie gras and purple plum sauce soon.

Finally, congratulations to Emeril Lagasse and staff on the fifth anniversary of Emeril's Delmonico. The chef celebrated the occasion with a late July fete benefiting his Emeril Lagasse Foundation, which helps create educational and developmental opportunities for kids. To find out more about it and to enter his Delmonico anniversary recipe contest, visit his Web site at www.emerils.com.