NOLA = Food Coma! Here’s a few more restaurant data points:
We had dinner at R’evolution ($50 corkage), Root ($25 corkage), and August (free corkage).
R’evolution food and service was top notch. Lots to choose from and maybe too many choices. Highly recommend Death by Gumbo (semi-boneless quail stuffed with andouille, oysters, and rice), beer battered crab beignets, and Espresso-crusted Venison Carpaccio. They make their own salumi which looked great but I didn’t get to try. Fish dishes are spectacular with the exception that the scallops were over-salted. One surprise is that they do not have a tasting menu per se but they are happy to create one for you based on menu selection discussion with server. I thought this was pretty cool. Definitely the meal of the trip.
Root has an interesting menu with 20 charcuterie items and 8 or 9 different sausages besides a regular menu. We did a bunch of the charcuterie and some of our favorites were the Truffle Scented Chicken Liver Parfait, “CBD” Chicken, Beef, Duck-Poached Ballotine, Chocolate Espresso Cured Lamb Lomo, and Szechuan Beef Tendon. They are opening a new place called Square Root soon that will strictly have only a 12 course tasting menu. I’m sure it will be worth checking out.
I was looking forward to August the most and probably my least favorite place of the dinners and lunches we had. The food was good (nothing spectacular) but seemed rushed with almost no break between courses. I can recommend the Trout with Pontchartrain sauce. Other than that the rest of what we had made me think that while all correct, it didn’t leave me wanting to return.
Lunches were at La Petite Grocerie, Bayona, and Herbsaint. All three were excellent and I couldn’t recommend one over another. Maybe Herbsaint gets the edge. Crispy Goat curry with lentils and the spaghetti with egg were so good. Bayona has a three course lunch on Saturdays for $25 labeled a “light lunch” which while not so light it can be a bit of a break and also allows you to eat more oysters before dinner time.
And since we needed more food, we had oysters at Casamentos, ACME, and Royal House. Oysters were pretty similar at all three but the ambience was a bit better at the first two.
