rev:text
| - Caveats: I wasn't super hungry *and* I'd just returned home from a trip to New Orleans. The latter was why my boyfriend took me here, 'cause he wanted my opinion on how a restaurant he liked held up to the real thing.
It was bloody cold, as it has been, and it was chilly in the restaurant, but that's sort of de rigueur around the city these days. It's a bit divey, but in a charming kind of way. One thing that put me off immediately, though, besides the cold, which I forgave, was a strange smell. Kind of wet wood meets bathroom?
I ordered a fried oyster po'boy and we shared the beignets. There's more room on a grilled shrimp sandwich to talk about flavour. Oysters being deep fried takes subtlety out of it, so I can say that the sandwich contents were perfectly fine. Oysters a little tough but, hey, I know they weren't caught that day, so that's expected. The problem, though, was the bread. It lacked the true French, crunchy crust, and the dough wasn't sweet enough. It just wasn't the right kind of bread for the sandwich. I ended up foregoing the bread about halfway through, and just eating the toppings.
The beignets, however, I could barely eat. I had a bite, was a bit shocked, tried again, and gave up. My boyfriend tried a couple of bites from two, but also gave up. We left much more on the plate than made it into our mouths. Problems: super dense. Like biting into bannock (which, yes, I know this is a version of). The beignets you get at Café du Monde are full of air; you bite into them and you find great gaping holes. They also tasted like old oil, and the colour of the beignets was dark, so I believe they weren't using super fresh frying oil. Lastly, they were cooked through; there was no moistness or that verging-on-undercooked thing that should be going on. The icing sugar was good, though!
I wouldn't go back. Now on the prowl for some more genuine Southern food and some real Café du Monde-inspired beignets. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
p.s. If you haven't seen the movie Billy Jack, you should!
|