davebr

Is the Vieux carre wine store next door celebrating with 1979 prices? Fingers Crossed!

Yes I was wanting to go, But Im not sure yet. Because I also was planning a trip to Morimoto's in October.

I'll surely join! Are they related or will they be doing anything with the Southern Foodways Alliance? I joined that not too long ago.

I was thinking potent as the level of gas I have afterwards.

Ive eaten at Burges' and it was great. BBQ, sausages, smoked meats, tater tots and milkshakes. I was just thinking today, that if it rains tommorow and I cant play golf, Im goin there to pick up some grub. There is a turn and a three way stop sign in front of the restaurant, that makes it impossible not to smell the smoker. You have to stop and eat.

When greens are used as a garnish on a entree or a side on an app and they serve it dry. Once I got a red velvet cake with just plain white icing! Po-boys on some lame soft bun. mushy risotto served by using an ice cream scooper out of a steam table. chewy overcooked calamari God Ive had some bad food.

What is the name of the fine dining restaurant at the Buccaneer? Is there still a fine dining restaurant there?

I like getting out the iron skillet, removing the boudin from the casing and frying it in the skillet. You'll need a wooden spoon to scrape the boudin every few minutes, incorporating those crispy pieces back into the mixture. Set aside, and roast in a covered pan at 375 some peeled cubes of sweet potato. When they are fork tender--35 minutes I guess, Take them out and smash with a little salt, butter, molasses or dark cane syrup, a touch of cayenne (depending on the heat level of the boudin) and a touch of cinnomen. Fold in the boudin and I have served this with pork chops, BBQ grilled tuna, crispy duck confit, warm remoulade glazed scallops, ect... Im a sweet/spicy freak.

Im assuming I-20 goes through Birmingham, AL--I just drive I dont pay attention. Which would be the reason for the never ending "getting lost" syndrome I seem to have. My wife and I on a recent trip to Florida stopped in Birmingham. We sat at the bar at The Highlands Bar and Grill and at the Hot and Hot Fish Club. Both were awesome. Duck confit with turnip greens, chicken liver and poached farm egg salad, Shrimp and grits with ver jus, you get the point.

When I lived in the Carribean, we used a blender, Heavy whipping cream, ice, dark brown sugar, vanilla, 1 ripe plantain, blend. then grated a little fresh nutmeg over the top. If we were hung over, a little rum found its way into the drink.

One great casual spot is in Minden, LA. It is 20 miles east of Shreveport/Bossier and the exit says "Dixie Inn". Go north for about 2 blocks and on the right lies "The Crawfish Hole #2". INCREDIBLE crawfish. Huge and wonderfully seasoned. They also have great crawfish pies and a twice stuffed potato smothered in crawfish etouffe. In Bossier, at the Hamilton road/Ilse of Capri exit, take a left and on the left in the Ramada hotel, The second best asian restaurant I have ever been to(nobu NYC being first) is in that hotel. Its called the Lucky Palace. They have some typical Chinese/American dishes. But they also have a seperate menu with more creative asian food--Whole steamed fish, Korean shrimp pancakes, Roast duck with steamed buns, Dungeness crab with black bean sauce, and of course The "David's Prawns" named after yours truely. The wine list has about 200 selections and Lim the owner is more than capable of helping you pick out a bottle. My restaurant is by no means stuffy, but the food is upscale and contemporary. We have been reviewed 3 times in 4 years by the newspaper and recieved the highest rating for food, service ,and atmosphere each time. Its called Bella Fresca and the food is a blend of America. Some asain, some italian, french, but always a touch of the south in every dish. I hope this helps. Also if your into wine stop at the Delta exit. Its the first one when you enter Louisiana. Go to the Chevron on the south side of I-20. Cases of Siver Oak on the floor, and just crazy wine all over that little truck stop. Its too funny.

Bleach Boy mentioned a sweetbread po-boy from a bar on decatur. Also- The Delachaise Wine bar on St Charles has a great dish with marrow bones, toast and onion marmalade.

That's awesome Brooks! My mom hates to cook. I hope I can do something like that for my kids one day. That's hilarious about the Monjuni's jar. My business partner created Monjuni's how ever many years ago. I'll show him the article and he will be flattered for sure.

I just went to Martin's and bought one of almost every kind of beer. My friend seems to be very happy with the gift. One cool thing, at the cash register I bought a guide to Neighborhood Restaurants "A guide for the rest of us" for $5.95. It is very cool. I would recommend to anyone seeing it to pick it up.

Some friends and I are planning to visit in October. Does anyone have any opinions on the regular menu. We want to go for 2 nights. One for the omakase and one for the "signature" dishes.

I say congradulations to Anne!! My wife and I only live 6 hours from our families and it's hard to see them enough. I think about selling my 2 places all the time.

Some friends and I attended on the first night. The food was good. Very good for the area. I was hoping to get some of that great Besh stuff like oxtail, foie, french cheese all before the local hicks make him change the menu. But it seems Mr besh is one step ahead. The menu features, besides steaks with your choice of 5 different sauces, fried catfish with greens, "couchon du lait", crab au gratin and roasted grouper. We started with BBQ Shrimp, Fried oysters bordelaise, corn and crab soup, and a crawfish boil soup. All were very good, some minor mis-steps like the glass of champagne that fell in my friend's wifes lap (poor waiter, she has the largest morning show on the radio here and he got talked about) , or the luke warm soup. Where are the shrimp heads? Then a fried green tomato salad with shrimp remoulade and a seafood stuffed picadillo peppers. Wow, micro greens on a $8 app, somebody has money to burn around here. Good dishes, very good for the city. My wife had a 8ounce filet grilled over pecan wood. Hurray! Somebody with a steakhouse has ditched the 1500 degree gas broiler for a real wood grill. My buddy had grouper with shrimp and crab and the usual suspects--lemon, garlic, ect.. His wive had crab au gratin which was good just a little short on the crab. I had the couchin du lait. I liked it alot. Dirty rice with pulled pork shoulder and a crispy and smokey rectangle of pork belly. On top of that it was only $12! I dont think I have been anywhere that has linen and ever ordered a $12 entree. The atmosphere?? Well its in a casino/horse track. Is there any better people watching? The wanna be Michelapagus paintings were cool, maybe I could afford one of those.

Well I dont know anything about beer. It is my best friends birthday and he likes beer. He is from Maylasia and I just want to get him some beer that he cant get here in N louisiana.

I will be going to New Orleans this weekend and I am looking to buy some different beers for a friend. He really likes the Asain beer ASAHI. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks for the help.

I own New New, Real and Rustic and Emerils Creole Christmas. Real and rustic is what I most often turn to, But I do love Emeril's Creole Christmas. It isnt big but has many different menus and recipes for family gatherings. Which creole cooking-Real and Rustic- is all about. Just put your sunday clothes on.

Day 3: Fighting the rain and a rude hotel clerk we made our way to Beaux Bridge for lunch. We first headed over to Cafe des Amis but it was closed for the crawfish festival. Disappointed but getting hungier, I toke us to Poches. I already had planned to load up my new Big Lots ice cest with sausage from there, meat and 3 it is. I ordered 2 lunches, my wife only one. I had the pork back stew and the stuffed prok chop over dirty rice. My wife had the crawfish etoufee. The stew was dark and rich like a gumbo in depth and flavor. The Pork chop was stuffed with pork sausage and the perfect amount of brine to keep it moist. Even though I must admit that I am a sopper. Since there was no sauce, there was nothing for me to sop up. The etouffe was as usual great. I expected no less. Then I loaded up with about 5lbs of Andouille, 35lbs crawfish boudin, 10lbs pork boudin and one sweet potato pie. I drove back to Lafayette in search of Cajungrocer.com but all I found was an empty building--foiled. We attended a wedding that evening in Washington, LA. The food at the reception was great. Huge boiled shrimp with the pickling spices still clinging. The famous sausage cheese jalapeno bread from Bourroques Market in Port Barre. Crawfish fettucini, crab stuffed mushrooms, corn-crab bisque, spicy roast pork with pistolettes, and some fine spicy little sandwiches. But these were no ordinary triangles. I am not sure exactly what was in any of the sandwiches. The ingredients were all minced. Mayo-yes, Meat-sure, Coon-possibly. Who knows? I never did get any cake. I was too astonished by the jazz band filled with late aged white men and a huge horn section that had no troubles breaking into Outkast's, I Like The Way You Move.

Day 2: The rain is miserable. But we head to Abbeyville for oysters. The first stop was Shucks Restaurant. It had a clean new look and feel which was suprising. I was expecting a "shack". The oysters were meduim sized, salty and cold. I always eat oysters with lemon only. This time I put a little of the local Cajun Power Garlic hot sauce on a few of them. Not to spicy with a tangy garlic kick--delicious. My wife ordered gumbo and onion rings while I had the stuffed crawfish. The gumbo was served with rice in the bowl and potato salad on the side. It was the best gumbo we had on the trip. None of the seafood had been overcooked the roux was meduim and the broth was deep and rich. The stuffed crawfish were like hush-puppies loaded with crawfish and it was great with a little tabasco and tartar sauce. We cruised a couple of blocks down the street to go to Blacks Oyster Bar. Stopped next to Blacks at a store to buy some jewlery and the owner said her favorite gumbo was at Dupey's which is catacorner from Blacks. We entered Blacks and ordered raw oysters, gumbo and a couple of pounds of boiled crawfish. The waitress asked us how we wanted our crawfish done,,,"Well Done" I said. "No" , "mild, regular, hot or extra hot". "Hot please". The oysters were HUGE. Salty, cold and HUGE. Almost too big for me. Nonetheless, excellent. The gumbo had alot to be desired. The crawfish were good size and flavored "hot" with seasoning on the outside. The outside seasoning I have ran across a few times recently and I must admitt I'm undecided on the subject. Not much of the prized fat in these mudbugs but still very good. We payed our bill walked next door to Dupey's to get some of that gumbo and we were too late, they had closed for lunch. For Dinner we decided we might need a sushi snack before heading to Nash's in Broussard. We went to the hip Tsunami. The place was packed! We were able to get a seat at the bar and My wife ordered for us an Aligator tempura roll and a crawfish aparagus roll wrapped with soy paper. Both were great, perfect rice, cool presentation, good looking people--hey we fit right in. Nash's was awesome. The wine list needs some work but the food and atmosphere was perfect. Old house, 12 foot ceilings, enclosed wrap around porch. Turtle soup, BBQ Shrimp, and Baked oysters to start. The turtle soup is the best I ever had! The shrimp swimming in butter, lemon, L&P and herbs how eathereal. The oysters were baked with crab and italian bread crumbs, with the sides just bubbling as the waiter sat it down. Roast Duck with peach brandy sauce over dirty rice and Soft shell crab with crawfish sauce over a spicy fettucini alfredo were the 2 entrees. A half of a duck, super crispy skin and moist interior over the spicy rice and sweet peach sauce was heavan. My wifes crab was crispy and rich. Like a dirty little secret, the soft shell was evrything bad for you, you just couldnt stop yourself from indulging. What a fun day, I cant even remember dessert. WAIT, of course, Bannana Foster. Is there anything better than picking up that bowl and slurpping down that sauce?

First Day: Well the rain didnt stop me! I hope I did FFR proud. First for a snack I stopped at a gas staion in Nacatish (yea, yea, I spelled it wrong). I really wanted some crawfish pies, but I had to settle for meat pies and boudin balls, while my wife had fried shrimp and some not so tasty jambalaya. All was good fuel for the soul, hell, I had almost 2 more hours to drive. As we approched Lafayette we dicided to stop at Prejeans. We stopped under the I49 as some troops were heading to the airport to be deployed to Iraq. We waved and honked and realized how fortunate we are. I started with the smoked duck gumbo while my wife had the crab and corn bisque. Hers was better than mine. The andouille was overcooked and dry tasting while the smoked CHICKEN--oh I mean duck didnt give that much flavor to the broth. Then I had a crawfish pie which was awesome with its perfect buttery crust and piping hot filling. The crawfish etouffee was good but thats all just good. This is cajun country and my expectations are high. The crawfish were of all things,,, mushy. My wife had a BBQ shrimp po-boy which I have mixed reviews about. The grilled shrimp came inside of a toasted french bread pocket with a side of New Orleans style BBQ sauce. The sauce had been thickened with cornstarch and there was either cane syrup or sugar in it which finishes on your palate robbing the garlic and lemon from its job. Gateau Sirup, tooooo much clove! What do I expect, FFR said not to go there! Idiot! For dinner we needed to meet a couple in between Lafayette and Eunice. So we chose Catahoula in Grand Coteau. Great meal, and if I would have explained myself to the waiter better, the meal would have been even better. Turtle soup to start. Very good almost exceptional. Crawfish salad with fried pickled Okra and spinach. The women at the table couldnt get enough of this dish. Crawfish with tasso and cream over a sweet potato grit cake. Better than I expected, I loved the sweet potato grit play, not as sweet as one would think with the tasso spice to offset it. The waiter ordered me the special which was Sea Bass with orzo, muchrooms, and zucchini. It was very, very good, but I wanted something that better described the area. My wive had a pecan crusted shrimp with a spicy pepper jelly glaze and green bean salsa that had corn and of all things mango in it. She loved it as did I. I finished with the praline torte--soft praline fillinf encases in pate sucre. It was great and my wife had some choclate concoction (didnt try it). My friend Xave had a blueberry bread pudding and he finished it before I could even lift my fork to taste it. The wine list was better than expected. Not too many selections (80) but some great undervalued wines were studded all over the place. All in all a good day. Day 2,3, and 4 to follow soon.

Well my trip is this weekend and I never thought I would be this excited to be going. I keep telling my wife that we are "Going to the motherland". She keeps reminding me that we are from the westbank not Cajun Country. Thanks for the help FFR, I will fill everyone in next week.

Has anyone been to the Besh Steakhouse in Harraha's New Orleans? They are opening one up here in Shreveport in a few weeks. I can't say that I have ever actually planned a trip to a restaurant with the word "Steakhouse" in it. Will it be worth it? Should I go? I have been to August twice, but it didnt "live up" to me.