A good friend who lives in St. Francisville sent a text on a recent Saturday morning asking if we were still doing our road trips. They wanted to meet us in Baton Rouge. It was a great chance to get back to Phil’s Oyster Bar, which intrigued us when we ran into it two weeks ago.
We heard about Phil’s Oyster Bar a few months ago when we had Peter Sclafani, Jr. on the show. He is a consultant to Phil’s, which was an established and beloved Baton Rouge institution on Government St before moving to Perkins Rd. a few years back.
The founder’s son runs it now, with Peter’s assistance.The new space on Perkins Road hearkens back to the Fifties, with a modern twist.
We knew nothing of the food, but the menu looked great. Our friends had been a few times and did not have good things to say. We doubted this opinion because we saw the menu, and because we know Peter Sclafani, Jr, whose middle name is delicious. (Not really, but it should be.)
Our friends had drinks well underway when we arrived. We started with three appetizers: a dozen chargrilled oysters, spinach/artichoke, and shrimp dip and crawfish cheesecake.
After a few minutes of these on the table our friends confessed that they had been eating the wrong things here. Both have recently lost weight. “Obviously we needed to order the fattening things,” they swooned.
The chargrilled oysters had a healthy dose of Parmesan cheese, with just the right dipping juices. They were just like I like them, more on the well done side. The artichoke dip with shrimp was served in an arresting presentation. A generous portion of this very rich spinach and artichoke dip studded with shrimp was surrounded by thin triangular strips of fried flour tortilla chips.It looked like a sun. Creamy, so rich and redolent of tangy cheese.
But it was the wedge of crawfish cheesecake that made the greatest impression on all of us. This was even richer than the spin dip. There were several cheeses in this one, and it was so rich it’s definitely for more than one person. Parmesan, Romano, smoked gouda and Fontina perk up the crawfish and spices, napped by both Meuniere and Hollandaise sauces. Low Cal? Definitely not, but this is the very best version I’ve had anywhere of this delicious dish.
Our friends split a seafood platter which was cornmeal fried, crispy, and greaseless. This was more of an old-fashioned platter than I’m used to seeing now. The shrimp were stuffed, and there were fried oysters and catfish strips. I was surprised and disappointed to see a few onion rings that were a little greasy and clearly frozen. The hush puppies were unusually large. I watched our friends go through this entire platter and my friend was taking her time finishing the last hush puppy. My eye was drawn to this hush puppy, which she was cutting with her fork. It looked odd and especially dry. I asked her for the last bite. It was fantastic. It wasn’t dry, just cakey. I never eat hush puppies, but these were good enough to eat and enjoy.
Tom and I also split an entree, The Sclafani salad caught my eye on the menu.This was quite the combination of ingredients. Chopped egg, boiled shrimp, olives, chopped iceberg lettuce and remoulade dressing. Italian salad meets shrimp remoulade. It seemed like a crazy idea but it was a great salad. The remoulade had a heavy horseradish kick to it, and it was a huge and filling salad.
There was a lot of very rich food on the table, and only Tom wanted dessert. If there is a bread pudding in the house...
This was by far the least interesting that was on the table that day. It came as a big heavy block with the requisite sauce. I took a bit just for editorial purposes. No cinnamon flavor, or any other real flavor. A dud. Tom was also underwhelmed, and it is hard for bread pudding to do that for him.
We left Phil’s Oyster Bar wanting to go back before too long. Our friends happily learned to leave the diet at home and let people that make food that tastes good do what they do best. And enjoy it.
