First off, I apologize in advance if there is already a thread like this out there.

The wife and I frequent a restaurant that I would consider a hidden gem or off the beaten path, because it's not very often we talk to friends or family from the GBR area who are familiar with this place. This gave me the idea to start a thread asking what other hidden gems might be out there around BR and the surrounding parishes/cities. I'll start off by contributing a couple of my recommendations.

Grapevine Café and Gallery in Downtown Donaldsonville

LINK

We have come to love this place and I consider it a hidden gem, because we rarely encounter any of our friends/family from the GBR area who have heard of the place. We have taken many friends and family there over the past few years and everyone always seems to enjoy it.

I would consider it primarily a seafood restaurant, but I find many of their menu items to be more unique than things you would find at every other seafood restaurant in the area.

We typically like to go on Friday nights as they usually always have live music (weekend nights typically require reservations if you want to be sat quickly). The service, food, atmosphere, and music are always top notch. I think it is an excellent "date night" spot to bring the girlfriend or wife, if she is unfamiliar with the place then you are sure to score some extra brownie points. As for the attire, I'd recommend jeans and a collared shirt (short or long sleeve) and for the ladies...my wife usually wears a casual dress.

Our Favorite Menu Recommendations:

Appetizer: Crawfish Cornbread (Cornbread with crawfish etouffee

Side Salad: Their house side salad comes with Parmesan Peppercorn dressing and is the shite!

Entrees:

My favorite is the Crawfish Stuffed Chicken Breast...it's basically two chicken breasts with crawfish dressing sandwiched between them, and the whole shebang is cover with crawfish etouffee.

My wife's favorite is a toss up between the Oven Roasted Duckling with the cane syrup pepper jelly or the Pork Tenderloin Ribeye topped with bourbon pepper jelly.

Dessert: Can't go wrong with the White Chocolate Bread Pudding

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Posted by Mark Makers

The LP

Member since Jul 2015

2336 posts

Posted on 8/25/15 at 4:06 pm to Mark Makers

A second place I'd recommend is where we consider the best burgers in Ascension Parish, and probably ranking up there with some of the top burgers in GBR area.

My recommendation is solely for the food, as the service can be very hit or miss and I find that many times they are just simply under staffed.

Pelican Landing Grill in Gonzales, LA on HWY 44 near pelican point.

The place used to be called Pelican Landing Seafood, and in my opinion the seafood wasn't very good. Turns out, the recently renamed/rebranded the place to Pelican Landing Grill and have added numerous burger selections to their menu. Apparently we weren't the only ones who thought their burgers were better than their seafood.

I won't go into as much detail on this one. The place is pretty casual, shorts are fine. Pass on the seafood, order the burgers. Don't expect amazing service. Call in your order to-go if you don't want to risk the hit or miss service.

This post was edited on 8/25/15 at 7:21 pm

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Posted by REG861