Geraldm wrote: > >>Not to distract from the flame fest, but... >>anyone know of any decent cajun/creole dining in the South Bay area? > > I know of no place and have searched the entire Bay Area. Let me know if > you find anything. I go to New Orleans about once a year for the food, and > that's the best suggestion I can offer. > Well, although it's not in the South Bay (so I didn't mention it in response to the original post), CreoLA in San Carlos is quite a good restaurant; I can't speak to its authenticity, but I've very much enjoyed a couple of visits there. (I think it was first mentioned in this newsgroup by Aahz.) I had been much less satisfied by a couple of places farther south with "Lousiana" in their names. Another place I didn't mention because it didn't seem to fit the atmospheric part of the post: Cajun Kitchen, a hole-in-the-wall in a 7-11 mall along McKee (at White) in San Jose. It's really a take-out place, but has a few tables; the menu is fairly brief, but the food is spicy and good.
San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Cajun cuisine in South Bay
x-no-archive: yes Xref: pale-rider.INS.CWRU.Edu ba.food:34727 Someone wrote: > > >>Not to distract from the flame fest, but... >>anyone know of any decent cajun/creole dining in the South Bay area? > >I know of no place and have searched the entire Bay Area. Let me know if >you find anything. Around here, we're very fond of Nola in Palo Alto.
My fiance and I loved Nola's! I can't say for certain how authentic it is as I've never been to Louisiana, but I can say that the food tasted fantastic and the service was great. I would recommend to make reservations early though. It gets crowded fast! Nikki that B. wrote: >Someone wrote: >> >> >>>Not to distract from the flame fest, but... >>>anyone know of any decent cajun/creole dining in the South Bay area? >> >>I know of no place and have searched the entire Bay Area. Let me know if >>you find anything. > >Around here, we're very fond of Nola in Palo Alto. > >-- >There is room enough for all in the closet of the Lord. >
Someone wrote: > > My fiance and I loved Nola's! I can't say for certain how authentic it > is as I've never been to Louisiana, but I can say that the food tasted > fantastic and the service was great. I would recommend to make > reservations early though. It gets crowded fast! Never been there, but out of curiosity I found a menu on the Web and checked it out. ( http://www.avenir-group.com/nola/03/01/03/index.htm ) It looks potentially tasty, but not terribly "authentic" -- wayyyy too many California/Southwest/"Fusion" nuances to the menu to really be close to anything you'd get in New Orleans. As just one example, take the crab cakes ... with *chipotle fucking aioli*. Take them ... please. OK, I can't resist another example: Alligator Sausage and Crawfish Dumplings ... with "match stick vegetables and a *shiitake-ginger sauce*". Any self-respecting coonass would rightfully turn up their nose at such fare. Which is not to say that it's necessarily *bad*; but if you're looking for cuisine that will *really* take you back to New Orleans, Nola's looks way too foo-foo to qualify -- one sniff of that shit-take ginger sauce and you'll be reminded that yes, you're still in California. Especially since the *real* Clover Grill only charges $4.00 for a hubcap-cooked cheeseburger. Then again, just how "authentic" can one say that the food is at Emeril's or the Palace Cafe? Both are excellent restaurants with roots in traditional New Orleans cooking, but their food reflects some modern influences as well. For instance, the white chocolate bread pudding from Palace Cafe on Canal Street is one of the most incredibly delicious things it's ever been my pleasure to devour. Bread pudding is a typical traditional Southern classic home-cookin' dessert, but the white-chocolate part is definitely a departure from old-school Creole. But picking nits like that is kinda like trying to debate what's real, genuine, certified, according-to-Hoyle "authentic Mexican food", when in reality there are so many styles, and there have been so many influences on the cuisine through the years, that there really is no such thing. Is there a place for shit-take mushrooms or chipotle aioli in Creole cooking? Maybe there is. On the other hand, this *is* California, and you have your choice of what must be at least a thousand other restaurants if you want to eat foo-foo vegetables, wild mushrooms, or a salad. Sometimes you just want a good crawfish etoufee; a decent bowl of gumbo -- with _okra_, not jicama; or a dozen oysters for $7.50 -- and none of those pussy West Coast $16/dozen oysters who look like they started smoking when they hit puberty and stunted their growth, but Big Fucking Meaty Oysters that look like refugees from the Oyster WWF. I haven't found quite that in the Bay Area yet, possibly due to California tastes. A little story to illustrate: Last time I was in New Orleans, my friends stayed at a B'n'B in Algiers whose proprietor cooked incredibly delicious big'ol' Southern breakfasts for them every morning, complete with eggs, grits, and multiple pork products. The proprietor related a story of some previous guests, girls from California and Oregon (vegetarians, natch), who'd passed on her breakfasts and wanted to know where they could get a bran muffins instead. The owner had looked at them with incredulity and asked, "Do you know where you *are*!?!? Did you research this place *at all* before you came out here?!?!" Can't say as I blame her; if it'd been my place I might have put them out on the street. There are a couple places in SF which I've learned to accept as occasional substitutes when I need a fix (sorry, I'm unaware of any places in the South Bay): PJ's Oyster Bed in San Francisco serves very good seafood and a decent bowl of gumbo. However, it's pretty noisy inside, prices are high, it's still West Coast oysters, and I think they try a little too hard to recreate the New Orleans atmosphere and just make you miss the real thing even more. Nearby, Crescent City Cafe on Haight Street also does a decent gumbo and fine po-boys, with much more reasonable prices and the atmosphere of your basic Louisiana formica dive. However, I've had much better jambalaya and etoufee, they drown their side salads in dressing, and the corn bread is mushy. Jessie's on Folsom is supposed to be quite good, but I haven't made my way there yet. Any reports? > Nikki > > that B. wrote: > > >Someone wrote: > >> > >> > >>>Not to distract from the flame fest, but... > >>>anyone know of any decent cajun/creole dining in the South Bay area? > >> > >>I know of no place and have searched the entire Bay Area. Let me know if > >>you find anything. > > > >Around here, we're very fond of Nola in Palo Alto.
Someone wrote: > >Well, although it's not in the South Bay (so I didn't mention it in >response to the original post), CreoLA in San Carlos is quite a good >restaurant; I can't speak to its authenticity, but I've very much >enjoyed a couple of visits there. (I think it was first mentioned in >this newsgroup by Aahz.) I had been much less satisfied by a couple of >places farther south with "Lousiana" in their names. The place inside Magic Edge in MV (off Shoreline) is pretty good; I think it's called Dee's Kitchen or something like that.
Aahz M. wrote: >The place inside Magic Edge in MV (off Shoreline) is pretty good; I >think it's called Dee's Kitchen or something like that. I have the opposite opinion of Dee's. I found it to be totally uninspired food and VERY overpriced. And now that it's moved into Magic Edge, they've even lost their Louisiana/cajun ambiance. I posted about them back before they moved, and have been to the Magic Edge location twice. Here's what i posted the first time, and (except for the service, which is not as good since the move) it all holds true still. --- We ordered a Popcorn Shrimp appetizer, I had the blackened catfish, and my companion had their special Cajun Salad (can't remember the name, something like "Josie's salad"), a couple beers each, and then beignets for dessert. The grand total with tax & tip was $66.00, overpriced in my opinion. Something closer to $50 would have been right. The service was very good, in the sort of jolly Cajun manner. Loved it. The place wasn't so busy, so whenever we needed something they were just a glance or two away. The food sucked, bigtime. Sorry, but there's no two ways about it. The Popcorn shrimp was so caked in a thick (corn?) meal that was *hard* and gritty-crunchy like grape nuts; and it came with a completely uninteresting "cajun" dipping sauce. This dish needs to be spiced up a _LOT_, needs to be more robust/tangy, and the "breading" needs to be made more subtle. The special cajun salad (for around $12) was just made up of lettuce with some cheap condiments added: a handful of plain cocktail shrimp, a handful of plain shredded crab, an egg I believe, and some small olives from a jar. [The salad also included an accidental bit of cardboard, but we didn't eat it] What truly was criminal about this salad wasn't that the incredients came from a can, but that it was just so -plain uninteresting-. For the big $12 "josie's cajun salad" (or whatever it was), we expected something with some...... flavor. This dish needs a zesty sauce, some flavor in the crab, and the shrimp need to be better quality -- not just mushy watery little cocktail shrimp, but something interesting, bigger, firm, and flavorful. Next was the blackened catfish, which was ok to good. It was not spicy enough, by far. Now, this is an issue very dear to me: Blackened catfish in a "down home" _cajun restaurant_ is the one place in the world where a chef has open license to set his patrons on fire. At least, internally. No Cajun restaurant has ever made their name by serving the blandest blackened catfish in town. Sure I could have asked them to dump some extra spices on there, but they need to put some serious heat and flavor into this dish _by default_. If they're really concerned about serving food too spicy for their customers, you have to wonder why they opened a Cajun restaurant. The Jambalaya (which came along with the catfish) was ok, if a bit cold. It was spicy from the ceyenne but did not have flavor otherwise. Honestly, we really, really wanted to like this place. It would have been so cool to have a really good down-home Cajun restaurant so close to home. I'm certain that with some tweaks (especially the ones above: they _really_ need to focus on making the food more flavorful) they could make this into a good place. Allan
NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Nov 1998 01:28:43 GMT X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Xref: alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu ba.food:34771 >> I emailed you off group to say how much I appreciated your post but it >> bounced back as undeliverable. > >Hmmm ... I thought that un-nmunging the address wouldn't be *that* >difficult. But thanks. Sorry. I'm a technoidiot. ant moniker that has been used in the Bay Area. > >> They all seem to fail in any event. > >So there *is* some justice in the world .... >Oh, please .... oh, please .... ohhhhh, pleeeease .... maybe I should >look up his address and beg him to come out; even forward some of the >comments from this thread as proof that the Bay Area's deperate for the >real deal. I encourage you to do so. He'll come for the challenge. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Just wish the Brennans would come. Incidentally, the best Cajun (not Creole) food I've had in the Bay Area is at Bobby's Back Door in Richmond. I go for the music but the food is pretty good. Nothing healthy about it, of course. Regards, Gerald
: It looks potentially tasty, but not terribly "authentic" -- wayyyy too
: many California/Southwest/"Fusion" nuances to the menu to really be
: close to anything you'd get in New Orleans. As just one example, take
: the crab cakes ... with *chipotle fucking aioli*. Take them ... please.
Haven't, unfortunately, made it to New Orleans (yet), but have had
what I think is excellent food in that style (Palace Cafe, Santa Barbara);
thus inspired I've cooked some pretty mean gumbos, jambalayas and
etoufees, with the help of Paul Prudhomme's and Terry Thompson's
cookbooks. It helps to have access to good fresh seafood, including the
same species of oyster that grows wild in Louisiana (from Hog Island
Oyster Co. on Tomales Bay). I have to agree that, compared to several
other species of oyster (especially the succulent Kumamoto), Pacific or
Japanese oysters don't quite match up. However, that's more on the basis
of flavor/texture than size. Pacifics are often just humongous! They are
also very spawny in summer months, and at all times own a slightly muddy
flavor not shared by the Atlantic and Gulf oyster (same species,
Crassostrea virginica, aka American oyster). I had awesome virginica in
Charleston and Key West a couple years back. Frankly, though, I have no
desire for Gulf oysters to be imported to the bay area - too many problems
with human gastric diseases. PJ's has had them from time to time.
Frankly, I'm just lukewarm on PJ's, by the way; the Palace in Santa
Barbara blows it away. Their blackened redfish, gumbo, even the heavily
herbed side veggies are awesome.
About the chipotle aioli - first, I have no belief or concern
about "authenticity," other than tongue-in-cheek - if the chef's
inspiration works, who cares; second, a chipotle aioli isn't really all
that far from a remoulade...or from a French rouille, for that matter.
It's hard to go wrong with homemade garlic mayo, plus some heat from
cayenne and/or hot mustard. Once you dip fries in that (as the French are
inclined to do), it's hard to go back to catsup. But I digress. Happy
Thanksgiving to all!
Will