Every year during Lent, we take a long, loving look at the most distinctive part of the New Orleans menu: our matchless seafood. The theme is different each year, sometimes looking at restaurant menus for the best familiar dishes, other years reviewing the species of seafood that enrich our tables. This year, our search is for the most creative, offbeat dishes on restaurants' menus. It's a countdown of thirty-three seafood dishes, one for each of the weekdays in Lenten, from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday. As always, the thirty-third best is a superb dish, to be followed by even better dishes every day. --Tom Fitzmorris.
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#33: Mussels With Curry @ Ciro's Cote Sud
Ciro's is a good little French bistro, known as much for its pizza (a specialty inherited from the previous occupant of the building) as for its rustic French cookery. The mussels are a bit different from the standard, in being made with a light cream sauce flavored with a peppery curry seasoning. They also serve mussels with blue cheese in the sauce, but that's not as good as this way.
