Lunch at Acadia

It's kind of funny that after all the years we have lived just up the street, we've only eaten at Acadia once, and that was for brunch with my mom, sister and her family several years ago.  As I recall, we really enjoyed it.  Maybe it's because we cook NOLA food so often ourselves, so when we dine out, we're looking for other flavors and foods.  The exception to that is EaT: An Oyster Bar, but we're primarily drawn there by their large and impeccable offering of raw oysters.   Sad to say, we've been disappointed by both the quality and service the last couple of times we've been there, so that's fallen out of favor.

Naturally, since there are several of the same items on their menu as I'm planning on mine,  we needed to sample them ourselves.  So today, we had lunch there (they only serve lunch on Wednesdays).   I went in with trepidation.  Acadia currently has 4.5 stars on Yelp, Urban Spoon, and Trip Advisor, and I've only heard positive things about them.  Since we went in specifically to be critical and to compare it to the food I will be cooking, we nitpicked everything.  If we'd gone in for a meal without that context, we would have approached it very differently.  We'd have been overjoyed to find a Louisiana soft shell crab on the menu, especially at such a reasonable price, for example.  So, keep that in mind if this analysis seems unduly harsh.

I won't go into things like the atmosphere, service, etc.  Suffice to say, very nice, nothing like a cart.

Mario and I were excited that they have soft shell crab on the menu, shipped directly from Louisiana according to our waitress.  Rachel had the shrimp.  All came with a cup of red beans and rice and some really perky house made pickles on the side.  We also ordered their sampler of their gumbo, jambalaya and red beans and rice--lots of red beans on the table, but really wanted to taste the other two.  We skipped the oyster poor boy since Acadia uses northwest oysters and I'm planning to use gulf oysters.  We've made oyster poor boys with local oysters many times.  They're good, but there is a mineral flavor that you don't get with gulf blue points used in NOLA.  This is not a dig on local oysters!  In our opinion, they are far superior in every other way--especially eaten on the half shell--briny, complex, varied by type and location.  Ready to get to our assessment?  Here we go:

First the sandwiches.   Generous size, estimate 9 inches.  Bread is very close to what we're hoping to find, not quite crisp enough, and still a bit denser than we think it should be.  The crab on each of our sandwiches was large and nicely cooked.  Things I would do different:  Even though the crab was a good size, it wasn't big enough for the size of the bread.  I would rather have the bread cut to size so you don't have bread without crab.   More importantly, Mario and I both felt that the jalapeno tartar sauce overwhelmed the subtle flavor of the crab.  I think this is particularly a sandwich where you should stick to mayo.  I ended up eating the crab without the sandwich.  I think fried seafood poor boys of all kinds should be accompanied by a wedge of lemon. That is a key part of the flavor profile for me, as is a few drops of Tabasco.  (BTW, I'm going to feature a range of Louisiana hot sauces in addition to Tabasco for customers to choose from or skip).

We liked the shrimp poor boy much better.  Nice crisp light coating as it should be, dressed with a very tasty remoulade sauce, we all liked it.  Things I would change: make the remoulade optional (with mayo as the baseline), and include more shrimp. The cost of wild gulf shrimp is going to be challenging, but using them is an absolute requirement for my menu, until customers convince me that the price / value ratio is out of whack.  Then I might have to pull it off.  Won't use farmed shrimp.

The red beans and rice disappointed--to our taste it was one note and that note was thyme.  Even though if I was going to be stranded on a desert island with one herb, I would choose thyme,  it was too much.  I make a (Mario's edit: MUCH) better pot of beans.

Difficult to fairly assess the seafood gumbo since we had a cup sized portion.   According to the menu it contains blue crab, andouille, crawfish tails, shrimp and okra.  Our portion had two small shrimp, an oyster and one slice of andouille.   Things I would do differently if and when I include seafood gumbo on the menu:  In Louise's seafood gumbo, she uses okra as a base that provides both body and flavor.  There are distinct pieces of okra in the final product, but they're melt in your mouth tender.  The okra in Acadia's gumbo was almost crisp and there was no evidence of it in the soup base itself which was much too watery.  I would eliminate the crawfish tails, and the andouille.  I am not sure whether I would do this, but Louise always included pieces of the blue crab when she served it.  There was not a lot of meat in the shells--but really good juices to suck out. Overall I would want to amp up the seafood flavor.

A final comment on both the red beans and gumbo:  The ratio of rice was much too high, at least in the cup sized serving.  The large scoop of rice overwhelmed the dishes, and frankly, made the dish seem stingy.  When I serve, the rice is no more than 1/3 of the total portion.

The jambalaya was almost tasteless.  Really!  We were surprised, because the rice had a beautiful brown color on it!  Again, small portion but only one small chunk of chicken to be found.  And we were put off by the diced tomato on top--never seen that anywhere before.  I don't really have anything else to say about it.  What I would do differently:  Everything.

In spite of the fact that we were all stuffed, Rachel wanted to try the bread pudding, and since I'm considering including it on the menu, I was glad to get a chance to try it.  It was delicious.  Nicely perfumed with vanilla, imbued with a delicious custard, accompanied by local berries and lightly whipped cream.  Definitely the highlight of the meal.  If I offer it, I will go for a more traditional version.  It was difficult to be sure, but we think Acadia used brioche or some other eggy, tender, slightly sweet bread as its base.  I will use stale poor boy french bread, which will make for a less dense pudding, and both Mario and I enjoy the slight chewiness and flavor of the crust.   I'll include raisins, and some cinnamon, and possibly a pinch of nutmeg.  I'll serve it with a light custard sauce.  This is in no way a dig at Acadia's version--it was excellent.  I think mine is delicious in a different way.

A side note:  Mario and I were pleased to discover that they're serving coffee with chicory, as well as Abita beers. Mario had a Proustian moment when he tasted the Abita Amber we had with our sandwiches (waves of memories of good times at Cooter Brown's in Riverbend).

Taken overall, our impression (other than the shrimp po'boy and the bread pudding) is that Acadia's food lacks the depth of flavor that you find in most of the food you eat in New Orleans, whether from a five-star restaurant or your favorite neighborhood mom and pop sandwich shop.  It wasn't bland, it was uninteresting and lacked the "funkiness" that is essential to New Orleans cuisine, high and low.

Bottom line:  I was buoyed up to confirm that, at least to our taste, my cooking can hold its own in relation to this very popular restaurant, and helped reinforce my belief that I will offer something palpably different and arguably more authentic.

Next up in the NOLA foods comparative testing:  Tapalaya.