Jeffrey Eats New Orleans! Part II - Capital City Free Press

Volume 7, Issue 3, March 2008

Jeffrey Eats New Orleans!
Part II

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Editor's note: This is the second and last article in a two-part series. If you missed the first part, you can read it here.

Jeffrey Becraft
Staff Writer
Capital City Free Press

By the time day two in New Orleans was rapidly approaching its end, we all had built up quite an appetite and optted for a restaurant that we kept passing called Evelyn’s Place. Actually we had stopped in on our first day to grab a beer and check out the menu, and based on that, we decided that we would have to come back.

This place is real New Orleans, y’all! It has all the charm of an old sailors’ town pub, and the waitress is a hoot. From what I was told by the locals, the owner, an old local man, sits at the bar all day and tells stories. Since we were late eaters that day, we missed all that fun. Anyway, it’s great. They have a fairly limited menu consisting of red beans and rice, gumbo, and a selection of hot sandwiches which includes corned beef, baked ham or baked ham and swiss, tuna or egg salad and a classic muffaletta. All the sandwiches are served with a side of red beans and rice.

Evelyn’s also offers a special of the day which happened to be chicken and andouille sausage jambalaya when we visited. I was really only interested in one thing and that was the muffaletta. Can I say ‘delicious’ any louder? It was only $7.95 and huge. It was full of capicola, salami, mortadella (which is a pork sausage), emmentaler (swiss), and provolone. It also had the signature muffaletta olive tapenade, except Evelyn’s tapenade was very light in comparison to the other muffys I’ve eaten. As a matter of fact, the muffaletta at Evelyn’s was far less greasy than the muffaletta I ate at LaBayou, and since it was about $4 cheaper, it definitely gets my recommendation.

The chicken and sausage jambalaya was $9.95 and was served in a huge bowl with shredded chicken that had been stewed along with the andouille sausage for who knows how long… and that’s a good thing. It was exceptionally good and was such a big serving it could be difficult for some people to finish. If you decide you only want a gigantic bowl of red beans and rice, they’ll be glad to serve it to you for $7.95. Nothing in the place was over $12. It also has a very “Cheers” type of vibe (“where everybody knows your name”), and strangers throughout the place were leaning across each others’ tables making conversation.

If you ever visit New Orleans, Evelyn’s Place is a must-eat; they’re a five strands of the big bead with a little frontal nudity attached kind of establishment. Evelyn’s Place is located at 139 Chartres Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. 504.522.2216.

Day two became somewhat blurry via corn liquor and hand grenades (the drink), so after a long night and about five hours of drunken sleep, we arose at the early hour of 11 am and made an effort to eat sometime just after noon.

We met up with someone we had met the night before and asked him about a place to eat. A local restaurant called Oceana Grill was the place he suggested. Oceana is another historic building where you can be seated on multiple floors. But the experience of eating, or shall I say TRYING to eat at this place, was somewhat of a chore.

We were shoved in the back of a dining room at a makeshift dining table, aka a card table. Since it was busy I let this slide along with the fact that we were sitting in $8 plastic chairs from Wal-Mart. About 15 minutes later we were “greeted” by a sour-faced girl with a bitchy attitude who was practically inaudible. I was hoping she was just taking drink orders, but later found that she was going to attempt to be a waitress that day.

Oceana has a fantastic menu. But apparently they have two of them, the photo-copied paper one they give you at your table and the shiny, pretty to-go menu. Each menu has different prices which they can’t keep straight when it’s time to pay, so beware.

They offer a variety of appetizers like Louisiana crabmeat cakes and oysters on the half shell for $6.50 a dozen on the table menu and $8 dollars a dozen on the to-go menu, but be careful because they charged me $9.50. They specialize in seafood, offering blackened catfish for $17, blackened ahi tuna for $18 and blackened red fish etouffee for $20. Their chef’s specials include redfish “amer,” which is sautéed redfish toped with a crawfish and mushroom cream sauce for $18 and BBQ shrimp for $18.

If you’re craving a sandwich, you can choose from fried catfish, shrimp, oyster, and blackened catfish Po-Boys ranging in price from $10.50 to $13.50, or a Louisiana crab cake burger for $9.50 on the table menu but $13 on the to-go menu.

If you aren’t into seafood, they also offer smoked duck for $21 served with a sauce of the day, and a blackened rib eye for $23.

We ordered the crabmeat cakes, the blackened catfish Po-Boy, seafood gumbo and oysters on the half shell. Oh yeah, and CCFP Publisher Joseph Patton ordered the crab cake burger. The food we received was excellent. The crab cakes were perfectly seasoned. The gumbo was probably the best I’ve ever eaten. The problem with this place is that the food had no rhyme or reason for the way it came out. We first received the gumbo and a blackened catfish Po-Boy. Then about five minutes later I got my oysters. About 10 minutes after that came the crab cakes. Finally about 20 minutes after that, Joseph got his crab cake burger, but by then we were disgusted with our idiot waitress’s service since we were all finished eating and he sent it back.

We asked for our checks only to find the discrepancies throughout the bill. The oysters, crab cake burger, gumbo and Po-Boy were all priced differently from the menu we were seated with. When we asked to speak with a manager we were dealt with like WE were the problem and were only offered a free dessert for our troubles. No thank you. We just wanted to leave at that point... and we did so without delay.

So if you’re in the mood to get treated like shit while eating some tasty stuff, give Oceana Grill a try. I’m not going to bother giving them a bead rating though because they’re a bunch of douche bags. They’re located at 739 Re Conti, New Orleans, Louisiana - 504.525.6002 or visit them on the web at Oceanagrill.com. Maybe you’ll have better luck!

After that we justiably needed drinks, so off to Pat Obrien’s we went. Pat Obrien’s is a must-stop in New Orleans for their famous Hurricanes. They’re fruity and red and only $8 for a big girl sized drink. They also serve food, but we were only interested in the alcohol.