catifsh
and kin don fancy duds but keep that clarksdale spirit
BY fredric koeppel
the commercial appeal
If you travel down to Clarksdale to
visit holy sites of the blues, you'll want to conclude your
day by having dinner at Madidi, a restaurant that may bear
the exotic name of a national park in Bolivia but happens
to find itself in the old business section of a flat Delta
town.
Madidi has received a great deal of publicity because one
of its owners is movie actor Morgan Freeman(Along came a spider,
Kiss the Girls, Hard Rain, Nurse Betty), who has a ranch in
Charleston. He and partner Bill Luckett refurbished an old
commercial building in what used to be Clarksdale's downtown
and created a manageable space with a towering ceiling, spacious
comfortable bar, walls that are either original brick or painted
a sort of dark bronze color and lots of local art hung here
and there.
Madidi's kitchen is in the charge of David Krog, who cooked
under Ralph McCormick at LaTourelle in Memphis. Krog created
a menu for the restaurant that reflects thoughtful consideration
of Madidi's Delta patrons. Without espousing, as some young
chefs might have demanded, rare and strange ingredients and
combinations, Krog's menu focuses on familiar ideas that are
practically conceived and mainly well-executed.
Take, for example, the four salads that lead the menu.
Three are quite similar but differentiated enough to be set
apart. What makes them good is the freshness of the ingredients
and the light hand with dressing. Even the simplest, the romaine
lettuce hearts with pine nut dressing, Parmesan cheese and
croutons, is nicely done, while a similar effort, Bibb lettuce
with a macadamia nut dressing and marinated goat cheese, is
a bit richer. Also good are spinach leaves tossed in a sun-dried-tomato
vinaigrette with feta cheese.
The salad that rises above this pack brings slices of excellent
smoked salmon wrapped around a trove of greens tossed with
a poppyseed dressing on a plate decorated with capers and
little mounds of tapenade. It's a delicious conjunction of
flavors and textures.
Appetizers concentrate on seafood.
The humble--but in the Delta, ubiquitous--catfish puts on
fancy duds in the form of spicy catfish cakes served with
tomato compote, saffron aioli and greens. Sea scallops are
expertly seared to a thin crust and jazzed up with basil-habanero
cream sauce. Perfectly seared to rosy rareness, slices of
pepper-crusted yellowfin tuna come with dense leek-mashed
potatoes and a cognac cream sauce. Finally, though I normally
wouldn't man the barricades for a fried oyster, the little
bivalve mollusks at Madidi, delicately fried in a cornmeal
crust and served with red cabbage slaw and brandy sauce, were
downright succulent.
Fish entrees seem more inventive that red meat entrees. On
the other hand, the one entree that didn't quite gel was a
salmon fillet crusted with thin slices of sweet potato served
with grilled squash and a shallot sauce. Somehow the crust
wasn't crusty enough and the squash seemed too similar to
the sweet potato. Much better was a beautifully simple but
flavorful piece of bass accompanied by creamy black bean puree
and chive oil over a caramelized shallot risotto. The risotto,
however, while cooked correctly, was overwhelmingly rich;
risottos are rich enough without cream or butter.
We had no complaints about the filet of beef or rack of lamb,
each cooked perfectly to medium rare. Neither offers a presentation
that's more than typical--mashed potatoes, a sauce, a vegetable--but
they're certainly tasty.
Presentation, however, marred our enjoyment of dessert. Where
appetizers and entrees provide attractive or at least sensible
arrangements on the plates, desserts, under the sway of Anden
Hamilton, fly completely over the top. It's here that Madidi
reveals it's provincialism. It's difficult to enjoy what could
be a temptingly sweet and tangy Key lime tart or a wedge of
creamy mascarpone cheese cake when they rest on what looks
like a drunken harlequin suit or Dali-esque stained glass
windows of chocolate frames and bright fruit colors or if
you have to worry that you'll drag your cuffs through the
chocolate chevrons piped on the rim of the plate. And what
about the ramekin of creme brulee, a treat that doesn't need
a sauce at all, that's surrounded by a whole plateful of concentric
flame-like fruit colors? This nonsense merely distracts diners
from the real issue, whether the dessert itself is any good.
These seemed actually rather ordinary.
The wine list at Madidi is not imaginative, but choices are
good for the restaurant's fare. Unfortunately, selections
are listed without vintage dates; I had to send the waiter
back to the wine room twice to check vintages on wine (and
rejected one as too old). Our waiter did this cheerfully.
In fact, waiters and other staff at Madidi edge toward being
cheerful to a fault. Service is certainly friendly and efficient,
but the eagerness feels tinged with anxiety. "Relax,"
we wanted to say, "everyone is having a good time."
