NEW ORLEANS BAR AND GRILL

Welcome to New Orleans!  No, we're not in Louisiana.  We're actually at 4312 Big Tree Way in Greensboro.  Big Tree Way is near the intersection of Wendover (Magic Motor Mile) and I-40 .

This is New Orleans Bar and Grill.  Click here to see the dinner menu.

We had to try NOB&G for two reasons: 1) I had a discount coupon and 2) I used to live in Louisiana in Baton Rouge.  Baton Rouge is an hour north of New Orleans.  I loved the food in Louisiana.  I was hoping for something impressive from NOB&G.

I know the places looks a tad gaudy with the purple and yellow (gold) colors.  But, purple and yellow are traditional colors in Louisiana, especially in Baton Rouge.  Purple and yellow are the colors of the state university.  

New Orleans-style decorations were displayed throughout the restaurant.

We were seated in a vacant section of the restaurant.  There was no one in the entire room except for the restaurant staff passing through to the kitchen.  It was lot like dining at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

Actually there were very few people anywhere in the restaurant.  It was a rainy Sunday evening, so I'm not sure if this is normal.  Normal or not, I loved it.  Debbie and I could have a conversation without me constantly saying "Huh?"  I don't hear very well in noisy situations.

There was a little distant noise leaking into our space from the bar area and the staff danced on the border of excessive politeness.  Everybody on the staff had to say hello, nod, and smile as they passed by.  They were nice people, but I don't work and play well with others.

The restaurant music was 99% blues, which is what Debbie always listens to on her 500 channel satellite radio in her car.  Very nice.

This is Debbie's Caesar salad with bread on the right.  I had a house salad.  There is nothing remarkable to say about the salads or the bread.  Well, actually the bread was remarkable...it was tasteless, a very poor representation of bread served in the real New Orleans.  Po' Boys and Muffaletta buns are extraordinary.  You go to a restaurant in New Orleans in anticipation of what bread will be served.  Don't go to NOB&G anticipating the bread or the salads.  As far as I am concerned, NOB&G could have kept the salad and the bread and maybe bumped up the appetizer just a tad

Here is our appetizer.  It tastes like chicken!  No, it doesn't.

It tastes like alligator because it is alligator.  The fried gator was served on a bed of cajun seasoned french fries.  The sauce on the left is remoulade sauce for the alligator and on the right is ketchup for the fries.  Remoulade is a mayonnaise-like sauce with herbs and spice that's used frequently in New Orleans.  It's especially delicious on fried foods and with crab cakes.  You probably know what ketchup is and what it's good for.

The gator was pretty tasty, but having the basket also stuffed with fries was a disappointment. Paying $14 for half french fries was a tad discouraging.

Debbie and I both ordered Crawfish Etouffee.  We usually order different items to try a variety, but this time we were both set on Etouffee.

Etouffee is a sauce of butter, onions, peppers, celery, and garlic.  Think of it as a very peppery stew.  That's a clump of rice in the center of the bowl. 

I often add hot sauce to my Etouffee.  You don't need hot sauce on your Etouffee at the New Orleans Bar and Grill.  This is a spicy dish without the addition of any hot sauce.

Of course there were crawfish in the dish.  The crawfish were small, not big and meaty like what you expect when you eat the dish in Louisiana.  Louisiana crawfish can border on lobster size.

If you've never tasted crawfish, this is a good way to try crawfish.  Crawfish doesn't taste like chicken either.  It tastes like crawfish.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but I'm not John Batchelor writing about salmon belly meat in the Greensboro News & Record.

Neither Debbie nor I could finish our Crawfish Etouffee.  The portions were quite large.  Our two leftovers were enough to take home to make another generous serving of Etouffee.

I wonder how Crawfish Etouffee will taste for breakfast.

Here's dessert.  I know it doesn't look like it, but this is New Orleans Bread Pudding.  On the left is whipped cream and on the right is vanilla ice cream.  In the center is two pieces of the actual bread part with chocolate chips.  It's all been drizzled with chocolate syrup and caramel. 

The arrangement worked out pretty well.  Debbie doesn't like ice cream and the bread was easy to divide.  She ate the left side and I ate the right.

After reading the description on the menu, I knew dessert was going to be different.  It was not like any bread pudding I've ever eaten, but it was still very good.  Our dessert plate was clean when we left the restaurant.

We had our dinner with six goldfish and purple and yellow seaweed.

 

This is our dining room, obviously not very crowded.

This is the front dining room, which was packed with three customers.

These are Crawfish, Zatarains, and Alligator and Crocodile posters.  I'm not sure what the little poster at the bottom is,  I didn't look at it.  The entire restaurant was decorated in this sort of stuff.

I later enlarged the photo.  The little poster is a photo of Jackson Square in New Orleans.

For those totally out of touch, Zatarains is a company that makes an assortment of cajun spices.  Look for Zatarains in your grocery store.

By the way, crocodiles are extremely rare, if not non-existent, in Louisiana.  Alligators are the dominant species.

You will recall I mentioned a discount coupon as one of the reasons for trying NOB&G.  It was a $40 Groupon which I purchased for $26 several months ago.  Nowhere in the Groupon ad or on the coupon itself did it mention anything about drinks.  We quickly learned NOB&G has a secret policy that they will only honor a Groupon if it is used to also purchase two non-alcoholic drinks.  You can't order a glass of wine to fulfill the requirement.  You must buy drinks.  The photo above shows how we satisfied the secret requirement...we took home two bottles of Aquafina bottled water at $2 a pop.

Debbie rated NOB&G as a 7.  I gave it a 6.  We both agreed it was not a place we would rush back to.

Total tab for dinner was $70 including the tip.

Here's a tip for you:  All these photos were made on two cell phones.  I didn't use the usual Nikon digital camera.  I did this as a warm-up for an upcoming vacation.  I wanted to know how a cell phone camera would do.  All of the photos were touched up a bit with Paint Shop before publishing.  I used an Apple iPhone 6 and a Samsung Galaxy S7.  Try to tell which photos were made with which cell phone.  There is a definite difference between the cameras.

Click images to enlarge