by The Great Foodini
I’m looking constantly for a new restaurant to try. A new dish or something innovative each week that catches my attention.
I peruse Facebook news-feeds to check my friend’s walls for photos or recommendations of a place I haven’t been before or a dish I haven’t tried.
So, I end up befriending random chefs, I follow random restaurant owners and I let social media spread me foodie intel collection arms far and wide across the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This way, I can see what they’re posting. If they’re really proud of something that they’re doing, then they’ll post about it.
Honestly there are no better ways to find out the real dirt on things than perusing a newsfeed on Facebook. So, not too long ago I became friends with a chef at Field’s in Bay Saint Louis. Her name is Lauren Joffrion and she is simply amazing.
Although she claims her forte is desserts and pastries, she seems to be a master of all trades when referring to culinary arts and takes traditional dishes and makes them something new and inventive. She creates something fresh and extravagant, the one dish that I tasted that I really loved was the French onion dumplings.
It’s all of the flavor and same comforts a traditional French onion soup in a bite. Now I have a beard and a mustache and so sometimes eating soup get logistically challenging.
I’m not a sloppy eater but just not that neat either so I contacted Lauren and I told her I was very interested in trying her take on this traditional dish and boy was I not disappointed at all. This dish is a culinary experience.
As of the printing of this article, Field’s will only have been open a month, but that have been knocking the socks off of everybody that comes to their doors.
Everyone who follows my column knows that I am tired of writing about steaks, but they do a bit of a neat take on it here.
They take extra waygu fat and render it down to make an herb butter and then cook the steaks in the butter. Then they blast char the heck out of the steak at 800 degrees…the temperature of lava when it leaves the Earth’s crust.
It is one of the most delicious steaks that I have ever tasted. The last dish I will discuss in this piece is the gumbo flatbread. They create this by making a traditional gumbo, thickening it up and topping their flatbread with gouda, shrimp, crab meat, green onion, sausage and okra.
This will possibly stick in my memory as my most unusual, but tasty pizza like treat.
Next time I go, I will try the pan-seared Ceasar and the street corn oysters.
Take all the goodness from traditional Mexican roasted street corn (elotes) and add a perfectly charred oyster…sounds like I just might have to head back tonight.
