Visiting family over the holidays I had a chance to try a few places that have opened since we moved away.

Ruffinos - I tried to approach this with an open mind given that many folks on this board really like this place. I didn't really care for it. I found it to be pretty consistent with the heavy hand across the menu. I had the appetizer sampler, which I thought was really good and had me optimistic about the rest of the meal. The crabmeat cheesecake was something I thought had a high potential to be just awful, but I really liked it and thought it well done. Good texture, not too heavy, and tasty. The BBQ shrimp was also very good and executed well, as was the arancine, which was fried properly and had a moist hot interior. The pork cheeks were tender, but I found the sauce to be too reminiscent of barbecue sauce with a cloying sweetness. I ordered the veal parm as an entrée and did so for two reasons. First it's a red sauce Italian classic and I wanted to see how they did with a staple like that, and two, there wasn't a lot on the menu that appealed to me. I thought most of it was pretty typical of restaurants in the area with a lot of really heavy dishes like pasta alfredos with cream, proteins topped with crab meat, etc, and I really don't like that stuff. I didn't think the veal parm was particularly well executed. It was served on the pasta, which I don't like as it tends to steam the veal and makes it soggy. It did just that and the breading slid right off with the first cut. The flavor was good, though I did think the sauce was again too sweet. I drank a bottle of Montelena Chard with the meal, which was solid and fairly priced off the list.

Dark Roux - I had breakfast here Saturday and I was really impressed with this place. Things I think are important in a successful dining experience: a well designed and interesting menu, execution of that menu, service. I thought the menu was ambitious, with interesting twists on classic dishes. My experience in Lafayette is that a lot of the restaurants opened in recent years have ambitious menus, but fall down on the execution. This one had a lot of variety, which made me a little skeptical that they would deliver given that it's a small place with a small kitchen, and I think it's difficult to do a lot of things really well consistently. We started with coffee and beignets. The coffee was strong and good, the beignets were unusual in that they were really light and the inside was almost like a custard, really nice. I had a cochon de lait benedict, with pulled pork, candied greens, and bernaise, served on a home made biscuit. It was all great. The pork was tender, the greens added a little sweetness, the bernaise was spot on, and the biscuit was great. A nice southern interpretation of a classic dish well executed. My wife had a chicken and biscuit: fried chicken on a biscuit with gravy and a fried egg. Again, everything was executed at a high level. This was just one meal, but I hope these guys can maintain this level of quality going forward and I hope to eat there again next time I am in town.

One of my benchmarks for a restaurant is: would I seek this place out if it were in another city, say Houston, NY, SF, etc. I wouldn't go to Ruffinos again but I would seek out Dark Roux.