Half Shell* (#306, 8/30/14) – 41
A new place opened up in the neighborhood so I took a walk down for breakfast on Saturday morning. While the Half Shell is obviously more of an oyster bar and grill than a breakfast joint, they’ve been pitching breakfast as well, so I figured I would check it out. As much as I would like another decent breakfast place in walking distance, this isn’t it. Just go a block down to Santa Fe.
I guess I have to start with the service. I went at about 9 a.m. and there were two other tables with people. Unfortunately, there was one person working. One. That’s it. This poor woman had to run out of the kitchen and hand me a menu, then ask for my drink order. She had to run back and keep an eye on the food, cooking, then run back out to get orders. I have no idea how she kept it up, but I do know how my order wasn’t done right. Considering the circumstances, waiting 40 minutes or so for my food wasn’t too bad. And shortly after that, my drink even showed up. And then, my order was corrected, but, well, just bad. After I had been there about 30 minutes, I watched a car pull up and park in a spot directly in front of the door. Sure enough, it was another worker. So good news that somebody else showed up, but kind of funny to have a place with three spots right in front, and have one of your workers take up one of them. This was within the first two weeks of the place being open, so I would think you would want to be over-staffed if anything. Anyway, for service, I want to give the one woman a bonus or something for trying to keep up, but the restaurant? I’ll give it a 4 out of 20.
The atmosphere was non-existent. No music, no tv’s in a sterile type place with big windows just looking outside. I guess the atmosphere was just the other people talking and all. It wasn’t bad, just non-existent. I’ll give it a 13 out of 30.
The food was okay. It did take awhile to get an omelet, but it tasted okay. I had ordered toast and received grits, which I don’t much like. I eventually received my toast, but that was simply a couple pieces of white bread, slightly burnt. All uninspired. I’m guessing serving breakfast was just an after-thought to try to get a few more customers in, but I would recommend they just stop if they can’t get people to work. Tough to go back to try the specialties when something basic wasn’t worthwhile. I’ll give it a 25 out of 50 for food.
Final score = 41.
Desi Vega’s Steakhouse (#305, 8/29/14) – 84
I haven’t been hitting up as many high-end restaurants of late, and my bank account thanks me. But with the benefit of a group-on, I dropped in on Desi Vega’s Steakhouse and had an excellent meal.
We made reservations for 8 p.m. on a Friday evening with just a few days lead time, so it’s not packed, but clearly did need the reservations. Parking was a little challenging, but not awful, and I could have used valet if I was so inclined. The manager was very helpful from the start; we were a bit early, but we ordered drinks and when the table was ready quickly, they simply brought the drinks to our table. It’s a relatively small place with windows all around that look out on Lafayette Square and St. Charles Avenue. I wouldn’t say it’s a romantic place at all, but a nice place with some “buzz” going on. I’m thinking it’s the type of place where people like to be seen. It was loud, but not overwhelming and the tables had good space between them, so you had privacy. As far as atmosphere, I would give it a 23 out of 30 – and most of the points come off because of my own preference for a little more relaxed of an atmosphere.
Jumping into the food, it was very good. I had a filet, which was pricey ($41) but very good. I added the crab meat and asparagus (thumbs up) as well. The meat comes on a crazy sizzling hot plate; the sizzling meat sound with the smell is always a good thing. One key thing is that vegetarians can eat here! There are a handful of options, so don’t be scared by the “steakhouse” name. The Mac and cheese was considered a specialty of the place, but I wasn’t impressed, nothing bad, just nothing spectacular. One of the appeals was that they have Pappy Van Winkle (15-year). It was $26 for a glass and it was very tasty. Overall on food, I will give this a 42 out of 50. All was very good, but nothing blew me away.
The service was top-notch. I’m not even sure how it could be any better. We were seated very quickly, nearly exactly at 8 p.m. We had multiple waiters and everything was prompt without seeming rushed. I’m trying to knock points off, but the only issue might have been a little wait to actually get the bill – but in some ways, that’s appreciated, they weren’t looking to run us out. I’ll give it a 19 out of 20 for service.
Final score = 84.
Coulis* (#304, 7/18/14) – 63
It’s always a challenge getting into some of these New Orleans breakfast places on a weekend – seems like everyone wants greasy food on a New Orleans’ weekend morning. Imagine that. However, I had a chance for a Friday morning breakfast and dropped in on Coulis on Prytania Street (in the location of the old Bluebird).
My first thought on walking in was that the place was freezing, but that could have been because it was empty and it was raining outside, so not a big deal, just be aware and bring a sweatshirt. There is a fair amount of seating and not packed on top of each other, so you have a bit of privacy. And the music was excellent! I don’t think I’ve ever heard Guns-n-Roses “It’s So Easy” (unedited, not really sure if that song could be edited and still exist) in a restaurant. Other selections included Cherry Bomb (The Runaways) and Mr. Roboto (Styx). Good stuff. The music wasn’t booming or anything, just above background. Overall, I liked the atmosphere. I’m giving it a 22 out of 30 in that category.
The service was solid as well; of course, it was a Friday morning and empty, so tough to gauge what that would mean on a weekend. They don’t take American Express, which isn’t an issue to me, just saying. I’ll give it a 13 out of 20 for service.
I had a very good omelet with excellent smoked sausage. I do go back to my old tenet that it’s tough to really mess up an omelet, but good ingredients help a lot. Having said that, the side of bacon was bad, all dried up and crunchy, tough to event eat. The bread for the toast wasn’t great either. Reasonably priced – omelet, toast, bacon and iced tea was under $13. As far as food, I’ll give it a 28 out of 50. It was good, but sure glad I didn’t wait in line for it.
Final score = 63.
CellarDoor* (#303, 7/11/14) – 81
The number one thing I want to say about CellarDoor is: stop worrying about parking in the CBD! I am amazed how many people comment that they may try it, but they hear parking is a nightmare. It’s the CBD with thousands of people working down there all day. At the end of the day, most go home and voila, you have tons of parking. To be sure, there is a lot of construction, but it’s still not difficult to find a parking space.
Having said that, I definitely recommend trying CellarDoor. It’s in a very cool building with an interesting menu and good drinks. I was very impressed that i went before it even had its grand opening and everything seemed to run very smoothly. You could tell some people were new, but the main people were really on top of everything.
I tried the adobo glazed wings to start. They are deboned wings stuffed with rice with a tasty sauce. Technically, they aren’t fully deboned, but just the end bone still there…end bone? Good enough. They are very tasty, but the sauce was almost a little overwhelming, maybe tell them to go easy on the sauce. The ukoy was also recommended to me, but I didn’t make the move; sounds very interesting though – shrimp chips? For my main course, I tried the beef brisket burger. The brisket was outstanding; I wasn’t a big fan of the roll, almost a po-boy bun. It wasn’t bad, but seemed like it could be upgraded. Maybe the best part was the Summer of Sling drink. It had rye, rum, herbsaint and other items. Very tasty. Great summer drink. Prices weren’t that bad either – appetizers as low as $6, main dishes under 20. I was a bit concerned as many profiles talked about “upscale.” While it is upscale, the prices are reasonable. As far as food (and drinks), I’m going to give CellarDoor a 41 out of 50. Will definitely like to go back after they really settle into a groove.
The atmosphere was very good as well. It has a small bar and a dining area that holds about 15 tables, I would guess. It seemed like it could get a little loud in the dining area, but not bad. the music started with some jazz and about 8 p.m. it shifted towards more funky hipster jazz. Overall, it definitely has a hipster vibe to it. It also has a nice outdoor patio area which has great potential for a happy hour gathering. For atmosphere, I’m giving it a 22 out of 30.
The service was great. I ate at the bar and the bartenders were very friendly and food came out promptly. Some of the drinks are elaborate “mixology” creations, but it really didn’t slow things up too much. I was truly amazed by this aspect with it being a brand-new place. I’ll give it an 18 out of 20 in service.
Final score = 81.
Lola’s (#302, 6/30/14) – 64
I’m always a little intimidated going to a new restaurant. I’m not sure I really noticed until visiting Lola’s. It’s right around the corner from my house and everybody says it’s the best, but it took me a while to get there. Going with a group of four led to some of the trepidation. Will it be difficult to get a table for four since they don’t take reservations? Should I try to go early to get our name in or something? Wait, the paella takes how long to prepare? Is that a long time, I don’t actually know. BYOB is ok? Or no? Wait, what about attire? I think it’s casual, but when I peeked in, I saw nice white table cloths. Damn, pay attention to what people were wearing! As usual, it turned out there was no real reason for fear. Lola’s is a nice little place.
It is a little tight, maybe seating for about 30 people at around 10 tables. We were tucked into a corner near the kitchen – if the people at the table behind us wanted to get up, I think we all may have had to stand up (luckily they didn’t get up). You can look right into the kitchen, which is always kind of neat (well, usually, assuming you don’t see roaches and rats running around; and we didn’t). They have a lot of art by Simon, which isn’t bad. Despite being tight, it wasn’t that noisy. I will say that it was a Monday night and the place was mostly full, so good chance of a long wait on a prime evening. Oh, by the way, attire is fully casual – a guy and a girl even came in straight from the beach (no beaches within an hour or so of New Orleans, but they did it, guy in trunks and t-shirt, girl in bikini with some cover-up thing). For atmosphere, I’ll give it a 17 out of 30, nothing outstanding, nothing bad.
We found out the food is prepared using old traditional Spanish recipes. The original owner was from Spain and he used his mother’s recipes. After he passed away, the kids took over, still using the same recipes. My understanding was that it has the best paella in town; I’m not sure if that’s saying a lot because I have never seen paella anywhere else in town (of course, I haven’t looked for it either). We went for three different kinds – meat, seafood and combination (keep in mind, it takes 30 minutes to prepare paella, I’m still not sure if that’s a terribly long time to wait for dinner, seems like most good food at a legit restaurant would take close to that, but nice of them to warn you). Not knowing much about paella, I did read some of the Yelp reviews and some say there is supposed to be more of a crust of some sort on the bottom of the skillet, which supposedly tastes great. Reviewers commented that Lola’s didn’t have that and it’s more of a casserole than paella. Being my first time eating it, I have no idea; it tasted pretty good, but I am not sure what was so special about it, it tasted like a rice casserole with some meat. Decent enough, but not something I’d write home about (unless this gets read by somebody at home, then I will have sort of written home about it). We also had the calamari appetizer, which was very interesting. It was not tentacles or anything like that. It was basically calamari steak (as they described), grilled. Served with a good spicy cocktail-type sauce. While it looked strange, it still had the rubbery squid taste. It was okay, but…well, I probably like friend calamari better (imagine that, me, liking fried better; weird). So as far as food, I’ll give this a 30 out of 50.
The service was very good. I dropped in a little before six (there was one couple eating at the time) to see what they thought the wait might be (no idea) and if I could put my name in early (nope). So we went back at a little after 6:30 and there was only one table remaining for four. There was a six-top table in the window that would have been much better, but they wouldn’t give it up, which makes sense, even though nobody ever came to take it. Our waitress was very good – they have wine, or you can bring your own for a reasonable $5 corkage fee. We did the corkage fee and also had sangria (very good!). Waitress was very attentive and friendly, maybe the best part of the visit. Service is a 17 out of 20.
Final score is 64. I expected something a lot more based on how highly friends recommended it, but maybe paella isn’t the ideal dish for me; I still think it’s worth trying.
Eat New Orleans* (#301, 6/29/14) – 69
This stop was one of those fate-driven stops. Looking around for a parking space in the Quarter on a Sunday afternoon and a car pulled out just as we were turning the corner, so we took the spot. It just happened to be in front of a place called Eat New Orleans. Somehow I had never heard of it, but we glanced at the menu, then some people leaving said it was great. We checked how long the wait would be and they said 20 minutes or so, so we figured we may as well give it a go – we had been up in the air on whether to have lunch or brunch, but their brunch items seemed interesting. Keeping in line with it making sense we stayed, some people in front of us must have given up on waiting, because our wait was less than five minutes. Unheard of for weekend brunch in New Orleans.
The menu is very interesting; and also interesting for me was that I didn’t get an omelet. I almost always eat omelets for breakfast/brunch. Instead, I tried some sweet potato praline pancakes drizzled with some sort of whiskey sauce. They were outstanding! I’m not sure what it was about them, but just very tasty. Another options around the table included a vegetarian quiche, fried green tomatoes and…toad in the grass. Toad in the grass was frog legs with poached eggs, of course. What else would it be? Anyway, all food was solid. I’m giving it a 38 out of 50 for food.
The atmosphere was good. It was a small place, but not tiny. Basically, it is two rooms with about 6 tables in each room. It was bright and clean and not too crowded (as in, the tables were shoved next to each other). I’ll give it a 20 out of 30 for atmosphere.
The service was good and fast, but…the waitress bugged me with a little bit of “local attitude.” She instantly took us for tourists. When I asked to sub out grits, she made a comment like, “Ohh, you’re scared, huh?” Umm, no, I just don’t like a lot of grits, so prefer to have something else. And then when asked about a sauce with the friend green tomatoes, she also acted like it was something too hard to understand to out-of-towners. Sorry, but we were just asking what it was; and when she said it, we were understood perfectly, we didn’t need a special creole dictionary to figure it out. Anyway, other than a weird attitude, service was decent. I’ll give it an 11 out of 20 for service.
Final score = 69.
Jazmine Cafe (#300, 6/20/14) – 67
This was a completely random stop as we happened to be in the neighborhood of Jazmine Cafe, a good-sized Vietnamese restaurant in the Riverbend area. We had some time to kill and dropped in and, even though I’m not too familiar with Vietnamese food, I had a great meal.
I opened up with the pork pot stickers, which were pretty good. Just your basic pot sticker, but still good. I opted for a couple of their spring rolls – they have a wide selection of options as far as spring rolls, so pretty interesting. I had a shrimp and crab roll, which was pretty good, but the highlight, without question, was the caterpillar spring roll – snowcrab and cucumber topped with avocado and mango. It was outstanding! They have a wide selection of bubble teas as well. I don’t have any idea what that is and wanted to give it a try, but I forgot. So will try next time. Oh! We did try some saki as well; I’m still developing my test for that. I’ll give Jazmine a 37 out of 50 for food.
The atmosphere was ok. It’s kind of sterile; like an old Chinese restaurant. It had the big fish tank, but just basic booths and tables with rock music playing. Didn’t strike me as overly unique. No problem really, but nothing special. I’ll give it an 16 out of 30 for atmosphere.
The service was solid. No issues. I’ll give it a 14 out of 20 for service.
Final score = 67.
Three Muses (#299, 6/13/14)
When looking for a fun place to get dinner and listen to real New Orleans music, venture down to Frenchman Street and visit Three Muses. Be warned, however, it’s a small place, so you may have a wait, but once you get your table, hang out, sample some of the interesting and tasty food and enjoy whatever show happens to be playing.
I think for a place like this, I need to start with the atmosphere. I went on a night when Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue was playing. She always puts on a great show and while I didn’t think this environment was as fun to see her, it was still very entertaining. While the place was small, we didn’t feel crowded into our table and didn’t have people hanging over us, so a solid experience. I guess my only issue is that I’m probably not one to mix music and dinner in this way. I’d rather get a good dinner, then go see a band, but that’s just me. I’m giving it a 20 out of 30 for atmosphere.
The food was outstanding based on a first visit. I had some mini gnocci (I believe with prosciutto in a cream sauce, it’s not showing on the online menu). Pasta is the specialty of Daniel, so worth giving some a try – this was great, but just a small serving, like many of their plates. I also had some of the Korean barbecue tacos, which were solid, not as good as the gnocci. We also tried the feta fries, which were excellent and the scallops received high marks as well. Almost forgot to mention the drinks. They have a solid win list as well as a good variety of craft cocktails – I had a spaghetti western and it was very tasty. Very good on the food, I’m going with a 40 out of 50.
The service here was great as well. Surprisingly efficient. We went on a Friday and had about a 30-minute wait (they told us 45). Again, it’s small and they don’t take reservations, so no problem with that wait. They told us they don’t really have wait staff assigned to tables, so you either grab someone if you see them, or order at the bar. That concerned me at first, but we had people checking on us regularly and we never even considered it wasn’t normal wait staff. And this was on a busy night; no idea how they kept up so well. The excellent service gets a 19 out of 20.
Final score = 79.
Rue 127* (#298, 5/7/14) – 77
When looking for a higher-end, nice dinner in midcity, I definitely recommend Rue 127 at the intersection of Carrollton and Canal. It’s a quaint/cozy place with good food and drinks at reasonable prices.
I will lead off with the service, which was outstanding. It was a Wednesday night, so it wasn’t busy, but our waitress was outstanding. She was very knowledgeable on the wine list and convinced us to sample a couple of different wines before making our choice – and the one she was pointing us towards (Avancia Godello, $41) was an excellent call. She checked in regularly without being too annoying and kept the wine glasses refilled, but not non-stop. Nice work. I’m giving it a 19 out of 20 for service.
The food was also excellent. I went for the pan-seared salmon. I was a little concerned it wouldn’t be cooked enough – I like my salmon at least medium and pan-seared worried me. I asked for medium and still probably had closer to rare, but no real complaints, it was very tasty, more just my weirdness about rare fish. While I liked it, thinking I would try something else next time. I’d like to see a few more cow products on the menu, but think their specialty is more fish. We also tried the fried olives (with bacon and bleu cheese) and the fried okra. Both were good, though I’d also like to try the fry bread and the fried chicken skins. I think it’s great that they have these friend items under “snacks” and they’re only $3. Easy opportunity to sample some different stuff. Having said that, neither the okra nor the olives were awesome, they were good though. Scallop dish also looked good, but I didn’t try it. Price-wise, everything was very reasonable for a high-end restaurant, though their specialty drinks are a bit high – I paid $12 for a Young Michael Collins which is an interesting concoction of Irish whiskey, port, bitters and strawberry shrubs or something. Seemed odd, but tasted great. Even at the price, I wanted another. They have some interesting dessert drinks as well. Would consider going back just for a few of those sometime. In the food category, I’m giving this a 36 out of 50.
As far as atmosphere, it was pretty good. As mentioned above, it’s “quaint.” Maybe has 10 tables, but also has some outside seating. I would expect when it’s busy, it would be quite loud and you would be jammed up against other people, which would bother me. They have some interesting art on the walls (like the “guy drinking in the bar” piece) and the bathroom was very clean. Everything was very clean actually – our table gave us a direct view of the kitchen. Like I said, I’d be concerned on a Friday or Saturday night, but for atmosphere, I’ll give it a 22 out of 30.
Final score = 77.
Oso’s Baja Burrito* (#297, 4/23/14) – 57
I was curious what kind of burrito a bear might make, so I checked out Oso’s Baja Burrito for a quick lunch. I was also curious because the place had some pretty bad reviews on Yelp. It’s located in the Fulton Parking Garage building across from the Convention Center, right next to the Mexican Consulate, so it seems like the Mexican food has to be somewhat okay, no?
As far as food, it is essentially Chipotle style. You choose burrito, tacos or bowl and add the ingredients as you go down the assembly line. I had a bowl with steak and other fixins. It wasn’t as good as Chipotle, but for fast-food Mexican, it was just fine. I’m not sure what some other people were expecting, but it’s not gourmet, and not advertised as such. I’ll give it a 28 out of 50 on food.
The service was just fine. Again, you order at the counter, go down the line and they hand you your food. Then you pay and get a drink cup. I’ll give it a 12 out of 20 for service.
The atmosphere was basic fast-food atmosphere. Hard to ask for anything more. Some background music playing, you sit in basic metal chairs at tables. Think McDonald’s. It was mostly clean though, which is never a given at New Orleans fast food places. 17 out of 30 for atmosphere.
Final score = 57.