| rev:text
| - On the whim of a hangover Saturday and a quest for alligator meat my brother and I decided that a quest to creole castle was necessary. Once getting our brains wrapped around the idea of putting on street clothes and leaving the house, which took about 3 hours of staring at the television, we made with haste on the people's chariot (read streetcar).
We arrived around 2:30pm thinking of a late lunch, where we found a very closed restaurant. We searched about the place looking for hours of operation to no avail, eventually we called a friend to look it up on the internet (as the restaurant's website hates my blackberry), where we came to the startling realization that we would have to come back at 4pm. With an hour and a half to kill we went to the Shoeless Joe's down the block (to be reviewed late) drank and swore like sailors until the hour of feast was upon us.
I have to say that I appreciated the darkened jazzy atmosphere, with it's Cajun fishermen details and N'Orleans oyster bar style, as it went well with the efficient buzz that I had collected. Unfortunately with the smoking ban in Ontario this place did not reek of cigarettes and cigars with in my opinion took away from the authenticity, but I digress. Heck this upperclass dining establishment was trying so hard to be a blues dive bar they even had novelty signs, such as; "Our credit manager is Helen Waite. If you want credit, go to Helen Waite". We made our way to the bar and we didn't have reservations for the entirely empty restaurant and couldn't possibly serve us anywhere else.
The food. After perusing the menu for sometime and with slight intoxication fantasizing about all the different types of sea animals we could eat, we finally decided to create our own tasting menu to split in order to maximize our oceanic slaughter. We opened our experience with the 'Chef's Choice half dozen oysters' which were excellent, served with more sauces than you could shake a stick at, I know as I was to stop shaking my stick at them, fresh grated horseradish and lemon wedges.
Next we had 'Cajun fried alligator' and as expected with was quite good, though how could you not like a deep-fried piece moist alligator served over a spicy marinara sauce, you can't it's impossible.
Finally we had "Big Daddy's Mixed Platter" which is described as: Broiled or pecan-crusted jumbo shrimp, king crab, bronzed catfish and jalapeño bacon-wrapped scallops, served with seasonal
vegetables and Creole-style rice. Upon the recommendation of our server, who in this case is also the bartender and the 'Chef' that makes the oyster selections, we chose the pecan crusted shrimp for that optional portion. Upon it's arrival I could tell that my disappoint for this dish was looming. In Haute cuisine style my plate was piled very high. As a base was a small hill of creole rice, which although good tasted pretty much like a Zatarain instant rice. On the side of my rice hill was a selection of mediocre mixed vege, carrots, zucchini and green beans, all of which were blanched to a slightly less then al dente, I am sure they have a dressing but it was unmemorable. On the other side of the hill was the 3 micro-jumbo-shrimp, what a oxymoron that was, fried in a crust of apparently pecan. I believe to qualify as jumbo in size the shrimp must be a 10-15ct and the minuscule specimens that was served to me would be extremely lucky if they came near the 15 side of that, and these were obviously previously frozen. At the base of the hill were the jalapeño bacon-wrapped scallops, there were fine though the scallops were overcooked I was compensated by the bacon which they had some how infused with jalapeño. Laying over the peak was the bronzed catfish, which I imagine would have been more palatable if it were actually bronzed in metal, it tasted of being previously frozen, dull with spice and a hint of laying out too long, so I spat out the bite I took of this offended fish. Did I mention that this dish came with butter heated by tea candle? Well it did and in fact it was put down on the bar long before the mixed plate had arrived, it was there taunting me letting my whimsically imagine the the crab legs that were coming, oh the delicate texture, the juice of the shell snapping through the claw pulling out every delicate morsel. Reality set in for this whole platter right as soon as it was served due to this detail alone, the king crab, which served as the spire above the hill of rice, the body of catfish, the embattlements of vege and shrimp and the village of scallops, which although what was there was good there had only been a meagre 1 and 1/4th of a crab claw/leg, it was to say the least disheartening.
In summary the food was for the most part good, however the parts that were lacking were very lacking and at worst inedible.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)