Rémy writes the Passionfruit Butter Blog and the weekly Rémy Eats post for Blake Makes.

My first official adventure as Rémy Robert, Teenage Gastronome was to Boucherie. Many New Orleans foodies are familiar with Iris, a beloved jewel of a restaurant that was located on Jeannette right off of Carrollton until it relocated recently to the French Quarter. As it happens, Boucherie has filled its spot.

My friend Lexie and I walked into the main dining room (adorably small and quaint, with a compact little bar in the back corner). A waiter smiled and greeted us immediately, and we took our seats at a small table near a window. The room was clean and well-lit, with a couple of other tables of diners (I imagine it’ll get much more popular as more people hear about it, but as of right now, it’s still just a nebular little newcomer that’s not on most radars).

What I like about this location is that it feels like you’re walking into someone’s home, and this quaintness suits Boucherie famously. We had just settled into our chairs and unfolded our napkins when the waitress stopped at our table to take our drink order. Given that the restaurant was not packed to the brim, her promptness was not extraordinary, but it was appreciated and genuine.

With the drinks came this little amuse-bouche of duck tender and threads of pickled carrot, wrapped in romaine and drizzled with a molasses sauce. I could write a whole essay on why I love amuse-bouches (is that the grammatically correct plural form?). They’re little tasters that give the chef total artistic license: they’re free, so customers can’t rightfully get upset; they’re small, so even if people do get upset, there’s nothing to send back to the kitchen; most of all, their diminutive size gives the chef more freedom to explore daring flavor combinations that might be overbearing or overly strange for an entrée-sized portion.

The duck was charred a little bit on the edges, redolent of backyard barbecues but much more succulent than any of the chicken breasts we ever cooked. I completely missed the carrots, but the lettuce was very fresh, very green, and served as a crisp little blanket for the yummy meat. The sauce was my favorite; it retained the sweetness of molasses but became more tangy in turn, and it was vinaigrette-thin, which translated to appealing little droplets that nestled in the creases of the lettuce. All in all? Yum.

Read More