Fritai, New Orleans, LA Report #536

This is a Haitian joint. There aren’t many of those in New Orleans. According to their website they serve Haitian Street Food. I was looking forward to trying that!

My waitress gave me a little metal cup, a bottle of water, and a little piece of paper with one of those codes to scan for the menu. I asked for a paper menu. She gave it to me, saying it was a little out of date so ask if I had any questions. But when I scanned the little code the online menu that popped up said, “Happy Independence Day”! As you’ll see in what I ordered below. I was thinking this one is pretty out of date too, until I discovered January 1st is Haiti’s Independence Day. I learned something today. That doesn’t happen often.

I decided on the Soup Joumou to start off with. It’s a squash soup. I’m nowhere near a vegetarian, but you could get beef in it, so I decided to try it.

For my entrée I ordered this conch and shrimp dish which sounded great, but then I saw this black bean and oxtail dish on the menu. I love oxtails! I asked my waitress if it was primarily a bean dish, or an oxtail dish? She basically said, “You know how y’all eat red beans and rice with meat in it? Haitians eat black beans and rice with meat”. I went with that.

%%%%% THE FOOD %%%%%

I ordered the small soup, but it came out in a big bowl. Pretty good! Kind of a citrusy flavor, some penne type noodles scattered through it, and plenty of chunks of tender beef.

The bean dish consisted of a tin of beans, white rice, four oxtails (a tiny one is hidden behind the big ones) and two flat, fried plantain disks. The difference between these black beans and our New Orleans red beans and rice is don’t look for a bean in these. They were pureed so fine it was like a black bean sauce. But very tasty poured over the rice (2nd picture)! The oxtails were tender and delicious. Now, maybe it’s not fair for me to comment on the plantains, because I’m not a plantain fan. After eating these, or TRYING to eat them, I’m even less of a plantain fan! They had a texture kind of like cardboard. One bite was enough.

Good dinner here tonight. Next time I’ll sub something for the plantains!

And HAPPY NEW YEAR!

1535 Basin St., New Orleans, LA 70116 Ph: (504) 264-7899

Blaine 1-1-2023

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