I've wanted to return to Brigtsen's for some time and finally made it. Glad I did.

I follow Chef Frank on Facebook and he's been posting some good looking foods. Additionally, I really enjoyed everything he posted about his relationship with Paul Prudhomme following PP's passing.

We arrived for our reservation and we were greeted warmly by Frank's wife, Marna, who showed us to our table. One of the long time waitresses took our drink orders and those were delivered right away and quite good.

The menu for the night was very good.

Chef Frank had been posting some crawfish dishes lately which are not usually what I order in restaurants other than a stuffed head crawfish bisque if I know it's good. However, this year, I've had hankerings for good crawfish dishes, for some reason. I was in a great debate over the crawfish bisque with boulettes or the crawfish etouffee with savory black pepper and basil shortbread. Another diner got the bisque, so I knew I'd get a few bites. I went with the etouffee because the photographs I'd seen of it showed such a deep rich color which said "deep rich flavor" to me. It lived up to the pic. It was delicious. I loved the contrast of the etouffee to the shortcake. It was much preferable to rice for Chef Frank's version. Such a strong rich sauce with plenty of perfect crawfish tails.
(My pics do not do the food justice. They were pretty bad.)

Lucky for me, I got a boulette and was able to taste the bisque, which the waitress described as "a labor of love" which was evident in the flavor. If you find out he's serving this, go forth and eat. It's a pureed version, but with a roux based flavor, whole tails and boulettes. The best of all worlds. Deep and rich and wonderful.

Other starters were the bbq shrimp with shrimp calas...excellent...and house salad with cane vinegar dressing.

(no salad pic)

I usually get the "shell beach diet" with his Chef Frank's version of a seafood platter, but with nothing fried. The version served that night looked so darn good, but I was swayed by fresh flounder meuniere. I convinced myself to go different. It was delicious. Again, there was a sauce which was deeply flavored and rich. Sides were mashed potatoes and green beans, but I couldn't do anything with those as the fish was generous and I didn't want to miss a bite. I hadn't had a meuniere in so long and it was just time. It was topped with shrimp.

The shell beach diet proved not to disappoint. I particularly like the crawfish bread served in the ramekin. It's sort of like spoon bread, but not. I've had that before. You can see the rest of the dishes on the platter on the menu I posted. Deelicious stuff.

Other entress were the veal parmesan with spaghetti bordelaise and the wonderful and generous app of shrimp con queso with chipotle grits cake and shrimp queso croquette. I tasted the latter and it was outstanding.

We shared the excellent and addicting pecan pie which is among the best, and the banana bread pudding, always good.

Service was excellent, drinks were great and Chef Frank stopped by the table for a nice chat with a few stories. Great evening. I will return.