Jacque-Imo's

Time flies when you are having fun. When you are waiting to be seated at Jacque-Imo's, time crawls at speeds which would make a sloth impatient. Jacque-Imo's serves, as the sign says jokingly, "Warm beer, lousy food, poor service."

That about sums it up, but the service is adept considering how busy the place is.

Having a no reservations policy means you will attract people who come for the scene of it all. (See also, Galatoire's). This is not bad so long as you have a bar which can dispense booze at a rapid fire pace. Jacque-Imo's does, and the bartenders make it a point to get you a drink in a hurry. But as a testament to their success, you constantly see bar backs loading in new Abita Ambers and Bud Lights into the low boys. Expect luke cold beers. Better to stick with the mojitos, especially the watermelon versions. They do help to soften the mood and temper the wait.

You walk into this frenzied scene and give your name to a hostess. Regardless of the time, day, weather, color of your shirt, or occupancy of the restaurant, she will tell you "Shouldn't be more than one hour." She is lying. You know it, and she does also.

So you wait. Stay inside the bar and you become a pin ball constantly shuffling between customers, waiters, and the owner, Jack Leonardi, as he shuffles outside to take a shot with some Tulane undergrads. Waiting outside allows you to acquaint yourself with the resident Tarot card reader. For $20 he will read your fortune.

Or you can wait next door at the Maple Leaf. Eventually, management will ask for a cover and you will likely be back out on the street. You go to the hostess to make sure your name hasn't come up. "Its only been 27 minutes," she says before hollering, "Gibson, party of five!"

An hour and half later, you are seated, strike that, wedged into a four top table in the front of a bar. Since you spent the last hour outside the window cradling that table, you know this table has been empty nearly all night. Or maybe the hostess brings you to a table in the back room, or the side building, or you eat on the tailgate of a truck. Mapping the premises would require the imaginative hand of MC Escher.

The first food impression at Jacque-Imos is very good. A garlic and parsley topped cornbread muffin arrives nearly as soon as you sit down, piping hot and with a garlic butter drizzled on top. You inhale it, and hell, you deserve it after waiting two hours to eat. The cornbread has soul and punch - things are looking up.

This may be part of the strategy of Jacque-Imo's and how Leonardi has developed legions of fans worldwide, including Monsieur Bourdain. By the time you are seated, you have been held hostage for hours. You become Patty Hearst, inflicted by Stockholm Syndrome, you will love any piece of food they give you. Any attention from staff will be met with applause from you and your dining companions. A cold beer would cause you to rob a bank.

Jacque-Imo's menu takes bits and pieces from the New Orleans cannon to create a hybrid mix of New Orleans favorites, soul food, and late-night concoctions. Shrimp remoulade on fried green tomatoes, barbecue shrimp on white rice, fried chicken, carpetbagger steak, stuffed pork chops, a deep fried roast beef po boy. Order whatever you like, it will all taste vaguely similar.

A few months ago, the potatoes on a chicken pontalba dish were on the just barely cooked side of raw. Which works for fish, but not starches. As for the chicken, just putting Chef Paul Prudhomme's Magic Seasoning on a breast does little to justify the price tag. You could have made this at home, much better.

The portions coming from the kitchen are substantial. Often the entree of choice arrives covered with a dark, rich gravy fortified by enough sodium to give the Dead Sea a run for its title. Each entree comes with your choice of two sides which run all the familiar stretches of beans, greens, and starches. Potato salad and corn are the way to go. The red beans and rice are best avoided. Not so much for the beans, which are creamy and spicy, but for the rice which is gray and undercooked. Eating it is much like biting down on a Navy Cruiser, good practice should you ever be transformed into a ship eating sea monster.

In between the cornbread and the entrees, a spinach salad arrives topped with a fried oyster. Emphasis on the word "a". Or not, as mine on one visit was a clump of batter fried to golden brown. Not that it tasted bad, but the oyster had slipped out at some point. The fried roast beef po-boy has yet to pass these lips. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

All the dishes have one or two things that are done very well, and one or two that fall flat. For instance, a recent visit presented a pork chop cooked perfectly. The meat, juicy and well seasoned had just turned from pink to white allowing the inside to stay tender. Inside a slit, the cooks had stuffed an intense mixture of ground shrimp and beef, the texture of which hovered somewhere between gruel and oatmeal. Surrounding and topping the hunk of pork was a mahogany colored gravy which created the impression that the dish wanted to be a soup. Not certain, but Kitchen Bouquet may have been prominently involved.

Fried chicken, a leftover from Chef Austin Leslie's tenure, is still very good. Its crust is pale gold and shatters like fine china on a marble floor. The chicken is hot and well-seasoned and each bite sends juice running down your arm and alerting the pleasure sensors in your brain. If you love fried chicken, you would do better going to Jacque-Imo's sibling, Crabby Jacks and ordering it there.

The wait staff does hustle. Drinks are fetched quickly, dishes come in a rapid fire sequence, and the bill is dropped when you ask for it. Working in such a busy, crowded environment must create all sorts of problems. Judging from the professionalism of the wait staff, you would never know it.

Many people will tell you that you go to Jacque-Imo's for the ambiance or atmosphere. While I love a good scene, the vibe reminds me of being trapped in a nightclub scene in "Treme". It is dimly light, you can barely hear what anyone is saying, a sense of nervousness fills the air, and there is a shady, Scandinavian musician at the bar. On one recent night it was Anders Osborne.

The best thing about this blog has been exploring the restaurants in New Orleans. By doing so, you learn which places you really like. Sorry to say, Jacque-Imo's is not one of those places for me. But that shouldn't stop you from enjoying it. Based on the near constant crowds, my opinion is that of the minority.

As far as I am concerned, the sign tells you everything you need to know. Almost.

Jacque-Imo's - Bogey

We Live To Eat Friday: Part II

The entries keep rolling in, so send yours along. This week we get a bite at Crabby Jack's, a one two combo of Cochon and Boucherie, and this weird, cryptic day. Vote away, pals. And hey, if you are in a voting mood, how 'bout voting us the #1 Blog in New Orleans?

The Turpenator

My ideal feasting day in New Orleans:
Breakfast - Manhattan Omelet at Camellia Grill (a/k/a the "Crack Omelet").

Lunch - Po-boys at Crabby Jack's.

Snack/Cocktail: Beers at Avenue Pub along with guacamole and chips from the restaurant within it, J'anita's.

Dinner: Any of the shredded meat delights at Cochon.

Brother O'Mara

I'd head out as early as possible to Huveos on Banks to get myself a plate of their huevos con tamal. Nothing beats pork tamales and eggs for breakfast, and their coffee's decent. However, even though they have a few sweets in the case there I'd have to go over to Angelo Brocato on Carrollton to get something truly tasty. No gelato, still too early in the morning, but something from their pastry case (like a prussian, mmmmm) and some espresso to wash it down would be fantastic.

For lunch, as soon as I would be able to eat again that is, I'd head down to Domilise's on Annunciation. There's a lot to be said in the debate about the best fried shrimp po-boy, but for my money nobody does it better than they. Obviously I'd have to have a Barq's to go along with it, because I think God cries if you eat a fried shrimp po-boy without drinking a Barq's.

After all this I think I'd have to go lie down for a while, but I would make certain to get up in time to make it over to Cure by 5PM, right as they opened. If I have time before my dinner reservations, I'd order a Ramos Gin Fizz, something soft to sit and sip for a minute. If things are rushed, I'd grab a Nervous Light of Sunday, the perfect palate-opening drink, a delightful combination of gin, grapefruit, and magic.

Dinner would have to be at Cochon, because their ham hock haunts my dreams. I find it almost impossible to visit and not order that incredible mass of soft succulent pigflesh. It doesn't appear on the table instantly, though, so the boucherie plate would have to hold me over until that ham hock graces me with its presence. The flavors are rich and slightly smoky and wonderfully complex, so depending on my mood I'd either get something from the southern Rhone or some fuller-bodied Pinot Noir to accompany it.

As if I hadn't put enough miles on my car already, I'd head out for a late-night dessert at Boucherie just off Carrollton. I know Cochon has some killer desserts but one thing they don't have is Krispy Kreme bread pudding, and that's what I'd be craving. I'd have to drive slowly, though, to make sure my stomach had time to deal with all that dinner.

To finalize the night I would honestly head home and pour a shot or two of Amaro on ice and sit and sip that while I waited for my body to stop hating me for all the abuse.

And Finally, a Rambling Entry from McLovin

5am snack: F&M's - The cheese fries and enough booze to kill a horse.

7am: Slim Goodies - I forget what it's called, but it's something like the Mexican Slammer.

Lunch: Radosta's - I usually get their catfish poboy.

Dinner: Crepe Nanou (if I'm paying) / Clancy's (if someone else is) - Crepe Nanou: mussels and/or the spinach and crabmeat crepe (i think those are the two most cliche things on the menu). I haven't been to Clancy's since before my brother-in-law became a part of the family so I'm not sure what I'd get. LOL...haha.

PS - My mom thought she was so cool that you wrote about Meauxbar and she saw you there!

PPS - I get free drinks at a bar up at school because the bartender actually thinks I'm McLovin... haha.

EDIT: Blogger Polls are down and working about as well as government. So for now, just leave your vote in the comments or come back later.

Jacque Imo's Better Half

In case you have not seen it in print, check out our review of Crabby Jack's in this month's issue of OffBeat and get yourself down to Jefferson Hwy for the duck debris-style po-boy. Don't let your eyes fool your stomach - the 8 inch is plenty big of enough.

The fried shrimp were excellent but caused a minor debate with our editor. Which size fried shrimp are better on a po-boy: popcorn or jumbo?

Finally, the roast beef po-boy may not be deep fried, but it's every bit as delicious as the one served by it's sister spot on Oak Street.

Our only knock against Crabby Jack's is that the fries and onion rings were not very good. But honestly, that doesn't really bother me. Don't get me wrong - I love french fries and appreciate the top notch specimens from places like Luke and La Boca. But here's the thing: I don't need to be eating french fries. (I don't "need" to be eating a duck po-boy either, but that's not the point.) If skipping out on average or sub-par french fries makes it a little more tolerable for me to eat that slab of foie gras somewhere down the line, then I am all for that tradeoff. Same goes for a place like Crabby Jack's. I'll forego the french fries without a second thought because the po-boys more than make up for it.

Now if only the Maple Leaf was next door...

Top 10 New Orleans Sandwiches

Nothing like starting the week off with a little controversy.

1. Roast Beef Po-Boy - Parkway Bakery: Words cannot describe the magic of Parkway's roast beef. The beef and gravy somehow become one with each other to make for a spectacular sandwich. The only possible way to improve on this po-boy would be to add fried shrimp .... Oh, right. I believe they call that the Surf & Turf, and it's now a permanent fixture on the menu. Then again, why mess with perfection?
2. Muffuletta - Nor Joe's: Sure, Central Grocery may have started it all, but who wants to wait in line and deal with surly service? At Nor-Joe's you only have to tolerate surly service. This sandwich is not for anyone with an aversion to the finer things in life. Things like cheese, Italian deli meats, briney olives, and bread. Its about time someone around town made a Muffuletta Charcuterie Board. In fact, I just did.
3. Roast Duck Po-Boy - Crabby Jack's: This thing is amazing, if only for the fact that you can't get it anywhere else. Succulent roasted duck in a brown au jus - it also wins the "high class" award.
4. Mozzarella - St. James Cheese Company/Fernando - Stein's Deli: So similar, yet so different? Both start with foccacia, pesto, and fresh mozzarella. At St. James they use salami, while at Stein's they layer on the prosciutto. The St. James Girl (surprisingly) gives the edge to the Mozzarella because the cheese is slightly melted.
5. Banh Mi - Pho Tau Bay: The bread might be the best specimen of classic New Orleans style french bread in the city. The fillings are straight from Vietnam. My favorite is the chef's special liver sausage and rolled ham, but you can't go wrong with the char grilled pork. By the way, the sandwiches are small (and cheap) enough so that you can order both.
6. Oyster Loaf - Casamento's: Oysters - it's what they do, which is why Casamento's is closed during those dreaded summer months when oysters are not at their peak. Piled high on toasted and buttered "pan bread" with a few pickles and a couple of dashes of hot sauce. You can't get much better than that.
7. Meatball Parmesan Po-Boy - Mahony's: The fresh mozzarella alone catapults this sandwich to the Top 10, but the handmade meatballs and red gravy are integral ingredients of the final product. The anise flavor in the meatballs provides a sweet overture to the final product.
8. #4 - Bud's Broiler: Onions? Yes. Double Meat? Yes. Chili or Sauce? Yes. (Wait, I said "or" - I have always been a sauce man myself, but I don't judge the chili lovers out there.) And if that wasn't enough, you can get this sandwich late at night.
9. Fat Kid Special - Liuzza's: Have you still not tried this yet? Panneed chicken breast topped with roast beef and gravy. How can that NOT be good? And if you wanted to be really fat, may we suggest putting fried pickles on top of all that. Dear God, my keyboard just went into cardiac arrest. Someone get me a bushwacker, STAT!
10. Italian Special - R&O's: Slices of Italian sausage and meatball, covered in red gravy, and topped with mozzarella. The seedy Italian style bread is unconventional for a po-boy, but it works. Plus, ordering a po-boy called the Italian Special makes it seem like you just put a hit out on that jerk from third grade.

Coming Tomorrow - the sandwiches we once loved, but now they are gone.