Cafe Reconcile V. Liberty's Kitchen

For my newest OffBeat article, Good Deed on a Dime at Liberty’s Kitchen and Cafe Reconcile, I decided to have a philanthropic twist in honor of the recent Jewish Holiday: Yom Kippur, aka the day of repentence dun dun dun.... So of course in my very own heretical fashion, I found a way to do a good deed by eating unkosher food!

Above is a gorgeous photo of a fried crawfish remoulade salad from Cafe Reconcile, restaurant pictured below.

The food is really fabulous here, but my favorite part about the restaurant is that we share the same tag line!! I knew "Feed Your Soul" was a good one.

One of my favorite reconcile dishes is their boneless fried chicken, to find out more about it check out Good Deed on a Dime at Liberty’s Kitchen and Cafe Reconcile.

cfe Reconcile sure kicks butt when it comes to good old fashioned soul food, but when it comes to salads, Liberty's Kitchen absolutely comes in first.

To find out more about this awesome salad read

Good Deed on a Dime at Liberty’s Kitchen and Cafe Reconcile!

Bon Appetite!

Brigtsen's

For years, this has been one of my family's favorite restaurants. In fact, it may be my entire family's number 1 in New Orleans. We first came to this adorable converted shotgun almost 5 years ago, on a trip to check out Tulane. My dad had heard from his friends who were from here that it was no doubt the place to go. When I first entered this warm and cozy restaurant I knew it was our style. Great (fancy) food, with a relaxed atmosphere, and friendly service, not something you find everyday back home in Vegas.

Their menu is pretty consistent, which would probably get old if I went there more than once a year. But my annual meal at Brigtsens is always divine. This year I unfortunately was extremely sick on the night of my graduation, when we came to Brigtsens and could barely taste my food. But I did take lots of photographs as usual, and each dish got rave reviews from everyone at the table.

I ordered the seafood platter seen above. As you can see, there were a million things to try on that tiny little plate. Even with my stuffy nose I did manage to still taste the incredible jalapeno and crawfish corn bread and stuffed crab. The plate also came along with baked oysters, redfish topped with crawfish tails, and coleslaw topped with shrimp. Not to mention the crawfish garnish. This is definitely a great dish to get if you're not from here and want to try a little bit of everything... or if like me, you just love seafood and have food ADD. My parents got their usual tuna steak with incredible mashed potatoes and sauteed veggies and Eric got the speckled trout topped with hollandaise. Everyone was mesmerized by the flavors and aroma of their food, except me of course who spent most of my time trying to discreetly blow my nose in one of the nicest restaurants in the city.

There is one thing that is disappointing about Brigtsen's though, the Pecan Pie. Ordinarily I would think it's good, not great, but still a yummy after dinner sweet, but my expectations were set too high when I heard it was featured on a Food Network TV show called Best Thing I Ever Had. This disappoints me greatly because it is literally steps away from the BEST pecan pie in the city, Camellia Grill of course! There pie is tastier to start off, but they really drive it home when they butter it and put it on the grill, which is really the only way to order it (and a la mode of course). Brennan's does have a close second, that is served hot and nice and gooey as well, but I actually like Camellia Grill's food better than the infamous Brennan's.... but that's a story for another time.

So the next time you want to treat yourself to a fancy, romantic dinner at a friendly place go uptown to Brigtsen's and then get dessert down the street!

Crawfish Season!!!!

It's crawfish season!!!!! After months of waiting for this day to come it's finally here! I spent three years living in Louisiana smelling the ever alluring scent of spicy crawfish boils and not being able to try these tiny little "mud bugs."

Until June I kept kosher, was a vegetarian, and believed I was allergic to shellfish (due to a clear misdiagnosis from an allergist that most likely was in cahoots with all the people trying to stop me from running away from the tribe).

However, after living in Ghana for 5 months I accidentally ingested a number of unkosher nonvegetarian things, including dehydrated shrimp in shitto, the hot sauce there. To my amazement I was fine! No hives or anaphylactic shock, no need for an epi-pen or an ambulance (which is good because they don't have those there).

So of course when I came back and abandoned all my dietary restrictions I was pumped to finally try crawfish. But low and behold the BP oil spill screwed me again. Along with the oysters, and a million other sea creatures, the crawfish were dying off at epic proportions and the mutants that survived were in no shape to be eaten. So alas, the only creepy crawly buggers I ate were the pre-peeled (probably frozen) variety in pasta at various restaurants around the city.

Even though I missed the whole fun of peeling the crawfish and sucking out the head (the juiciest, saltiest, fattiest part), I still was very impressed by how flavorful this tiny little bit of meat was.

So now, after 7 months of waiting my time has come. I finally got my hands on some freshly boiled bright red crawdaddys and learned how to properly peel it, suck it (or scoop it), and toss it. These fine fritters came from Big Fisherman Seafood, a whole in the wall just across from the Bulldog, a lovely bar with an outdoor patio (which features a beer tap fountain and a fire pit!).

Along with the crawfish, we got some mouthwatering succulent shrimp, as well as corn and potatoes which are customarily boiled along with the crawfish. As someone who loves seafood and shellfish this may be my new favorite way to eat these delectable bite sized buddies. If you like spicy food, this will blow your mind.

Shockingly, it is actually the potatoes and corn that get the spiciest. But a nice cold Abita Strawberry is all you need to cut the sting and enjoy the flavor. Beautiful.