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-Four
New Orleans Food & Spirits
Seafood.
Covington: 208 Lee Lane. 985-875-0432. Map.
Harvey: 2330 Lapalco Blvd, 504-362-0800. Map.
Bucktown: 210 Hammond Hwy, 504-828-2220. Map.
Lunch and dinner continuously MO TU WE TH FR SA
Casual
AE DC DS MC V
Website
The generic, forgettable name disguises a very good neighborhood seafood restaurant. Overloaded platters of fried oysters, shrimp, catfish, and soft-shell crabs are all prepared to order, crisp and hot. And they grill as well as they fry. The three locations have aspects of a neighborhood cafe, with poor boys, beans, gumbo, and specials. These people really know how to cook, not merely frying everything but also grilling, stuffing, and saucing with aplomb. (Although beware of thick, blanketing sauces.) The portions are very large. Even a salad might push a meal into the Too Much zone if you have an entree.
Three locations, starting with the one on the West Bank. The Bucktown location came next, occupying the building where R&O used to be. The Covington branch appeared in 2004. All are very casual but pleasant enough. The Covington branch overlooks the Bogue Falaya River.
BEST SEAFOOD DISHES
Raw and grilled oysters (Bucktown only).
Crawfish corn soup
Seafood gumbo
Grilled yellowfin tuna steak
Grilled catfish
Fried catfish, shrimp, oyster or combo platter
Redfish Pontchartrain (grilled or blackened, cream sauce with shrimp)
Crab-stuffed grilled catfish, seafood cream sauce
Crab cake Pontchartrain
Catfish Loozianne (with Creole crawfish stew or gumbo)
Angel hair pasta, garlic cream sauce, blackened shrimp, catfish or chicken
Crawfish stew over rice
Catfish Lafayette (fried or grilled, pasta with seafood cream sauce)
Blackened tuna, pasta with seafood cream sauce
Shrimp remoulade salad
Fried catfish, shrimp, or oyster poor boy
Click for detailed reviews of the three locations: West Bank. Bucktown. Covington.
