Meeting friends at SoLou tonight (updated with review)

Be prepared to wait an hour or more. Hopefully against the grain for you!

I wasn’t impressed with the hot crab dip or the oyster BLT, but supposedly the alligator hotdog is really good.

I went fairly early in the opening. It might be better now. My BLT only had 3 oysters on it. The hot crab dip was okay, but seemed like it needed Tony’s and Crystal.. which is something I never say. In contrast, the crab au gratin appetizer at Bin77 is fantastic.

I see SoLou has a seafood queso. That might be better.

They think highly of their chargrilled oysters at $13/half dozen

SoLou Review;

We just got back and had a nice time. We split a lot of food and desserts because our friends knew the manager and were excited for us to try different things.

We arrived at 5:00 (which is a very early dinner for us) but glad we did because we were seated right away and the restaurant was already nearly full. When we left around 7:00 there was not a table available and a wait for a table. So good for them because they were jammed pack.

We had a few cocktails and beers. All very good and the cocktails were interesting concoctions and presented nicely. Cool they are doing fun drinks and a nice beer selection as well.

Appetizers we shared the zydeco cauliflower (very good) and the hot crab dip (which was also very good and I thought seasoned well so I was pleased). They also give out complimentary pork rinds and they do them well. It’s “free” but an item they execute properly.

Entrees...I had the softshell crab amandine with brussel sprouts. It was good but a little small. Crab tasted fresh though which was a plus. Wife got the chicken fried chicken which was a very generous portion and she said it was like Canes on crack. She enjoyed it. Other friend got the same and another got a burger with these giant cheese filled tots. They were like giant logs and looked very good.

Desserts we shared bites of the pineapple cobbler, blueberry cheesecake, and the s’mores. Table side s’mores were okay. Marshmallows were a little soft so they wouldn’t stay on the fork as we toasted them. Still were good though. Cobbler was our favorite as it tasted like a pineapple upside down cake but wasn’t overtly sweet either.

And then they brought out complimentary cotton candy, so they give you a complimentary starter and dessert. It’s nice but a little overkill.

In conclusion, we very much enjoyed the food but the menu, to me, is just not that interesting than some of the chef-designed menus at other restaurants in the city. I don’t know when we’ll go back, but we did enjoy our meal and I’m glad to see them doing well.

Loved “the fish in a bag”. Loved the restaurant.

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Service was slow

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I forgot to add this. The service was very slow but our waitress was pleasant and did her best. I think that may have been understaffed because she was working in multiple sections that weren't close to one another.

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Normally, I don’t mind waiting. But the reason why I had to wait? They did not have enough servers.

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While this sucks, I’d rather them do this than seat me anyway and then give terrible service because they’re short staffed. At least this is honest.

We haven’t had issues with the staffing stuff yet, but almost always sit at the bar everywhere we go.