At this season, NOMenu takes an appreciative look at the matchless seafood of New Orleans. We take a different angle each year. This year's perspective is a countdown of the thirty-three (one for each weekday in Lent) best restaurants for lovers of oysters, pompano, crawfish, speckled trout, and all the other delicacies that make living here anything but a penance.
Number Twenty-One
Grand Isle
Seafood.
Warehouse District: 575 Convention Center Blvd. 504-520-8530. Map.
Breakfast Lunch and dinner continuously, seven days.
Casual.
AE DC DS MC V
Website
The original idea here was to offer the environment and menu of a cafe in the fishing-camp town of Grand Isle--one of the several ends of the earth on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. That have evolved over the years into a menu much like you'd find in a good, funky New Orleans neighborhood place, but served in a squeaky-clean, hotel-restaurant kind of way. Emphatically a seafood house, Grand Isle has at its center an excellent oyster bar. That's the best source of food here, followed by boiled, fried, and grilled seafood platters. An all-appetizer meal is the best plan of all, although the grilled fish of the day is always nice.
If you've ever been to the real Grand Isle, you'll recognize some of the elements of the decor here. But really the place is too slick and surrounded by too many tall buildings for that feeling to take hold. That matter past, it's a pleasant dining room with cypress panels and, wood floors, and tile, surmounted with historic photos of the real Gulf Coast.
BEST SEAFOOD DISHES
»Oysters on half shell
»Boiled shrimp cocktail or remoulade
Marinated blue crab claws
Boiled crawfish in season
Maine lobster, hot or cold
Chilled seafood platters
»Grand oysters (baked, tasso, jalapeno, Havarti)
»Oysters Falgoust (crawfish, béchamel, ham)
»Oysters Fourchon (bread crumbs, garlic, parmesan)
»Oyster sampler (two each of above)
»Crabmeat au gratin
Crab cake
Mussels, wine, lemon, tomato
»Turtle soup
Seafood gumbo
Seafood salad
House salad
Fried shrimp, catfish or oyster poor boys
>Shrimp Caminada (spicy citrus butter, Asian slaw)
»Alligator sausage
»Shrimp and grits, andouille gravy
»Crawfish etouffee
»Pasta au Pimonté (shrimp, mussels, oysters, crawfish)
»Pecan crusted catfish meuniere
»Grilled Gulf fish of the day
Chili butter baked fish
»Sautéed fish with brown butter and crawfish etouffee
Fried seafood platters
For a detailed review, click here.
