neworleansfoodandspirits.com
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.
