re: Shaya picture thread

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Runningtiger was right

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That doesn't even work as a joke, brah.

Same here. I feel like you could do the 9 for $21 app deal if you had 4+ people at a table. But for 2 people, that's too much food. I'd end up bringing a lot of it home in a go box.

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Or I wonder if it was so much food that people were all spending $21 total on food.

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Went last Sunday with two other people. If you take the drinks off the bill we spent $30. We got so full on pitas and small plates we never even got to ordering entrees.

But by all means avoid the place

Spoke with Alon when we were there. He said people were filling up on pita and not ordering entrees. Price adjustment is probably to make up for that.

I wouldn't mind if he charged a couple of dollars for the pita. I think I could eat three or four by myself. Had to tell server "no more". They just kept appearing on the table.

Speaking of entrees, has he expanded the entrees to meats cooked in the wood fired oven yet (rather than just the pita)? I'm looking forward to that a lot.

Agree on the apps/pita being seriously filling. We had trouble eating the food that followed, thanks to the delicious bread.

I remember the good old days before it was cool.

Bump for Brett Anderson's NOLA review. 4 Beans.

nola

In Summary:

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Food: Excellent to superior. Chef Alon Shaya honors the food of his native Israel with concise, heartfelt interpretations that deliver the sensation of previously unimagined perfection. If you dismiss what this chef is accomplishing on the grounds that you've seen it all before, you're missing out on some of the most poignantly personal cooking New Orleans currently has to offer.

Ambiance: Very good to excellent. Shaya is elegant in a comfortable, sensible way. At a time when so many new restaurants strive to one-up the next guy with a new extreme of studied dishevelment, there's something radical about a place that appears to have been designed for the explicit purpose of appealing to customers in their 40s.

Service: Excellent to superior. Shaya's staff is quietly efficient. It's sophisticated service inspired by intelligent but simple food.

Best bets: watermelon and Bulgarian feta ($5); snow peas ($5); hummus with soft-cooked egg ($10); hummus with lamb ragu ($14); avocado toast with smoked white fish ($14); crispy cheese with chanterelle ($20); Persian rice ($10); roasted chicken ($24); labneh cheesecake ($9)

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At a time when so many new restaurants strive to one-up the next guy with a new extreme of studied dishevelment, there's something radical about a place that appears to have been designed for the explicit purpose of appealing to customers in their 40s.

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