re: On my way to Beausoliel REVIEW ADDED

It was really good. We had never been before and will definitely be back. Took a lot of advice from Schwartz's review.

My husband loves a good Old Fashioned and really enjoyed the two he had. I had the blueberry lemon drop cocktail and it was wonderful. They are not stingy with the liquor either. Excellent cocktails.

Hubs wanted turtle soup, but they were out of it "for the next couple of days", so he got the grilled shrimp over goat cheese grits cake with andouille gravy. He loved it. I tasted it, and the gravy was excellent. I got the beet salad because I adore beets. It was not a disappointment. Beets and goat cheese are a natural, and a nest of watercress on the top was a good choice of greens. I only saw three fried capers in the salad, but that was ok. The walnuts and walnut vinaigrette complemented the whole thing well. It was a huge portion, and I could not eat it all.

For my entree I was going to get the pork cheek/pork belly dish. They were out of pork cheeks. I got sauteed speckled trout over blue crab and squash hash with brown butter vinaigrette. I love brown butter sauces, so was very pleased with that. The trout was well cooked, and there was a good bit of crab in the hash. I expected the hash to be cubed bits of squash, but it was kind of "shoestring" instead. Not a problem, just a different texture than I expected.

My husband got seared scallops on chorizo risotto with chili butter. He was pretty interested to see how that turned out, as he loves scallops and chorizo separately. He was a bit concerned that the chorizo would overpower the scallop, and said that it did somewhat, but he enjoyed the dish.

He got the white chocolate bread pudding with butter pecan ice cream. Loved it. They do the bread pudding in a large muffin tin or popover pan, so there was a lot of "crust" which he prefers to a softer pudding. He said the ice cream was excellent with it. I had the chocolate pots de creme. Very chocolaty, very rich, good-sized portion. Tasted just like my mom's homemade chocolate pudding, which can't ever be bad. YUM!

We were very pleased with the food, the environs, and the service. The cracklings were a nice touch. There was a tv playing fairly quietly in the bar (with the highly venerated LSU game on), but it did not interfere with the dining experience. The portions were not huge (except the salad). My husband had three scallops. However, we were both satisfied without being miserably stuffed.

I was bemused not to be able to get two out of the six items we ordered, and heard the waitress tell the party at the next table that she could not get them a mint julep because they were out of mint. However, I understand when offering some choices which may be a bit unusual, i.e., not dumped from a Sysco bag, they may not always be available.

I will go back to try the pork belly.