My wife & I were passing through Alexandria this past weekend and decided to stop at Cajun Landing for dinner, since it was right down the street from our hotel on McArthur Blvd. (just off I-49). We had a wonderful time. The atmosphere is cozy - dimmish lights, fireplace. Although the tables are somewhat close to each other back-to-back, they were sufficiently far from each other side-to-side to not cause distraction among the patrons. Our waiter, Carl, was polite, thorough and very knowledgable about the fare for the evening. My wife and I both took Carl's recommendation for the soup du jour which was a seafood bisque. Now I know bisques are supposed to be thick, but this was THICK. And loaded with shrimp, crabmeat, crawfish and other bits of seafood. It was also quite spicy (red-peppery spicy), which woke me up! The entrees were even better. My wife had the stuffed broiled red snapper, which had a shrimp and crabmeat-based stuffing and topped with a creamy sauce with crawfish. It was rich and tasty! I wanted something simpler so I had the grilled red snapper topped with crab and crawfish, all in a wine sauce. What made these dishes especially good was that the fish was fresh -- the texture and the taste were right. The wine list had moderate diversity. I am partial to Rieslings and was somewhat disappointed that no Rieslings were on the list, but that is not too unusual. We settled on the Bogle Sauvignon Blanc, which went well with the snapper. The bread pudding we had for dessert was good, on par for New Orleans type bread puddings, not the best we ever had, but everybody makes a little different bread pudding. The price was extraordinarily reasonable for what we got - roughly $35 per person before tip. I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone who may be passing through this area. I later learned that Alexandria actually has quite a few really good restaurants; Cajun Landing is certainly in the top 5. If you want to know more about the restaurant, they have a website at: http://www.cajunlanding.com/ By the way, Tom, I really enjoy your show in the afternoon. It's a real break from the talk shows telling me how much money I lost or shows with lousy music and loud commercials. Your show is entertaining and informative and best of all, puts me in a good mood. Keep up the good work! -- Vince Vicidomina, Slidell
