Wednesday, August 1, 2012.
Eat Club On The Bayou. Way Out On The Bayou.
Restaurant des Familles (pronounced the French way) presents a unique dining environment. Its dining room backs up to the bayou of the same name, from which alligators have been known to step forward to look back at you. In fact, one of them did that today. It was not a fake, nor a pet. The alligator you see below is real. The Do Not Feed The Alligators sign is in deadly earnest.
I have always liked des Familles for that and other reasons, even though its cooking has always been just a notch above that of a neighborhood seafood place. But you can't get too spiffy in Crown Point, a halfway stop from New Orleans to Lafitte. It's out there, as a place with a happy alligator population is likely to be.
The Eat Club visited des Familles enough years ago that I don't remember exactly when. I do know it was at least a couple of years before the hurricane, which hit the restaurant twice: once each for Katrina and Rita.
New owners since then, Brian Zar and his wife Brooke took over a few years ago, when founder Pat Morrow retired. Brian worked at the restaurant as a busboy in his teens, but never thought he'd get into the business with both feet.
But he did, in a convincing way. Without drastically changing the menu, he updated it a bit while getting the word out about the unique setting. "We get a lot of people who come in to take swamp tours," he said. He must, because during the radio show--a time of day when most restaurants are empty--he had quite a few tables full.
I had my doubts about the menu. Following an alligator dish with another reptilian dish--turtle soup--seemed strange to me. And following that with a chicken salad didn't strike me as a natural progression.
But all worked out beautifully. The alligator-stuffed mushrooms with alligator sauce piquant surrounding it was the best-liked dish of the evening. Good-looking, spicy, elementally flavorful. The turtle soup had a completely different flavor, which figures. (Even though both turtles and gators are reptiles, alligators are more closely related to humans than they are to turtles.) It was a dark, classic Creole soup whose meat was all turtle, chopped into meaty cubes. The only possible complaint was that it was too big a serving.
The chicken salad could have been served without the chicken. Greens, cranberries, spiced pecans, and a honey-citrus vinaigrette carried the day just fine, with enough pepper in the mix to create that wonderful sweet-heat effect.
Almost-blackened redfish was substantial but a little over grilled. The sauce was without flaw--one of those 1980s-era Cajun cream sauces riddled with crawfish. Asparagus on the side. Everybody happy, near as I could tell. The wines were no big deal, but at this price $65 inclusive for the five courses), they were fine.
White chocolate bread pudding was just the way I like it: rich but not too, light but not dry.
By that time I was sitting at Johnny Lee's table. He comes to Eat Clubs now and then, usually the ones at Impastato's. He and I were fraternity brothers at UNO in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In fact, we were among the founding members of the Beta Xi Chapter of Phi Kappa Sigma. Which, unfortunately, no longer exists (although the national fraternity is still strong). I was never much of a fraternity type, but according to Johnny I was always good for a laugh. If I have to be remembered for only one thing, that would be it.
Johnny is a straight-arrow, family kind of guy. It's not surprising that he was the first person my age to tell me he had grandchildren.
I stayed too long at that table, and in so doing neglected to spend a course with a table of five ladies. Who acted miffed about that, although I'm not sure they really were. Wanting to bask in my presence seems so unlikely that I never take it seriously.
Long drive home. It was well after eleven when I crossed my threshold. It is seeming more and more obvious that I spent too much time driving.
Restaurant des Familles. Lafitte: 7163 Barataria Blvd. 504-689-7834.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
