La Petite Grocery
Epi Baguette with Butter
Blue Crab Beignets with Malt Vinegar Aioli
Turtle Bolognese – Bucatini, Sherry, Parsley and Fried Soft-Boiled Egg
Apple Toffee Cake with Toasted Almonds and Buttermilk
Butterscotch Pudding – Benne Wafers and Vanilla Bean Cream
Finishing just across the street from where the 38-stop dining adventure through New Orleans began almost exactly 7-days prior, lunch on Saturday took place at Justin Devillier’s La Petite Grocery, the California Native and four-time Beard Award Finalist presenting his upscale interpretation of New Orleans Cuisine in a former Market that he came into possession of and rehabilitated post-Katrina.
A space older than many, the Magazine Street corner-store operating in some capacity since the mid-1800s, it was with noon reservations that I was greeted at the hostess podium and quickly led to a two-top made from a long banquet, a pleasant young server soon providing both menu and water with a few brief descriptions of a Daily Specials Menu to the left.
A small and succinct menu, the sections divided into Entrees, Appetizers and “Sides & Such” with Dessert and Drink listed separately, it was in three courses that the meal was presented – the Appetizer literally arriving less than ninety seconds later with Devillier’s famous Crab Beignets almost impossibly light despite being well-packed with sweet white Meat and Cream that paired beautifully with zippy Vinegar Aioli.
Receiving apologies with a stalk of Baguettes that arrived nearly ten minutes late, cool and served with a block of Butter that could only be described as frigid, better bites were found in the $24 bowl of hollow Housemade Noodles beneath a mound of Sauce teaming with Tomatoes and funk, the fried Egg still soft at its center helping to meld flavors though the flavor of Sherry mentioned in the plate’s description was nowhere to be found.
One of the city’s most expensive spots when accounting for portions, the $68 meal after tax + tip rounded out by two tiny Desserts, La Petite Grocery’s Butterscotch Pudding does little to impress when compared to more famous versions elsewhere, the Apple Toffee Cake really little more than a simple quick-bread finishable in three bites for nine dollars.
http://www.lapetitegrocery.com
