"The running joke for the past decade is that thousands of barns gave their lives to supply the amount of reclaimed barnwood decorating the city’s institutions. So it was with a healthy amount of skepticism that I approachedPelican & Pig, a Southern-ish restaurant with, yes, a bar wrapped in wood. I should have been more trusting since (a) those are new pine boards and (b) it’s from Nick and Audra Guidry, the husband-and-wife duo behind the excellentSlow Hand Coffee + Bakeshopnext door. Here they give Southern staples a twist, smoking short ribs and layering them with a Sichuan-spiked soubise and making pillowy gnocchi out of biscuit dough to slide under braised rabbit." - BySTEVE CAVENDISH