re: NOLA Restaurant and Bar scene: What is missing?

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Tonight @ 630?

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See ya there!

I've lived in New Orleans for a little over a year. I love it here, and I respect a place that has its own homegrown culture far above places made up solely of transplantations from other cultures.

Nevertheless, New Orleans has quite a few culinary blind-spots.

MEXICAN, at every level. The taquerias here are depressing, usually central Americans (Salvadorans, Hondurans, et al.) peddling their tell-tale pupusas under the cover of their sad simulations of real Mexican food. Even the "Mexican" groceries around the metro area are really for central American constituencies. No offense to central America, but those countries are primitive culinary backwaters compared with every region of Mexico - and very unlike all of Mexico, with the modest exception of Yucatan. (Even so, Yucatecan cuisine is light-years more complex and interesting than anything in central America.)

I confess I haven't been to the promisingly named Taqueria Guerrero - but really, if there were a genuine market for high-quality, authentic Mexican food in New Orleans, wouldn't there be more than one restaurant addressing that market? So I'm inclined to assume that New Orleans would either have quite a few good Mexican places, or none at all - not one and only one.

I dream of true carnitas, true al pastor, true lengua, true barbacoa, true sesina, pinto beans cooked in lard, horchata - hell, even a carne asada that tastes right. Of a place that would look at you funny if you asked for your tacos on flour tortillas. A place that never heard of burritos (unless its a northern Mexican place - in which they wouldn't have heard of masa). A DF-style place that only serves tortas. A Baja place with great fish tacos. Or even just some meats and salsas that don't taste overwhelmingly of cumin (i.e. the Old El Paso approach to "Mexican" gastronomy).

Then, if New Orleans ever gets places like that, THEN I'll start dreaming of places like Rick Bayless's Frontera Grill and Topolobampo in Chicago, serving authentic versions of and/or creative takes on high-end Mexican regional cuisine. Someday ...

CHINESE. The king of world cuisines doesn't seem interested in the Crescent City. To the best of my knowledge there are no dim-sum houses in town, which means that there is not an economic number of Chinese/Chinese-Americans here, which means there is no true Chinese food here. Please note: if a restaurant serves Crab Rangoon, it is not Chinese and not capable of serving true Chinese food. At a minimum we need a Cantonese place doing things like clams/oysters/shrimp/crawfish/crabs in black bean sauce; roasted duck; lettuce in oyster sauce; pea shoots with garlic; etc. Plus a Sichuan place that does true hotpot. Those would be a nice start.

JAPANESE. So many Japanese restaurants here are at such pains to explain that most of their sushi uses cooked fish, that I am convinced, to my astonishment, that there is not an economic number of raw-fish-eaters in New Orleans to support great sushi. True, there is lots of great Japanese food that isn't sushi; but since "Japanese food = sushi" is so ingrained in the minds of most Americans, I believe only New York and the cities of the west coast can sustain good sushi-free Japanese restaurants.

PIZZA. The pizza here is terrible, guys. Whatever yeasts in this geographic region make such great po-boy bread must screw up pizza dough. Haven't had Domenica yet, but Ancora is amateurish - a crust with no flavor, and so afraid of overbaking (rookie mistake) that they underbake (sophomore mistake). Even worse, they are so proud of their underbaking that they try to intimidate you into thinking Neapolitan pizza is supposed to be that way. Pizza Delicious is good, I enjoy it, and it might even stay in business on Staten Island. The other four boroughs? Forgetaboutit.

BARBECUE. I don't even admire Memphis barbecue. So I'll offer no further comment on the 'cue here.

GREEK. Quite a bit different from, and (IMO) considerably better than the Lebanese/Palenstinian hybrid known as "Middle Eastern" cuisine in America. How often I yearn for some taramasalta, melitzanosalata, avgolemono soup, paper-thin discs of fried zucchini, grilled baby octopus, roasted leg of lamb, such as we used to get at Greek Islands on South Halsted St in Chicago's Greektown ... all washed down with rustic Naousa wine and a shot or two of ouzo ....

Man, frick Veterans on Friday afternoon.

Really solid brewpub would be nice. Do we have a really good Irish pub? With a solid food menu? I heard Tracey's had meh food. That would be nice.

ETA no disrespect but you've gotta be a TulaneLSU alter

Irish house has good food, only draw back is it is Irish food. Sort of a limitation of the style.

Go to Jung's and order off the Yellow Menu. Its pretty bad arse Chinese

Also Panda King on the westbank (next to Hong Kong Market) does dim sum as does place on Veterans.

Sounds like you havent really been digging into the food scene here. I do agree about Greek food, however. But mainly this is a question about immigrants and the last great immigrant wave New Orleans received was Vietnamese in the 70s. There was a minor blip of Latin Americans post storm. But most of who stayed behind are, as you correctly pointed out, Central Americans and not Mexicans.

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Dont forget part of the reason we dont have places with a river view is that the river is actually above us.

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I've heard the word roof top deck mentioned in the next NOLA brewery expansion. Really not sure what you will see besides industrial stuff.

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Faces north you will get a nice view of treetops over the garden district. Not a terrible view at all.

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It's faces the river bro. Harmony St Wharf

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Quantity does not equal quality. Plus I can imagine the clientel isn't really my type. Seems very Walk On's-ish.

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I mean what do you want when you're going to a bar to watch a game? Walk On's is a great place to go get drunk and watch a football game.

Thread of the frickin week and I miss it!!


I think all bars should be required to put in garage style doors that can be opened on a pretty day.