Casamento’s (#199, 4/7/2012)
The word on the street was that this place has the best raw oysters, so I had to stop in. It closes at 2, so make sure you plan accordingly. I’m not a big raw oyster guy, but these things looked gigantic. The biggest I have seen (kind of made me ill to watch people eating them). While waiting for my own cooked food, I opted for some of their in-house horse radish and it was outstanding. During my first trip to New Orleans in 1997, I was quite hung over with Scott Flanders and we ate at Felix’s. While waiting for food, we tossed some horse radish on saltine’s and ate them…and nearly died. Crazy hot. Well, Casamento’s is the first place to match that fire, good stuff. For my meal, I had the oyster loaf, which is an oyster sandwich – tons of fried oysters dressed between two pieces of Texas Toast. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but once I smashed it down enough to actually bite into it (and once I added plenty of horse radish), it was outstanding. Overall, I think it lived up to its billing as far as an oyster stop.