NOLA

neworleansfoodandspirits.com

Yelp

Since kiddo went to a pizza place for lunch on Saturday, my idea of going to R&O's for dinner got shot down. When I returned with the idea of going to the place next door, that was well-received, so off we went to New Orleans Food and Spirits.

New Orleans Food and Spirits is set up like your basic NOLA "neighborhood" place, but it's big and roomy. Access to tables is good, and the bar is big. This means that you'll get seated in a reasonable amount of time, even on a busy night.

We started with the onion rings (memo to NOFS webmaster, "onion" is NOT spelled "onyon"). They were hot and fresh. I wanted to try their "Voo Doo Crawfish Rolls," but family was not feeling adventurous. When I saw them go by to another table, I was envious.

Side salad, served straight from the fridge, therefore too cold to eat.  The Italian dressing was very underwhelming, as it began to congeal when poured on too-cold greens.  When your server asks about salad and dressing, tell her to just skip it--the entrees are good enough you don't need to spoil your appetite on this.

Kiddo went with the "Hickory Smoked Chicken," with fries.  It was a good, juicy, chicken breast.  It's important for a seafood place to do solid non-seafood entrees for the folks (like kiddo on Saturday night) that don't want to do seafood.  NOFS succeeds.

Crab cakes with "Pontchartrain" sauce.  NOFS is smart about their approach to seafood.  They offer a number of dishes, then top them with either of their "Lafayette" or "Pontchartrain" sauces.  Their printed menu does not describe either sauce, but website describes the Lafayette as a "garlic cream sauce." When Mrs. YatPundit asked our server, Joann, about "Pontchartrain," she said it was a crawfish-cream sauce.  That worked for wife, so she got the crab cakes.  These were two of the best crab cakes we've ever had.  I would have added more hot sauce to them had it been my plate, but wife was just fine with them as-is.

The NOFS website lists this as a single crab cake for $16.99, but the printed menu at the restaurant has this as two crab cakes for "market price," which was $22.99 on Saturday night.  I don't consider it so much a bait-and-switch as just a neglect of their website.  Still, a lot of folks do their research on where to go out based on Teh Internets, so such a change may not look as simple to others.  In any case, the dish was very good and wife took home the second crab cake with some of the pasta rather than totally pig out.

I went with the "Stuffed Eggplant Lafayette" but changed the sauce from Lafayette to Pontchartrain for a $1 upcharge.  I like eggplant-crawfish combinations, and this one didn't disappoint.  Under a creamy sauce with a lot of crawfish were two breaded eggplant cutlets, and in-between those was some of the crabmeat stuffing used for the crab cakes.  What a winner!  This dish needed no extra seasoning, and I ate every last bit of it. 

For drinks, Mrs. YatPundit had a glass of the house Pinot Grigio and I had an Abita Amber (all bottles, no draft beer). 

Service was, well, a bit off.  Joann, our server was polite and cheerful, but I suspect the huge (25-30) party seated along the wall behind us was throwing off the timing of the staff.  Someone drinking wine shouldn't have to ask twice for a glass of water.  Checking to see if I want another beer after I'm finished eating isn't good business.  Still, this lady didn't impress me as being incompetent or deliberately unattentive, just rushed.  That's not her fault, but a breakdown in the front of the house.  When you've got a large party, management has to make sure there's enough staff to handle the regular diners as well.  This restaurant is too big to just close for the evening for a group of 30, so what was needed was supervision to keep things moving smoothly.  The food was good enough and the lapses minor enough to not be a huge issue, but if you go to NOFS and see more than one big party in the place, this might be cause for concern.

The tab came to $83, which included two beers and one glass of wine.  I tipped $17 to make it $100.

One final note:  the NOFS website is just awful.  It's flash-based and opens with an embedded YouTube commercial.  It's a good example of what happens when you let your sister-in-law or some such do your website--technology/interface that's three years behind the curve.  This is problematic in the mobile phone age where someone might look a place up on Yelp on their iPhone or Android phone and want to jump over to the restaurant's site.

I'll be signing Brothers of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans at the Brother Martin CajunFest today, from about 1pm until 5pm or so.  The book goes for $21.95 and all proceeds (including author's royalties) go to Brother Martin High School.  Also, if you've got a copy of New Orleans: The Canal Streetcar Line that you'd like me to sign, bring it along!

Parkway Bakery and Tavern
538 Hagan Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70119-4911
(504) 482-3047
11am-10pm, Tavern open later. Closed Tuesdays.
parkwaybakeryandtavernnola.com‎

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(editor's note: I eat regularly at Parkway, hence there are already a couple of articles here about the place, but since I don't have a full-blown review, it's time to do one.)

Parkway Bakery is one of my favorite po-boy places in New Orleans. I try to eat there every other week or so. Located on the corner of Hagan Avenue and Toulouse Street near Bayou St. John, Parkway Bakery was once actually a bakery shop. For decades Parkway made french bread in the back and sold po-boys at a diner counter in the front. It was your basic, working-class storefront. I first discovered Parkway in the mid-1970s, in my days at Brother Martin. The place was sold and closed up in the 1980s, and experienced a revival in the 1990s, becoming the restaurant and tavern it is now. The building got about 8' of water in the storm, but the owners re-built and came back strong.

The signature po-boy at Parkway is their roast beef (highly recommended). Time was that most po-boy places in town roasted their own beef and baked their own hams, but nowadays a lot of them just go with deli meats from distributors. Parkway still does their own, though, and it shows in the taste of both the meat and gravy. The photo is of the small size roast beef--yeah, I know it looks horrid, because it's a sloppy roast beef po-boy and the trip from the pick-up window back to where we were sitting didn't make it very photogenic. (The YouTube vid at the bottom has a better shot of the roast beef.)

Gotta wash that po-boy down with something, and for me, that's an Abita Amber.

Parkway's no slouch when it comes to seafood po-boys, either. This is a "half-and-half" sandwich (recommended), regular sized. It's half fried shrimp, half fried oyster. The daily special this trip was a "shrimp remoulade" po-boy, so I had them put the remoulade dressing on the half-and-half. It was a fascinating treat!

Since it's almost springtime, that means StrawBita - Abita's Strawberry Lager. I got the seasonal instead of the classic amber.

Even though I've been going to Parkway for years, I've never gotten anything but a po-boy. The special on "National Hot Pastrami Day" was a "pastrami reuben" on rye that was just fanststic.  Parkway's pastrami po-boy is a regular menu item.

Of the various sides that Parkway offers, my fave is the potato salad (recommended).  I usually don't get a side, however, if I'm ordering a regular-sized po-boy.  The thing is big enough as it is!  Still, a small sandwich and some fries or potato salad is great.  They also do sweet potato fries, which are an interesting change of pace.

There are three distinct seating areas at Parkway. There's the the bar, up front, table seating inside behind the bar, and then table and counter seating outside on the patio. The bar was originally the smoking section, before the total ban on smoking in restaurants. There are also video poker machines in the bar.

Sitting outside on a nice day is the best!

Getting to Parkway - It's usually easy to park around the restaurant. If you don't mind a seven-block walk, you can take the Canal streetcar line to Jefferson Davis Parkway and walk down Jeff Davis from Canal, cross over to Hagan at the bayou, and you're there.

To sum up, here's a Katrinafilm video of Parkway:

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