Food And Lagniappe

Midnight noodle is much more than just a meal.

- Amanda 'Bonita' Mester

Melvin Rogers Stovall III wants to dish out a new kind of dining experience in New Orleans, one bao at a time. He’s the creative entrepreneurial mind behind Midnight Noodle, an amorphous pop-up “restaurant” serving mainly Chinese and Thai-inspired cuisine. His business has no traditional website, no brick-and-mortar building and no regular menu. He refers to himself as an artist first, a chef second. Sometimes he makes house calls, where he comes to your place of residence or business and cooks for you. Other times, he hosts dinner parties at Pax, a DIY restaurant/bar facility on North Claiborne. As long as there is a group of hungry people nearby, location is of little importance.

In December, he’ll host a series of “Hot Pot” events featuring Sichuan food including dumplings of some sort and a few surprises. We don’t know where, or who we’ll end up sitting next to. But that’s kind of the point. The element of surprise and even mystery is intentional. Like the midnight hour after which his business is named, Melvin likes to keep people in the dark, to some degree.