Bouligny Tavern (#216, 6/8/2012)
An outstanding stop for happy hour or for a good range of appetizers. We had a couple of beers at Le Bon Temps and decided to drop in here for food and ended up ordering a wide-range of appetizers, shrimp, calamari, fries (great), tempura green beans (also awesome), beignets stuffed with something (not sure what it was, but it sure tasted gouda), sliced meat, cheese, even burgers. They also have a range of specialty drinks and a good beer selection. Solid all-around.
Ruby Red’s* (#215, 6/4/2012)
Dropped in at this place in an old O’Henry’s building in the CBD. It was fascinatingly okay. In other words, the food was okay, service was okay, the décor was okay, atmosphere was okay. If you find yourself walking by and you’re starving, drop in and have a chicken sandwich or a burger, but no need for a special trip here.
Domelisa’s (#214, 5/30/2012)
Many say this is the best shrimp po-boy in town, but sorry, it doesn’t come close to Crabby Jack’s. I actually had a half shrimp, half oyster po-boy, which was good, but not sensational. The place is a divy counter-top restaurant with a couple of beer taps and some tables. Nothing fancy. Also quite expensive. It was $17 (!!!) for my po-boy.
Canal Street Bistro* (#212, 4/12/2012)
DO NOT GO HERE IF YOU ONLY HAVE A ONE-HOUR LUNCH BREAK! We waited forever for our food for no good reason; he said they had a big group and it’s a small place. Then the guy waiting on us (Ian) was terribly slow. When we had our cards out to pay, he kept taking dishes away, asking if we needed anything else, yeah, how about letting us leave this poor man’s Hotel California?! I had a Cuban sandwich, which was decent (nothing spectacular) and the soup and shrimp and grits were just okay as well. Supposedly they have a Mexican night on Thursdays, so maybe going in the evening will be better, but it didn’t work for me as a lunch stop.
Antoine’s (#211, 4/7/2012)
After 197 restaurants, it was time to try the oldest restaurant in town – Antoine’s, established in 1840, also the oldest family-run restaurant in the U.S. The place has served Franklin Roosevelt, Pope John Paul II, Calvin Coolidge, General Patton, Judy Garland, etc. As far as the old school New Orleans restaurants, this was my best experience. It is very fancy (though I was rather annoyed they let people in wearing t-shirts) and the food was excellent. I had Huitres (oysters) Bienville (which were created there, along with quite a few other well-known dishes) and the grilled chicken breast with a béarnaise sauce over a slice of baked ham. Solid choice, though it looked liked the filet was very tasty as well. I closed with the bread pudding, which kind of sucked, so maybe avoid that and go for the famous Baked Alaska. I’m thinking that based on its history and the quality of my trip there, it could make a case for cracking my Top Ten, even though there were some annoying pesky flies around us the whole time.
Casamento’s (#210, 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.
The Store (#209, 4/5/2012)
The Store on Gravier Street in the CBD was a good tip-off – it’s always exciting to come up with a new potential lunch spot in the Superdome neighborhood. However, one key recommendation: Don’t arrive right at noon. There was nowhere to park on the streets (we ended up like six blocks away) and there was a ridiculous line inside the place (apparently I am one of the few who didn’t know about it). It’s a casual place where you order at the counter and they deliver the food to your table. It really didn’t take that long when all was said and done (we were back in the office before 1), but since we were all starving, we were a bit grumpy. I had the pulled pork sandwich ($9). Very good stuff, especially the pressed jalapeno cheddar bread. Might be worth another trip…like at 12:30.
Surrey’s Café and Juice Bar (#208, 4/2/2012)
I usually don’t see a lot of difference in breakfast spots, just give me an omelet and I’m good to go, so not sure why people wait in line forever for some of these places. Having said that, this was the best breakfast stop I’ve had so far – but it was about 11 a.m. on a Monday, so the wait was about three minutes (even though this was great, I still wouldn’t wait in line for more than 20 minutes for it). I had a bacon and cheese omelet with some outstanding wheat toast and my friends all enjoyed their food as well. We also had the added bonus of NFL Hall of Famer Eddie George dropping in (it was the day of the NCAA Championship game). Surrey’s also has an uptown location on Magazine – also very good, high-quality food, but often a long wait – the uptown stop seems to have a bad fly infestation, so if that “bugs” you, maybe try the lower garden version.
Pizza Delicious (#207, 3/22/2012)
Pizza Delicious is one of those much-talked about pop-up joints which is only open a couple of times a week (Thursday and Sunday) – apparently, will soon be in a permanent location, but good to hit it up in its start-up phase. It’s an interesting place, with a random gate in a non-descript building in the middle of the Bywater; I’m guessing they don’t get much walk-up business from non-repeat customers. Last night’s menu only offered cheese, margherita, Hawaiian and Kale…Kale? Kale Pizza? This sounds like an awful idea to me. That would be worse than lettuce pizza. Regardless, we went with the Hawaiian and it was pretty good. New York-style pizza with thinner crust. I’m thinking maybe New York pizza has the same benefits of New York bagels and there’s something special in the water, because this pizza wasn’t as good as New York pizza. It was okay, but not going to hurry back. I do regret that I didn’t try the pepperoni rolls; they looked very good, and some garlic knots probably would have been worth a try as well.