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May 4, 2005
Lunch Review - Maple Cafe'
In our quest to find a new meeting place for the BNI chapter I'm forming, we had lunch yesterday at Maple Cafe', which is located on Oaklawn, just off of Veterans in Metairie. The restaurant used to be Petra, then the owner, T.J. Qutob, sold the place to the folks who own Caddyshack, a bar-and-grille on Ridgelake. T.J. then worked with his brother at his place, Maple Street Cafe', uptown. I don't know the details of the story at this point, but the Caddyshack folks sold the Metairie location back to T.J., and he's re-named the place Maple Cafe'.
I haven't been to Maple Street Cafe', so my impressions are based strictly on this trip and visits to Petra. The restaurant is not very large, fifteen or so tables. The private booths that lined the wall are gone; the Caddyshack people pulled them out and installed a bar that runs the length of the wall. The room off to the side that used to be the bar in Petra is now a small (8-12) person private room. The bigger private room is still in place, and checking that out was our primary mission.
There were three of us for this outing, Steve, Al, and myself. The lunch menu at Maple Cafe' is a wide range of choices. The diner can get a full meal, appetizer to dessert, or just a sandwich or burger. The entrees were in the $8.95-$12.95 range and included soup or salad. We went with these options since that's the sort of set-up we're looking for on a weekly basis. Steve ordered shrimp and mushroom pasta, Al had the roasted chicken one of the daily specials, and I had the other daily special, Cajun Ravioli. Steve had the soup, a crabmeat bisque, Al and I had caesar salads. The salads were crisp and fresh, and Steve reported that the soup was good.
Steve's shrimp pasta was solid. This is a classic New Orleans dish--peeled raw shrimp sauteed in a little butter or olive oil, with green onions and sliced mushrooms. This is served over pasta (usually angel hair), with a bit of olive oil or melted butter drizzled over it. T.J.'s version used olive oil rather than butter, obviously a bit healthier.
Al's lunch was half of a roasted chicken, boned. It was cooked through without being dry, with an excellent crust. The chicken was served with a vegetable medley, making for a good low-carb lunch.
I had the high-carb lunch, Cajun Ravioli. This was a cheese ravioli with a tomato sauce that included very good Andouille sausage, sauteed onions, red, yellow, and green bell pepper slices. It was very good. It was a refreshing change to have ravioli served with a lighter tomato sauce.
Our waitress was attentive and kept a good stream of cap bread on the table, as well as herbed butter.
We skipped dessert, but Al did have a cup of coffee that came out hot and fresh.
We double-checked the back room, and it'll do just fine for a group of 20-30 people. T.J. said he'd work up a two-three entree menu for $15 a person inclusive, so we've got a weekly meeting place.
Posted by YatPundit at May 4, 2005 9:15 AM