Dock to Plate Seafood at Porgy's in New Orleans
COVER STORY: In Mid-City New Orleans, a new market showcases the bounty of the Gulf while connecting their customers with independent local fisheries.
Welcome to the weekend! Here’s what you’ll find in this week’s newsletter:
Cover Story: At Porgy’s Seafood Market, we found a new-school muffuletta, fish bacon-braised white beans, and more.
February’s Featured Field Guide: Download our Signature Field Guide to New Orleans, packed with over 40 recommendations for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks in the Crescent City, all organized into a six-day travel itinerary. The 62-page e-book (our largest yet) is formatted for your phone and this month it’s free for paid subscribers!
Favorites List: Just outside Boston, a tiny neighborhood Thai spot draws in diners for hugely flavorful fare.
Weekend Reading: Learn how to make the classic cocktails of New Orleans at home, a food writer opens a gourmet grocery store in upstate New York, plus a few great walks in Charleston, South Carolina.
Seafood Muffalettas and More at a Standout Market
NEW ORLEANS, LA. — We were already a couple po’boys into our recent New Orleans trip when we stopped in for lunch at Porgy’s Seafood Market for a catfish one. While all the po’boys we had were good, this one was different. After we ordered it, a fillet of catfish was plucked from the case, cooked to our liking (blackened, please), and tucked into a locally made Dong Phuong roll with mayo, lettuce, pickles, and thinly sliced red onion. A variety of hot sauces were available to dash on a little heat. It was excellent. But if you aren’t feeling catfish, you can choose oysters, shrimp, or any seafood in the case that looks good, and get it turned into a po’boy or salad.
Porgy’s, which opened in Mid-City in December from four industry veterans – Marcus Jacobs and Caitlin Carney of the dearly departed Marjie’s Grill and Seafood Sally’s, and Dana and Christina Honn of Carmo — puts great seafood from local fishermen into the hands of home cooks and diners. “A market like Porgy’s has been in the conversation in the New Orleans chef community for a very long time,” Jacobs told me. “We’ve always bemoaned that there’s nowhere to go to get local seafood. An opportunity came up when Bevi [Seafood Co.] closed. Justin [LeBlanc] reached out to me to see if I was interested in taking over the lease and the building. So I reached out to Dana and Christina. Dana has been at the forefront of sustainable Gulf seafood for a long time. He’s a big advocate for local fishers and communities, and he and I have been friends for quite some time, so it felt like a natural fit.”
What’s in Porgy’s case changes by the day, but they have recently offered speckled trout, sheepshead, bar jack, Lake Pontchartrain blue crabs, drum, pompano, king mackerel, albacore tuna, shrimp from Anna Marie Shrimp, and prepared items like smoked tuna dip and pickled shrimp. “We’ve had established relationships with some local fishers that grew out of the restaurants so we’ve been able to continue those,” Jacobs says. “We’re also working with some of the local fish houses; when they get bycatch, we can capitalize on that. We’re trying to create a space where fishers can come get a higher price from us than they’d be paid at the dock. And if you buy fish fresh from the case, it’s the same quality that restaurants have access to, but it’s a third of the price to cook it yourself.”
Along with more popular seafood offerings, Porgy’s sells fish that might not be commercially viable for fishermen, so you can also find lesser-known species that don’t make it to markets like sheepshead, bar jack, or porgy, the founders’ “shared mutual favorite bycatch.” “I think that one of the biggest things we can do is build awareness of the diversity of species,” Jacobs says. “The more we familiarize people with the beauty of all these different species — not just that they’re there, but that they’re excellent — the more people will order them. If more people are eating porgy, it takes heat off the snapper population.”
During our visit we were staying in a hotel, so we didn’t get to cook anything from the case, but we did have an excellent lunch. Besides the catfish po’boy, we had seafood gumbo with shrimp, tasso ham, and oysters as well as fish bacon-braised beans, a side dish that’s a pescatarian-friendly take on barbecue beans. “We cure and smoke fish trim, then render that as you would for bacon,” Jacobs says.
But the dish we can’t stop talking about is the muffulettu. Dana Honn wrote a piece for the Porgy’s website about the origins of the muffuletta in Sicily and how before it became the New Orleans meat sandwich we know today, it was made with tinned seafood. “Dana and Christina are very passionate food historians and they’re really into understanding where things come from,” Jacobs says. The team reimagined that original version here, making Gulf tuna conserva in house and layering it with olives, giardiniera salad, shaved pecorino, and anchovy aioli on a house-baked seeded Sicilian loaf. “This version hits the same familiar flavor profiles as a muffuletta but it’s lighter,” Jacobs says.
With the offerings at Porgy’s ever-changing, if you can’t decide what to get, just ask — the case is filled with stories. One of Jacobs’ favorite companies is Tesvich Oyster Farms, a wild oyster harvester. “They’re fourth generation out of Buras, Louisiana,” he says. “They’re using traditional oyster harvesting techniques. The oysters have a nice salt content and they sort theirs by weight so they're always full and plump. They’re the platonic ideal of the wild harvested Louisiana oyster.” At Porgy’s, the relationships are as important as the food. “The patriarch of the family does all the deliveries and he comes in a few times a week and looks at the fish in the case and we talk about oysters,” Jacobs says. “They’re bringing awareness to what’s been in their community for generations. People don’t understand that if you get an oyster po’boy at the gas station, that starts somewhere. What they’re doing is highlighting that this is our community and our culture and it starts here.”
236 N Carrollton Ave, New Orleans, LA 70119
Save All Our New Orleans Recommendations
Our newly updated Signature Field Guide to New Orleans is a super-sized digital dining guide featuring more than 40 vetted recommendations for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks, all organized into a curated six-day travel itinerary. This e-book download is formatted for your phone so you can save it for easy reference on your next trip. Paid subscribers received a link to download a free copy of the guide last week, so upgrade your subscription today and get your complimentary copy. You can also buy the Field Guide on our website. (A paid subscription is a better deal, plus you’ll receive 50% off any other Field Guide you’d like!)
Fantastic Thai Fare Just Northwest of Boston
ARLINGTON, MASS. — My brother and his family live in Arlington, so the last time we were out that way, we headed to dinner at BoonNoon Market, their favorite spot in town. I can see why that is. This little slip of a joint has just a handful of tables and a wall lined with housemade items and imported Thai products to buy, from Thai Lay’s Prik Pao Cheese chips to bags of holy basil to frozen sweet potato balls. It also serves exceptional Thai food. In 2022, the year Nutthachai “Jeep” Chaojaroenpong opened BoonNoon, the restaurant landed on year-end best lists by local food writers.
The menu highlights Northern Thai dishes, and signatures include a terrific kao soi, the Northern Thai curry soup with egg noodles, pickled mustard greens, and housemade toasted chile oil, as well as the kui chai, crispy chive cakes with a tangy soy dipping sauce. There are always daily specials (follow along on their Instagram to see what they are), like the laab gai, a spicy dish of ground chicken mixed with herbs and served over sticky rice. And that’s another good thing about BoonNoon — the spicing does not hold back. Get an ORT (orange rosemary Thai tea) to help cut the heat.
We did not partake in any sweets, but there’s a lot to try on that front too, from piak poon, a coconut pandan pudding, to mun katee, salted caramelized sweet potatoes in coconut milk. Next time.
161 Massachusetts Ave, Arlington, MA 02474
LOUISIANA
No Go-Cup Necessary: Last week, we shared a roundup of our five favorite new-school New Orleans cocktails. But if you’ve got an itch to make some classic NOLA drinks at home, the editors at Punch have collected 11 recipes for you to try. While we will leave the at-home Café Brûlot to King Cocktail, anyone with a well-stocked home bar could whip up a Vieux Carré, Roffignac, or even a Paul Gustings Grasshopper. We also enjoy Kirk Estopinal’s Hurricane that’s served at Cane & Table. It’s probably the best version you’re going to find in New Orleans.
NEW YORK
Heading Upstate: If you read Alison Roman’s newsletter (and many of you do), you may have seen that she started a side gig: Grocery Store Proprietor. Her shop, First Bloom, sounds like just the sort of place we seek out when we are exploring a small town. “While I cringe at the word, I guess you could say it’s “curated,” though only because it’s pretty small,” says Roman. “There isn’t a ton of space to carry ingredients I think are superfluous or, worse, things that might be popular but maybe don’t taste that good (to me, anyway). Yes, this is my curated grocery store and I’m drunk with power.” If you find yourself near Bloomville, New York, stop in for a coffee and check out the store.
SOUTH CAROLINA
The Streets of Charleston: Regular readers of American Weekender know we love visiting Charleston, South Carolina. Back in August, we wrote about the standout food scene, but we also love visiting because the core of the city is so compact and walkable. The editors at Garden & Gun have put together a list of 10 great walks in and around the city, from scenic strolls on Queen Street to a mile-and-a-half boardwalk loop through the surrounding marshlands. For us, nothing helps clear our head more than a brisk, early morning walk while the rest of the city is still brewing their first cup of coffee.
— Compiled by Kenney Marlatt
Want more? Chat with us on Substack, download our Field Guides, check out our archives, or follow us on Instagram @americanweekender. We’ll be back next week.
OMG I am going there in two weeks and have this on my list! So glad to see you liked it, too