********** PERMANENTLY CLOSED **********
If you’re driving around looking for a sign for Café Adelaide you’d never find it. It’s located inside the Loews Hotel, which, if you’re a gambler, is right across the street from Harrah’s Casino. In fact, once you’re in the lobby of the hotel you STILL won’t see a sign for it! The third pic above is the door to the restaurant down a hall off the main lobby. But once you find it, it’s definitely worth it!
My dining party came here specifically for one thing. The COOLinary menu. The month of August is a slow month for restaurants in New Orleans. To combat this numerous restaurants (over 100 are participating this year), offer a special, discounted prix-fixe menu. The first menu pic above is their COOLinary menu. We also tried a couple things off the regular menu.
The Rougaroux Eggs were great. Eggs stuffed with a smoky cochon de lait and topped with Andouille and pork cracklin’ dust. The smoky flavor was delicious.
Someone else in my dining party had the Downtown Chopped Salad. Anchovy-buttermilk dressing sounded great to me, and the salad was tossed nicely. Every leaf of greenery in the salad was coated with it. I didn’t try it but he said it was very good.
The seafood gumbo was excellent! One of the best I’ve ever had in a restaurant. The roux wasn’t too dark or too light and it was really flavorful.
The turtle soup was equally as good. I always ask and the answer was “yes”. They do use real turtle meat in their soup. They poured a generous swirl of Sherry on top of it for me too, which is always nice.
The shrimp and grits were utterly delicious. The grits were creamy and the perfect consistency, and the shrimp were cooked perfectly. So many people tend to overcook shrimp and I hate that!
I had the Ancho Honey Glazed Pork. When they set the plate on the table I thought it looked dry. It was anything but. Nicely seared and crisp on the outside and tender and juicy inside. Not sure where the honey was supposed to come in because it wasn’t sweet or “glazed” at all, but it was really delicious. I didn’t think the raw cabbage slaw it came with was a good idea as a side, but it was ok. I would have much preferred some of those grits to go with it!
When we were ordering off the COOLinary menu I asked what dessert the waitress recommended. She said the Creole Cream Cheese Cake. I told her I didn’t see that on the COOLinary menu. She said it wasn’t. It was on the regular menu but they’d go ahead and give it to us. That was nice of them!
The cheesecake, Abita Root Beer & Biscuit Pudding, and the Madagascar Vanilla Crème Brulee, were all absolutely delicious. I included a pic of my empty Crème Brulee dish so you can see all the vanilla seeds in the bottom. That’s when you know you had the real deal! The Zesty Lemon & Local Berry Trifle however, was terrible. My dining partner described the cake taste as a boxed cake mix. I tried it and it tasted like it had been premade much earlier, and sat in the fridge long enough for the whipped cream to harden and pic up some other flavors from the fridge.
Overall, an excellent dinner. I highly recommend this place.
Blaine 8-24-2018
SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT:
NEWS FLASH! I just learned this was the last night this restaurant will be open! It’ll be something different tomorrow. What’s the odds that the FIRST time I dine at a place was its LAST night on Earth? Oh well.
Blaine 8-24-2018
BLAINE'S RESTAURANT REPORT 