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-Five
Joey K's
Neighborhood Cafe.
Uptown: 3001 Magazine. 504-891-0997. Map.
Lunch and dinner continuously MO TU WE TH FR SA
Casual.
MC V
Website
Joey K's is a super-neighborhood restaurant, drawing customers from all over town with a menu bigger than is usually found in places that look like this. All the essential dishes of casual New Orleans eating are here, from beans and jambalaya to seafood platters and daily specials. That theme is carried almost to the point of cliche. But they take all of it seriously and cook it well. Daily specials are particularly good, enough so that many of the customers know exactly which day to be there for what. Portions are almost grossly oversize, and if that's not enough, they have an all-you-can-eat catfish deal that runs every day.
Clay Farnet opened Joey K's in 1992, a time when neighborhood restaurants were in steep decline around town. In its early years the restaurant was self-consciously nostalgic, serving famous dishes that not many people ate in restaurants anymore. When neighborhood joints had a resurgence, particularly after Katrina, Joey K's seemed a perfect example of the genre--especially after exposing the antique decor under what had become a shabby outer skin.
A big room with big windows on two sides (this is literally a corner cafe), with some nooks and crannies here and there for added space. The place looks (and is) much older than the current restaurant. Although it looks like the kind of place where the main clientele would be cab drivers and cops, in fact you see the entire assortment of Orleanians here, including a surprisingly large number of Uptown ladies and businesspeople. The wait stuff is fun.
BESt SEAFOOD DISHES
Shrimp remoulade
Fried crab claws
Gumbo
Grilled tuna steak
Shrimp Magazine (olive oil, garlic, artichoke hearts, ham, pasta)
Trout Tchoupitoulas (fried, with shrimp and crabmeat)
Fried softshell crab
All-you-can-eat fried catfish
Broiled catfish
Fried oysters, shrimp, catfish or combo platters
Fried oysters, shrimp, or catfish poor boy
A detailed review can be had by clicking here.
