Trailhead Dining

The Mandeville Trailhead is a hopping place. There are regular concerts, a Farmer’s Market, and a surprising number of restaurants bordering it. All of these are at least a little peculiar, some more than others. We first became acquainted with this space when people began talking about an unusually-named place called Opal Basil. Robert Vasquez was the owner of this place, and he and his wife Lindsey, were avant-garde in their desire to first make food healthy. Opal Basil quickly became a cult favorite, and callers put it on our radar.

We went, and I was puzzled by the place, which was a two-story building, where the restaurant was accessed only by a flight of stairs upon entering. We found a packed house of diners upstairs, and Robert Vasquez was cooking behind an open bar on what seemed like a hot plate. There was a kitchen up there but he was cooking in the open. And the food was terrific. We immediately “got it.” There was a kitchen upstairs, and one downstairs too, but the downstairs was a to-go place for healthy food. I think. never did understand that space. Opal Basil closed too quickly when offers came for Robert Vasquez. He had a series of gigs that followed that took him from New Orleans and back again to Madisonville. We have since lost track of him.

It wasn’t long after the closure of Opal Basil that Gio from another cult favorite on the Northshore moved in. Gio’s Villa Vancheri was beloved from the day it arrived, and I don’t even remember the details, but somehow Gio closed the original spot on the main highway and set up shop in this unusual little two-story space by the trailhead. 

After a few years, he closed it and left the way he came to town, i.e., quickly. That sounds bad, but it’s actually a cool story. Gio came from Italy to visit a friend here and just up and opened a restaurant that became a phenomenon for 14 years before moving it to the trailhead. A few years after settling in at the new place, he went back to Europe to be near his children. As so often happens, a customer with no restaurant experience who loved Gio’s food tried his hand at it. As it normally goes, the experiment was short-lived. 

I wondered who would step up to open a restaurant here. Enter Carson Wandell, a local chef who has spent most of his 20-year career in fine restaurants in neighboring  Baton Rouge. I like what he’s done with the place. The surroundings are minimalist, leaving your attention for the food. Everyone I have met here is a fan of the chef and his food, and the enthusiasm is contagious.

I went in for lunch not long after they opened. The menu is ample and interesting, showing a range of local favorites on which he has put his stamp. The meal started with the soup of the day, which was corn and crab bisque. That seems to be the house signature soup. Artichoke hearts were on the menu, and I love those, so I ordered them. Arancini with crab and shrimp was also on the menu, as were meatballs, so those were added to my choices. And crab cakes, which will also always be in my order if I see them on a menu. I asked my usual question: pan-seared or deep-fried? The price at $24 told me it could go either way, depending on the size. And I got a fried shrimp poor boy, which came with fries. There were three seafood poor boy choices on the menu, along with a meatball sub, a hot sausage, a blackened chicken sandwich, a prime rib sandwich, one with crab cakes, and shrimp tacos. Plenty of choices here, but all sandwiches except for the tacos. 

The meal started out disappointing, but got better. The corn soup was watery and interesting enough for me to leave all but a few spoonfuls. I love corn and crab soup, and I was heartbroken.

The artichoke hearts were unusually large. I wondered if they were using fresh artichokes. Since then, I have seen them this large one or two places, but they were definitely different. I like the crispy batter, and aside from an occasional woodsy bite, these were good. Nice warm Béarnaise sauce too.

The seafood arancini were perfectly fine little balls of rice. There was a bite of shrimp and crab in the center, and they were fried nicely. The contrasting sauces beneath them made for a good flavor.  The Alfredo sauce was offset by a Vodka cream sauce. Tasty.

I was really disappointed in the meatballs, which were way too chunky for my taste, and I have a taste for chunky everything. The meatballs were a bit firm, and the sauce unusually chunky. Not a fan of this version of one of my menu favorites around town.

As for the crab cakes, the waitress assured me they were pan-seared. My hopes rose, but were dashed when they were placed before me. These were more of a crab-stuffing, still pan-seared. The jumbo lump description took great liberties. That said, they were quite tasty because crab stuffing is always a good flavor. It’s just the wording on the menu I object to, thinking I’m getting a crab cake and getting a crab patty.

The fried shrimp poor boy was very good. It came fully dressed on a pistolette and an adequate but not exploding amount of shrimp. These shrimp were the right size for me, but I also noticed some had been cut. This is something new I am seeing around, and I have mixed feelings about it. The big question is why? Is it to make fewer shrimp look like more shrimp? Or is it to have them fit in a space better? I think it is usually the former, though I don’t really mind. There were plenty of chopped and unchopped shrimp in this sandwich. There were even tomatoes that had a taste, which is always a welcome development. The shrimp batter had a nice flavor, and the shrimp were nicely fried.  I liked this sandwich,  and the Remoulade sauce that came with it.  It was served with the most ordinary of frozen fries, but a lot of them.

I find the menu prices at dinner to be on par with the top tier of Northshore restaurants. Carson’s Table is not at that level, in my view. But I like it very well, and I’m glad to see it follows a line of very good restaurants in the little space at the Mandeville Trailhead.