New Orleans Food & Spirits

Within minutes of grabbing a table Thursday night, this group of friends (who grew up together) was brought hush puppies, which were warm, greaseless, and tasty. I'm not a fan of these so can't really offer a valid opinion. Our table of five then shared a large order of onion rings ($4.99) that were plenty enough for all and rival any in town.

I had a cup of gumbo that was, as Jeff described "a really good example of what a seafood gumbo should be". It was full of whole shrimp in a "crabby" broth (but with no visible crabmeat), well seasoned (but could have used a little more kick, which was easily remedied with a few shakes of black pepper) and much better than I’m making it sound. A friend had the corn and crawfish soup and pronounced it excellent.

I asked about the smothered rabbit with white beans (as CopCop suggested), which is on the Thursday lunch menu that can be viewed on the reverse side of the dinner menu. Our waitress told us that they had sold out of the rabbit but we could substitute catfish or order any of the Thursday lunch specials.

I was all set to order the special Shrimp Lafayette (a trio of pasta with a creamy shrimp sauce, fried shrimp, and stuffed shrimp) until I spotted the “Popcorn Shrimp Salad” being brought to another table. Nothing “popcorn” about it—large fresh fried shrimp in a huge mound atop choice of garden or Caesar salad with five or six dressings (you can have them all if you wish and we did). The remoulade dressing/sauce was excellent. This salad could feed two people (along with an appetizer and cup of soup) and is a bargain at around $8.00.

One of my dining partners (she said pompously) and I agreed to split and share my shrimp salad and her fried oyster salad. After I said, “This is some of the best fried seafood I’ve had in a long time” she said, “The shrimp tastes like shrimp and the oysters taste like oysters” which led to laughs about how much we both sounded like our mothers (it’s a running joke among these old friends that we are all turning into our mothers).

Other friends had intentions of ordering the Shrimp Lafayette but (having already turned into their mothers) mistakenly ordered the Seafood Sampler (oysters, shrimp, and catfish). When the food came out and they said that this was not what they had ordered, the waitress simply said, “O.K. No problem. I’ll have your order out in just few minutes”. And she did. Even though the more coherent amongst the table explained that they had been brought exactly what they had ordered.

If I were the waitress, I would have wanted to dump the Seafood Samplers into the laps of the diners who had lapsed. But our waitress (I wish I had asked her name so that I could tell you here) never missed a step, never stopped being sincerely pleasant, and gave no inkling that this table of crazy old broads was driving her nuts. And that, I think, says a hell of a lot about the waitress and the restaurant.