I’m a big fan of lunch specials. Especially lunch specials that evolve over time into a thing. On Fridays, Merchant sets aside the business week plate lunch specials (which are all very good BTW) and set their sights on building the coolest, tastiest, most interesting sandwiches and poboys they can. I’d heard about their Fridays, and set aside a couple of weeks to run it down, but the first Friday I went for the special, it turned out to be their version of corned beef and Swiss on Leidenheimer rye bread when I had just had almost the same exact sandwich at Jed’s Local earlier in the week. I went for the Hot Lonnie instead, one of the many, many chicken sandwiches in Baton Rouge that blows the Popeye’s chicken sandwich out of the water. But since it had been awhile since I’d been to Merchant, I had to suck down some fried cheese curds first. These are amazingly light and do truly seem to melt in your mouth with such a rich flavor profile. Totally umami. The Hot Lonnie is a tea-brined chicken breast, fried crisp and topped with a sunny up fried egg with cheese and bacon to boot.
Finally I was able to get back around on another Friday and check out the fried catfish on a brioche bun they were running dressed with shredded butter lettuce and tomatoes and a wonderful aioli with spice and garlic that they called Hurricane Aioli and it really brought all the elements together and elevated them. I’m pretty sure they compete in that kitchen to see who can come up with the best specials, and they have the confidence to invite other chefs over for pop up parties as well. I’m also certain this fish sandwich ranks among their best efforts. Now I don’t think the photos come close to doing the hand-cut fries justice, but they are very, very good as well. This is one of those places that is good to hit whenever they’re open, brunch, lunch, dinner, late night, but they are really trying hard at Friday lunch to blow you away with their sandwich and poboy specials.
