new Things I Ate in Cambodia: Muriel's Jackson Square

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Muriel's Jackson Square

Quick post tonight. I have been to two good restaurants over this week and have photos, and I will share them and everything. It has been a terribly busy but terribly productive week and I am content. Anyway:

Muriel's
801 Chartres St
New Orleans, LA 70116
(504) 568-1885


I am on a never-ending Gumbo Quest. Gumbo is one of my personal soul foods, the sort of thing I desire when I am miserable or lonely or lost. My grandmother's gumbo recipe is treated with great respect and admiration in our family: a big gumbo almost inevitably appears when the family gets together (unless we are feeling really lazy.)

Upon arriving in New Orleans, I decided it was my holy and ancestral duty to seek the city's best gumbo. I have tried many gumbos around here and am attempting to produce a detailed picture of NOLA's State O' Gumbo. Anyways, I heard Muriel's on Jackson Square made a pretty darn good gumbo and I determined that I would have to check it out.

Muriel's is a big and rather nice looking restaurant: the inside is ornate and classy, full of exposed brick and classic New Orleans-style warrens of rooms within rooms. I was eating alone, so I took a spot at the backroom bar and ordered up.



Verdict: a pretty good gumbo. Plenty of shrimp, plenty of oysters, and a nice thickness. The flavor is nice and funky - there's a good thick roux involved here, and you can really taste it. It's a rich, medium thick gumbo, which is what I like: none of those watery soupy gumbos for me, thank you very kindly. One downside: the gumbo came rather lukewarm, which detracted from the flavor experience. Heat up your damn gumbo, Muriel's. Won't warn you again.

Also had a very mediocre side salad. Not that I'm accepting great things from a side salad, but y'all can do better then shredded romaine with some indifferent dollops of goat cheese.

Will come back for the gumbo and request it warmer. Will skip the salad.

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