Treme Watch: Janette Desautel Gets a NOLA Restaurant

On last night's episode of Treme, "Me Donkey Want Water" Janette Desautel (Kim Dickens) goes down to New Orleans to check out the restaurant space from partner/restaurateur Sam Robards (Tim Feeny). "We have refrigeration people on staff," he pitches. "You wouldn't have to call the usual suspects, wait all night. The walk-in fails, you call, they come. Plumbing, same. Call this guy, middle of the night, he gets out of bed, he comes right over. It's an advantage of owning a lot of restaurants."

This episode has no chef cameos like the last two, but it has Anthony Bourdain's writerly fingerprints all over it. Later over po boys at Parkway Bakery & Tavern, Robards tells her, "I'm prepared to lose money for a year. You want to run a 40% food cost, fine, but eventually we'll have to sit down and figure out what works and what doesn't work. We both want to make money at the end of the day, right? But for now, I don't give a shit."

"Chang would say it's too good to be true," Desautel says as she agrees to the gig. Robards responds, "Chang's not from New Orleans, chef."

Other New Orleans locations in this episode include Stella and Arnaud's French 75.

Back in New York, Desautel says goodbye to her stoner line cook roommates in Carroll Gardens. They forgot to have a big sendoff (?) and instead got hot dogs from a cart on Smith Street (?). Thing is, there are no hot dog vendors on Smith Street. They do not exist. Here are clips:

Video: Treme: New Restaurant

Video: Treme: Final Pitch

Video: Treme: Old Sous Chef

Video: Treme: Carroll Gardens

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