Monday, October 25. Oysters And Catfish At K Gee's. Imitation is rife among restaurants. Any new dish that makes a big hit is certain to be copied. The most reproduced dish in New Orleans right now is Drago's char-broiled oysters. Every restaurant in town willing to undertake the very troublesome endeavor of buying and shucking oysters by the sack has its version of the dish on the menu. The most gratifying upshot is that a lot more restaurants are now shucking their own oysters.
Yet certain very successful restaurants have never been copied. One wonders why someone doesn't open a restaurant like Galatoire's, for example. It would be easy enough. There's nothing mysterious about Galatoire's food. The only obstacle is that a Galatoire's clone would have to serve very generous portions of excellent quality foodstuffs, double cocktails, and all the other examples of overdoing for which Gal's is celebrated. I guess the thought of buying hundreds of pounds of lump crabmeat several times a week--even out of season, when it gets expensive--is daunting.
And why has there never been another fried seafood place like Bozo's? Simple enough: everything fresh, everything prepared to order, each kind of seafood fried separately. And a great gumbo.
We will learn whether such an imitator will succeed, because a Bozo's semi-clone is open in Mandeville. K Gee's is owned by Kathy and Grant Williams. They were part of the group that took over Bozo's when longtime owner Chris and Bernie Vodanovich--in their eighties and nineties respectively--retired a few years ago. Kathy and her sister Connie were family. But the partnership didn't work out, and they left the restaurant about a year ago.
K Gee's isn't a copy of Bozo's, exactly. The menu includes many dishes never seen at Bozo's. On the other hand, the new place captures most of Bozo's crunchy magic with catfish and oysters.
The Williamses thoroughly renovated the strip-mall space on Florida Street. (It had been Sweet Daddy's BBQ.) What it looks like now is a casual New Orleans seafood house--and not in any self-conscious, corny way. Stark but nice. Beer comes in a bottle with pony glasses--those small straight-sided glasses we used to see in neighborhood restaurants all over town.
A couple of big signs outside proclaimed the presence here of raw Louisiana oysters. A half-dozen (seven, actually) were meaty and delicious, flawed only by having been served much less than ice-cold. This is an increasing problem around town, for some reason. Is it because crushed ice is hard to come by? Or what?
Tasso beignets? "Get 'em," advised the waitress. They were exactly as advertised, sort of like tempura with tasso in the middle, and a cold, tangy aioli on the side. Mary Ann cannot resist stuffed artichokes, but I think she will in this place from now on. It had about double the normal amount of breadcrumbs stuffing, and overwhelming.
We split a seafood platter. The oysters were the best part of it, followed closely by the catfish. Both were coated with coarse cornmeal, in the style of Bozo's (and a lot of other seafood fryers). The shrimp were even good, and I'm no fan of fried shrimp. A stuffed crab--a bit on the heavy side--completed the platter. Not Bozo's at its best, but a long way in that direction.
We finished up with pumpkin bread pudding, served in three little squares. Very good. Nice people. Good look. And in Mandeville, where there's a shortage of good casual fried seafood houses, K Gee's is a welcome newcomer.
K Gee's Oyster Bar. Mandeville: 2534 Florida. 985-626-0530.
