Number Twenty-Seven
Galley Seafood
Seafood.
Old Metairie: 2535 Metairie Rd. 504-832-0955. Map.
Lunch and dinner continuously TU WE TH FR SA
Very Casual
AE DC MC V
One of the city's best neighborhood seafood restaurants, the Galley is especially adept at boiling crawfish, crabs, and shrimp. They clearly have great sources of the crustaceans, because the Galley is often the first and the last restaurant standing as the seasons come and go. They serve boiled seafood hot, a tremendous advantage. You see it steaming in the kitchen window. The fried seafood is less consistent, but most of the time it's crisp, hot, greaseless, and ample in serving. Good poor boys and daily specials finish out the menu.
The best-known dish here is the soft-shell crab poor boy. Vicky and Dennis Patania fry thousands of them at the Jazz Festival every year. The restaurant grew from that effort in 1996, starting with fried and boiled seafood and expanding the menu (but not the premises) ever since.
The premises--a converted convenience store--is too small for the customer base. The kitchen is more or less in your face. A few more tables are set in a covered, outdoor seating area in front. It's spartan and the service is minimal, but all that is standard for a neighborhood seafood joint.
BEST SEAFOOD DISHES
Seafood gumbo
Boiled shrimp, crabs, or crawfish in season
Fried calamari
Coconut shrimp
Greek shrimp salad
Caesar salad, fried oysters
Spicy crawfish pies
Fried seafood platters
Fried soft-shell crab
Stuffed crab
Blackened fish, crawfish sauce
Stuffed softshell crab, pasta Alfredo
Crab cakes, crabmeat on top, pasta Alfredo
Fried seafood poor boys (soft-shell crab, stuffed crab, catfish, shrimp, oysters or combinations)
For a more detailed review, go here.
