In the thirty-five plus years I have been with Tom, there are a few dictums that have emerged as favorites of his. He has plenty of rules, with the most obvious being a simple one: if it tastes good, it is good. Lunch today was the very illustration of that. We stopped in at a new place in Madisonville that we have been watching slowly come to life. It is called the Red Brick Cafe and is located in the curve on Hwy 21 in Madisonville, next to the hardware store.
The buildings that comprise “downtown” Madisonville are a hodgepodge of old eclectic structures housing a variety of businesses. There is a fancy home store, a spa, and a boutique, as well as a hardware store, a bank, pharmacy and an adorable Piggly Wiggly. Also a cursed bakery location, but that’s another story.
The Red Brick Cafe joins glamour restaurants like Keith Young’s and Tchefuncte’s, casual places like Anchor, Abita Roasters, Triple Nickel Grill and a coffee place called Cherrybomb. Morton’s and Orlando’s are on Hwy 22 leaving town. With the exceptions of the first two high end places, Madisonville dining is more “eating” in places with ordinary food. I was shocked to walk into this place in the funky old building. It was beautiful inside. It was also fast casual. There is not enough seating and there wasn’t enough staff, but everything else was a pleasant surprise.
The menu was far more ambitious than there was any right to expect. And I learned that this was the second location of the place. The original is in Franklinton, which immediately lowered my expectations, and made me question the style of the place. It was light and airy with stylish banquettes, peppered with religious quotes. The young lady behind the counter appeared to be doing everything. I felt bad for her, especially when a customer got up and got his own ice out of a cooler. Self-service seemed to be essential on this day. This is not a place to come short on time. Regulars appear to linger. It is a lovely place to do that. I had to bus the table to grab one for Tom.
All of these negatives aside, I love this place. It is a find. The specials board offered two soups: seafood gumbo and crab and corn bisque. There was a crabcake with Alfredo pasta at $23.95 and various sandwiches and wraps. A large menu of breakfast and lunch items was available, and there is dinner service two nights a week.
We got both soups as apps, the smaller lunch burger, and the crab cake which I was assured was not deep fried. (At $23.95 this should be a real crab cake.) After waiting a while, the crab cake arrived first. It was about what I expected, a generous portion of mostly pasta with the crabcake perched in the center of the melamine bowl. The crab cake was breaded but not deep fried, and it was delicious. I don’t know if it was really that good, or it if was that good because it was just so far above expectations.
No, it really was that good. Yes, there was breading inside, but there were also plenty of nuggets of lump crab. The enormous pile of Alfredo pasta was not especially creamy, but it too was delicious. Salt avoiders beware-it was salty. I happen to like salt but when I notice salt it is salty.
I kept eating this, marveling at its goodness, then the snob in me came out. If I had a similar plate in front of me at Cafe Lynn, it would probably be cheaper, and it would also be much more polished and sophisticated. And, it would be on real china. Still, I couldn’t deny how gosh-darned tasty this plate of food was. Tom agreed, and he was happy to eat half of this rich and ample entree. Bonus points that it was also lava hot.
Somewhere into this the apps arrived. Both the seafood gumbo and bisque were more what I expected. Tasty but nothing special. Each was served with a slice of French bread.
We were ready to go and the burger still hadn’t arrived. We were no longer hungry and didn't cancel it because it was more content and we could eat it later. There is a menu of four different burgers, and two burgers on the specials board. One was the cheaper and smaller lunch burger and the other a burger poor boy. We ordered the lunch burger and they were surprised that we hadn’t gotten it. A women wiping tables promised to get it out. Still we waited another ten minutes. They told me they were waiting on fries.
The burger that finally arrived at the table was the most ordinary burger I have seen in a while. It was accompanied by boring frozen fries that were a little greasy. I cut a tiny two bites out of this burger and tasted it. Also delicious. When we arrived at the place the smell of grilling burgers greeted us outside, which put in my mind the need to get a burger. This burger was so boring: an ordinary bun, preformed patty, basic cheddar. But I wanted to eat this whole burger, and I wasn’t hungry.
The man next to us had a croissant which also looked good. We will go in for breakfast very soon. I’m excited about this little find.
