Was downtown yesterday, so we braved the cold and walked a couple of blocks over to the Commerce Restaurant, located on the corner of Common and Camp. This is one of my favorite CBD places. Quite frankly, as far as I'm concerned, you can forget Mother's if you're looking for a "real" New Orleans lunch place. Come down to places like Commerce, or Mike Serio's on St. Charles. You'll find fewer tourists, more locals, and good food. On to the beans: they were great. The Commerce is staffed by a wonderful group of ladies that feed you like you were by your momma's, with big portions. Commerce uses those three-part plastic plates like they have in school cafeterias; the big section and one of the little ones were filled with beans and rice. The third section was for salad. You get your choice of smoked or hot sausage, chicken breast or a pork chop with your beans. I went with the hot sausage, because that's my favorite po-boy at Commerce. It was a great combination. The beans were nice and creamy (obviously soaked properly), the rice firm, and the sausage hot and tasty. The beans were seasoned with bacon, an interesting flavor twist. The ladies behind the counter at Commerce are great. "You want some bread with that, baby? Butter on it? You want me to heat it up? You go sit down, and we'll get it all together for you and call you." Not a rude word, everyone gets the same attention. True to her word, she put the plate together, heated up some french bread (they have a little oven right there by the sandwich prep area, one of the reasons I love po-boys from Commerce as well), then hollered over the counter when it was all ready. Including my Barq's, lunch was $5 even, rung up on one of those way-old-style cash registers that you have to push down all the keys for the price at the same time to ring up the sale. A couple of notes: Thanks so much to everyone who has written saying they enjoy the reports. Thanks also to those of you who have sent me the "hate mail," saying how much you hate me that I get to eat this food every Monday. :-) I'm looking for suggestions on a rating system for these outings. The obvious choice, a red bean, is the rating system used by the Times-Picayune (the local daily rag), and I don't want anyone to think I'm their food reporter. (I'd like to think I'm a better writer.) Anyway, if you have an idea, please drop me a personal message. Cheers, Ed.
New Orleans, LA