This is perhaps the strongest reason I returned so quickly to Anthony’s Deli–to begin my search for my favorite meatball poboy. And this did prove to be an excellent starting point. The meat, the sauce, the cheese, the bread all in perfect proportion and the pressed style was interesting as well. Anthony’s sets the bar high as we begin this journey, but I’m coming back soon because again I missed the lasagna special, along with some other very intriguing shrimp specials. See the board below for details.
I also feel like I have to address again, and perhaps better, the sense of comfort and welcome I get when I walk in this place. For one thing, there are plants everywhere. There’s a forest of rosemary bushes all over the property, and you can tell by the other herbs in planters that this is not simply for show. There’s a love of growing things here, and inside, the mementos and photos and posters reveal a love of people and places (especially Italia) that just makes you feel good. At home. Wanted. If they see something they like, they find a place for it inside. That includes me, and you.
A really good carbonara is elusive. Very few menu it, and very few of those few do it well. Count Palermo among those very few who do it well. A lot of Italian chef’s aim for the sweet and sunny side of the cuisine. I prefer the darker, stormier versions that emphasize the umami of portobellos and anchovies, or, in this case, pancetta and peas and smoked ham and eggs.
The Caesar salad and bread that came with was quite good as well. They are not shy about anchovy at Palermo, and that is a very good thing. Notice how the croutons are added to the side of the plate so you can add them or avoid them. A small touch, but a noticeable addition to service.
I know I often lead with layout and ambience, and Palermo does score highly on that scale as well, but carbonara is not an easy dish to execute, and often chefs (or chains) take disastrous shortcuts. Being egg based, this is a dish that has to be made to order, which is why so many restaurants avoid it altogether. People who can cook a dish to order are becoming more and more rare, and more and more expensive to hold onto. If you are open seven days, you really need three top tier line cooks to put some dishes on the menu, and many of your competitors want them as well. Which is one of the reasons, I suspect, that Palermo’s is closed Sunday and Monday of each week. The interior is pleasant, and the happy hour specials seem like a good reason to bail on the traffic in that area if you find yourself there during the evening commute. I’m definitely interested in trying more of what they serve, though it will be very hard to order anything but the excellent carbonara every time I go there.
Even though it’s right there on Government Street with a nice little patio outside, once you step indoors you feel like you’re in a cozy little Lady and the Tramp hole-in-the-wall. Hard to explain, since the kitchen is open, and the dining area, though small, doesn’t seem overstuffed with tables. But comfort isn’t something you can always convey with words. Seeing helps, but believing relies on being there.
I got the muffaletto even though it was lasagna day because I was just in a muff mood, but it’s been awhile since I last visited, and I’d forgotten that I”m not really a fan of their house olive mix. It’s just a little too tart and sour for me, but a bit of plate surgery fixed that. and the meat, bread, and cheese balance was right there where it should be. I need to remember to go back for the lasagna and to try some other deli sandwiches and just to soak in the totally wonderful, totally old school vibe of Anthony’s.
If this were about design, decor, or drink menus there would be no contest, but this is about wings that aren’t just dumped in the deep fryer naked then slathered in some combination of Frank’s Red Hot, Tiger Sauce or barbecue sauce when they’re done. Ubiquitous is upscale slang for you can find those anywhere. This is about two unique treatments right here in Baton Rouge from two of our newest restaurants, Soji: Modern Asian on Government and Jed’s Local on Jefferson. First up, the Szechuan Wings from Soji.
Spicy Szechuan Seasoning, Sweet Ginger, Pickled Green Onion, Cilantro
The combination of sweet and spicy is powerful, but perhaps the greatest strength of this dish is the fact they use only the second joint of the wing split lengthwise so the bones are separated and you leave no meat on them as you chow down. How many times have you fought to get everything off the second joint (when you’ve had the opportunity to have more than just the drumette) without looking like a dog going after the bone? The sauce is sweet, the batter chili infused and the burn is constant and low key and invigorating. When you’re done you want to scream These are the best wings I’ve ever had! but–Jed’s.
Pork confit chicken wings with buttermilk bleu ranch
As best I can tell, Jed’s uses pork fat and white flour to batter the wings with a generous amount of chili powder added into the mix. The bacon/chili finish works perfectly with the buttermilk bleu ranch dip. You could call it a one-two punch. And they know how to cook them as well. Chicken has a zone, and that zone, not underdone or overdone, is very small for wings. Jed’s nails it every time. Still juicy, firm and, as Foghorn Leghorn would tell us I say, I say, I say, boy–these are damn fine wings.
So who’s the winner? You are, of course. I can’t pick between the two. They are both different and delectable, and when I get one, I find myself going to get the other that same week. I suggest you do the same. Take your time. Try them both. Several times.
Everything in this place is a work of art. I have never had anything here that I didn’t immediately fall in love with. Vietnamese cuisine lends itself to sharp, clean flavors and Ava does an excellent job realizing that goal with each dish they put out. This trip I tried the iced green Thai tea with cream, the grilled pork spring rolls, and the Korean short ribs.
I can’t say enough good things about this place–you’ve got to check it out. I will warn you though, if you want to get in the parking lot at lunch time or rush/happy hour, you need to plan on coming in from Perkins so you can take a right. There’s no way to take a left into that lot off Essen because it is too close to the light and no one will let you cross three lanes of traffic in Baton Rouge without a light or a police escort.
Cecelia pushed so many of my buttons. Heavy silver, cloth napkins, Amy Winehouse’s You Know I’m No Good playing in the soft light of a very stormy afternoon.
Plenty of intriguing wall art, even in the men’s room. Exotic craft cocktails.
From Cecelia’s Garden
And the Skillet Cornbread with Maple Bourbon Glaze and Cinnamon Butter was all that, even though the server poured the glaze over the bread without asking me if I wanted her to. I guess you could call that fajita style.
Unfortunately, on your first visit to a place, you’ve no way to tell whether any food problems are concept/recipe oriented or just a lack of kitchen talent at that key moment when you place your order. I tend to hit places at the beginning of a shift or shift change because that’s the eating pattern that works best for me, and I’m also a firm believer that if the doors are open, you should definitely have your shit together, so not having the A-team on hand has never been a valid excuse for me. If the doors are open and you are charging money, someone–cook, server, manager–needs to oversee quality and make sure the food comes out right. I got the Fried Green Tomatoes with Crawfish in White Remoulade as an appetizer, and followed with the Flounder Meunière .
If you look closely, you can see that although both dishes are beautifully presented, neither is “wet” enough. There’s barely enough white remoulade for the crawfish tails, let alone the fried tomatoes or spring mix they are stacked on. And there wasn’t really enough meunière sauce to coat the pasteurized lump crabmeat, let alone accent the corn meal crusted flounder. Individually, all the components except the crabmeat were very good, but the lack of sauce in both dishes eliminated any chance of harmony. So is this a recipe problem, or a personnel problem? No way to know. Don’t let it scare you off from drinks and the decadent skillet cornbread, but I for one, will wait for a very compelling special advertised on Facebook before I go back to give them a second, and possibly last chance.
It’s been very rare in my experience for a casual dining restaurant to overcome being part of a chain. Corporate kills character, so it is very hard to overcome the commercialized menus and the “modern”, otherwise known as “soulless” decor.
I’ve never really heard anything good or bad about Zea, but I saw that they menued lamb, and it’s hard to find a non-Lebanese place that cooks lamb, so I wanted to give it a try. I am very glad I did. Despite the fact that every staff member in the restaurant dutifully asked me if I had enjoyed my last visit to Zea to which I dutifully replied that it was my first visit to their establishment, the food was outstanding.
I got the lamb sirloin as I had intended which was rotisseried, then sliced and finished on the grill. Very good. The roasted corn grits were delightful and the red beans (sausage free) were spot on. To be honest, I was more than a little surprised at the food quality, but also very encouraged because there were quite a few other menu items I’m very interested in trying, and now I have the confidence to return and tell the entire staff, one by one, that I truly enjoyed my last visit to Zea.
Five Guys is pretty much a straight rip-off of In-N-Out Burger down to the red and white tile squares and fresh cut fries. They come pretty darn close with the burger, but fall short on everything else. There are no shakes, there’s no drive-thru, their fries don’t even come close to the quality of In-N-Out, but–and it is a huge BUT–there are no In-N-Out Burgers in Baton Rouge or anywhere else in Louisiana which makes my comparison pretty much moot. While Five Guys does make me miss In-N-Out, it fills the ooey-gooey fresh double beef patty burger slot well. There are so many good burgers all over town now that you can find one to fit your every mood. There are some I definitely still miss. The Library, Hopper’s, Bonaventure’s Landing at False River, and of course the one that all of us who knew it mourn daily, The Rail Burger at The Brass Rail on Highland. We don’t get to go back there, we don’t get to be sixteen again, and the closest In-N-Out is in Dallas.
Five Guys is very clean. The staff is very nice and turn your ticket really fast. They have free peanuts to snack on while you wait (remind anyone else of Ground Pati?) and even though they don’t offer shakes, they do have those movie house coke machines that let you dial up every soda Coca-cola makes.
And here’s the shot you’ve been waiting for: Up close and personal with a Five Guys cheeseburger.
For me the greatest shortcoming of Five Guys is that they only offer griddled onions to add to the burger, and I always order extra raw onion, even on the occasional Whopper. I need raw onion, but even without it, this is a damn good hamburger, just not the best in their class. They do try hard though. This message board for kids and anyone else to leave a note is a very nice touch.
Can’t get much more old school than a ham and cheese and a hot or mild sausage poboy on the menu. Poor Boy Lloyd’s has been downtown forever, and they pride themselves on doing everything the old way. There’s a cashier booth at the front with lottery tickets for sale along with candy and gum and you can walk up and tell them what you had and they will ring you up right there if your waitress is too swamped to get you your ticket in a timely fashion. They offer breakfast and the usual plate lunches with a lot of fried seafood dishes thrown in, but they are first and foremost about their sandwiches and poboys. I got the mild smoked sausage poboy because they’re not that easy to find anymore. Really good. And since I had the chance to get a side of rice and gravy, I got that instead of fries or onion rings. Good debris gravy, so I’m pretty sure their roast beef poboy rocks too. I’m about to go on a meatball poboy tear, so I think I’ll throw these guys on the list along with Rocca’s, Po-boy Express, and Anthony’s Deli. Maybe Phil’s Seafood as well since they do more than just talk a good Italian game. Coming soon.
Started the night with a happy hour Envie and cheese curds at Overpass Merchant. Really enjoy talking shop with the bar staff there. We share where we’ve been and where we’re going and what we think would or wouldn’t work in BR. I floated my idea of a Spanish place with lots of local seafood tapas and five different house sangrias and while they all agree it would be fun and people would go there, none of us thought it likely to happen. We were all excited for the upcoming opening of Bumsteers on Perkins where Crispy Catch was after Kean’s Dry Cleaning bugged out.
I really love the cheese curds at Merchant. They are flash fried with a crispy light batter that just warms the cheese through without turning it into dairy napalm. Said bye to everyone and caught an Uber downtown to Bengal Tap Room to continue the celebration of the end of the work week.
The tap room is a good place to aim your Uber downtown because they have a great draft lineup and are just enough outside the traffic snarl of downtown events to get you out of your Uber and on the streets as quick as possible. Don’t get me wrong, I really get into talking with Uber drivers and seeing how they’re doing and all. It’s funny, but the short window of an Uber ride seems to free up the conversation. Kind of like speed dating, but without even that much commitment. After a pint of Jucifer I headed down 3rd to Galvez Plaza to check out the Chris LeBlanc Band.
That’s an old friend from the service industry on drums, Joey Breland. The band rocked it, and it was a beautiful evening. I don’t know who came up with the Live After Five concept, I know I went to my first one down in Lafayette, but it is a very satisfying event. To see so many people outside, putting their cares aside, groovin’ to the music with a beer in hand and Jambalaya by Shake in their belly is just a good thing. The other thing about Live After Five is seeing all the kids playing on their phones, and in the little playground they set up behind the stage, and all the dogs and all the kids playing with the dogs. Not something you normally encounter watching live music indoors at a bar. And maybe that is the key to a festival atmosphere, whether it’s a state fair or a company crawfish boil, but events with all generations in attendance just seem to be a much fuller experience. Alas, it was over too soon so I headed back down 3rd to The Gregory in The Watermark Hotel.
Normally I don’t lead with a bathroom shot, but this is another instance of someone dropping some pretty serious coin to make you feel better about being in their place. Normal practice for upper end hotels, but so much more effective than billboards in my opinion. When you are trying to build clientele, I would think at a certain point you would turn most of your advertising budget to retention. Just seems like so much more bang for your buck, but that is just my opinion. The Gregory has all the upscale trappings, but since it’s a hotel bar, there’s no real dress code. Festival gear is fine at the bar. I got into another good conversation with a guy from New York passing through on business. We talked about Tiger in the Masters and I pointed him towards Soji and Elsie’s as great new Baton Rouge restaurants. We talked a bit about the different regional cuisines in the US. I had a conversation with the barkeep as well about Carmo on Julia Street in New Orleans where they don’t use simple syrup at all in their mojitos and she assured me she didn’t like overly sweet drinks either then served up this beauty.
The Watermark also has some very interesting art and a wine room that would probably be a great place for a rehearsal dinner if you know anyone that’s getting married anytime soon. It seems like it would also be a great place for the wedding party for an interstate marriage since there are so many churches downtown and both Capitol buildings, and the river is right there in walking distance which is very convenient for folks flying in from out of state.
I felt like I had one more stop left in me before I was done for the evening so I wandered over to Cocha on 6th St for another Envie and a late snack of Thai Curried Mussels made with “leek, fennel, lager, red curry, and coconut milk” and they were quite delicious.
The owner Enrique was at the bar since it wasn’t a very busy night due to Live After Five complicating traffic and pretty much keeping his clientele away. We talked about the underrated influence of Spanish cuisine on Louisiana culture and together sketched an idea for a jambalaya that would move closer to its paella roots. Maybe ham and shrimp and pork belly with a saffron base that was cooked much quicker than our jambalaya. You have to think that the original Cajun jambalaya was a slow cook because it was probably a way to use and stretch the old hens that had quit laying as well as the tougher meats of whatever else was available like squirrel and rabbit all of which do best low and slow. The Creole tomato based version is a lot closer to the Spanish paella than the country style. Enrique wanted to know how I knew about Cocha and I gave all the credit to a pair of sisters I know and love who stay gluten free and love Cocha not just because the food is very tasty, but also because it is mostly organic and locally sourced and dishes that are vegan and gluten free are easily identified on the menu. And of course it has become a place for me because they have original art and host poetry readings and art shows and I really enjoy having all the things I like under one roof.
