Sassafras Restaurant, New Orleans, LA Report #87

*************** PERMANENTLY CLOSED ***************

 

Before I started blogging I used to give short restaurant reports on Facebook.  People kept telling me I should start a blog, so for the first time in my life I listened to people.  Back then, I went to this restaurant.  I reported about it on Facebook and commented on how good the food was but how bad the service was.  Inattentive and slow as hell.  I thought maybe I just had a bad experience there but three other people chimed in saying yes, the service is always slow there.  Figured I’d give them another chance to see if that improved.

I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived.  We were greeted promptly, introduced to our waitress, who we were told was new on the job, and as we sit, for no time at all, other staff members asked if we had been waited on yet.  Very attentive!  Then, we ordered our food and things started to unravel.

They start you out with a basket of dinner rolls served with no butter.  No butter was needed.  The bread was not hot and a bit stale with a greasy substance painted on the top.  Butter wouldn’t have helped it.  I’m a man that just LOOOOVES my bread!  I was sad.  I shed a tear.

Next, a cup of gumbo.  I remember last time I was here it took so long for the gumbo to come out I thought they were making it from scratch.  It came out very quick today.  The gumbo was excellent.  I love a gumbo made with a nice dark roux and this didn’t disappoint.  One of the best gumbos I’ve had.

The fast service then ended.  We waited, and waited, and waited.  It seems like they have ONE stove in the kitchen so they can only prepare one meal at a time.  After waiting a good while, assuming our entrees would be out at any second, we realized we never got our dinner salads!  We asked for them and our newly hired waitress headed off to the kitchen to get them.  I was now nervous our entrees would be sitting in the kitchen getting cold while we were eating salads.

The salads were very good.  My dining companion ordered hers with blue cheese dressing and I got honey mustard.  They don’t skimp on the dressing and the dressings were very good.

Then the wait continued for our entrees.  Eat all the appetizers you want!  I guarantee you’ll be hungry again by the time the entrees come out at this place.

My dining companion ordered the St. Roch Seafood pasta.  She loved it and said it was one of the best seafood pastas she’d ever had.  I tasted it and I agree.  Delicious.

I ordered the Catfish Orleans.  Fried catfish served on either angel hair pasta or a crawfish and corn grit cake smothered with a shrimp etouffee sauce.  If you order this dish, bring help.  Huge portion.  The catfish was fried nice and crisp and seasoned perfectly.  There was so much on the plate I had to move things aside in the pic above so you could see the rectangular grit cake it was served on.  The shrimp sauce was also utterly delicious.  A really great dish.

We had the bread pudding for dessert.  If you’ve been disappointed by bland bread puddings you’ll love this one.   Highly “seasoned”, for lack of a better term, with I think the usual spices.  Plenty of cinnamon, nutmeg and who knows what else.  And the praline sauce with all the pecans was very good.  Not sure why you’d dust a plate with powdered sugar and cinnamon then set a black iron skillet on it though.

So, if you’ve got PLENTY of time on your hands and want some good, New Orleans style food, I highly recommend this place.

2501 Leon C. Simon Dr., New Orleans, LA  70122  Ph: 504-288-3939

Blaine 4-14-2018

SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT:

     Sadly, I just learned this place has shut down.

Blaine 12-31-2020