Adventure to New Orleans
High on the Hog
Robert Garner
Issue date: 9/26/08 Section: Lifestyles
For the last two years, I have been dying to make a trip to Café Rue Orleans and try the cuisine. Having to write a restaurant review gave me a good excuse for my premier visit.
Whenever my family makes Cajun food at home, we have a gluttonous tendency to go all out and make it a big deal. Perhaps that's why I was disappointed in my long-awaited Cajun Fayetteville feast.
Don't get me wrong: the food was pretty good. The atmosphere was great. Overall, I would recommend eating there.
For me, it is kind of like going to see a movie that you have been mentally hyped up for, but the film disappoints because it was not as good as you had imagined it would be.
The first sour note occurred when I was given a menu. For the first time in a long time, I knew what I wanted before I even stepped into the restaurant. I wanted something quintessential to New Orleans cuisine: a Po' Boy.
Fail.
They don't serve those at dinner time.
So, to prevent any disappointment on your part, I recommend that you go to their Web site, www.caferueorleans.com and check out their lunch and dinner menus before you go. Believe me, the menus are not the same.
I quickly got over the discrepancies in the menus. One that still pangs me, however, is of the worst kind (especially here in the South): no sweet tea.
Maybe I'm wrong, but New Orleans comes to mind as one of the great cities of sweet tea.
In any case, I was sad whenever I had to sweeten it myself, as I never know how many of those little packets to use.
When it came time to order, I opted for the Crawfish Duo, which comes "plated with one-half crawfish etouffee and one-half fried crawfish tails." My fellow guinea pig ordered the Shrimp Pontchartrain, with "tasso cream sauce and served with herbs over pasta."
For a small surcharge, we chose to get the cup of gumbo in place of the included house salad. The gumbo was good, although I'm partial to my mom's. It came with a little rondelle of bread that was perfectly stale. In this case, the bread's texture was perfect for dipping and soaking up the gumbo's juice.
Whenever my family makes Cajun food at home, we have a gluttonous tendency to go all out and make it a big deal. Perhaps that's why I was disappointed in my long-awaited Cajun Fayetteville feast.
Don't get me wrong: the food was pretty good. The atmosphere was great. Overall, I would recommend eating there.
For me, it is kind of like going to see a movie that you have been mentally hyped up for, but the film disappoints because it was not as good as you had imagined it would be.
The first sour note occurred when I was given a menu. For the first time in a long time, I knew what I wanted before I even stepped into the restaurant. I wanted something quintessential to New Orleans cuisine: a Po' Boy.
Fail.
They don't serve those at dinner time.
So, to prevent any disappointment on your part, I recommend that you go to their Web site, www.caferueorleans.com and check out their lunch and dinner menus before you go. Believe me, the menus are not the same.
I quickly got over the discrepancies in the menus. One that still pangs me, however, is of the worst kind (especially here in the South): no sweet tea.
Maybe I'm wrong, but New Orleans comes to mind as one of the great cities of sweet tea.
In any case, I was sad whenever I had to sweeten it myself, as I never know how many of those little packets to use.
When it came time to order, I opted for the Crawfish Duo, which comes "plated with one-half crawfish etouffee and one-half fried crawfish tails." My fellow guinea pig ordered the Shrimp Pontchartrain, with "tasso cream sauce and served with herbs over pasta."
For a small surcharge, we chose to get the cup of gumbo in place of the included house salad. The gumbo was good, although I'm partial to my mom's. It came with a little rondelle of bread that was perfectly stale. In this case, the bread's texture was perfect for dipping and soaking up the gumbo's juice.
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