The neon outside the Bayou Grill advertises “Alligator, Seafood, Steaks.” To hammer home the point, a huge plastic alligator, jaws agape, dwells on the roof and an authentic alligator skin hangs near the entrance. Yet alligator appears only once on the Bayou Grill menu, in the form of breaded deep-fried bites. They’re by far the most ordered item on the menu.
Readers, you don’t need me to tell you what deep-fried alligator bites taste like. You know they taste like chicken, as did I, but I ordered them anyway, at $12.49, just to be completist. Chicken nuggets with a remoulade sauce, go for it. It’s not on the menu, but you can also get alligator on a pasta dish or a po’boy.
The Grill says its roots are “Deep South Cajun/Creole” — that’s three different cuisines — and it offers a dizzying number of dishes on a dizzying number of menus: three menus for drinks, the daily specials, the weekend specials, the four-page main menu. They offer seafood of varying kinds (shrimp, oysters, catfish, lobster, calamari, salmon), rice dishes including jambalaya, plenty of ribs, gumbo, chicken, pasta, andouille, crawfish, wings, a burger. Something for everyone. If you’d been there on National Cheeseburger Day, you could have had one. There’s even a taco.
I was steered to Bayou Grill by friends who admired its “best fried cheese in years.” I liked it too — a pepperjack that was chewy and spicy. My other favorite was the fried catfish, a perfect combination of tender and crunchy, though the fish seemed to have gotten deformed into an odd shape in the frying process. You can get it in a po’ boy, too. So in my sample, which did not do justice to the very long menu, I actually preferred the non-Cajun to the Cajun. I am spoiled by my Cajun brother-in-law, who makes the most subtle gumbo in a giant outdoor pot.
At the Grill crawfish etouffee, jambalaya, and gumbo are all pretty one-note, despite their many ingredients. The gumbo is just spicy hot, no particular file flavor. The vegetables are crisp enough; the rice is fluffy but too wet. The jambalaya’s andouille makes its presence known, but the crawfish in the etouffee not so much. (It’s hard for me to say “crawfish,” though that’s the correct term in Louisiana, even less the even more elegant “crayfish.” Where I grew up we called them crawdads. Should the song go “You get a line, I’ll get a pole, we’ll go down to the crawfish hole”? No.)
Joe Maroon
The Bayou Grill says its roots are “Deep South Cajun/Creole” — that’s three different cuisines
That andouille is quite tasty — smoky and chewy with a robust skin. I recommend getting this alongside the more delicate catfish as a nice contrast.
A companion, being the type to respond to “we DARE you to eat it all,” ordered a Saturday Special: the Smokehouse Platter, with a choice of three among brisket, pulled pork, wings, and ribs, plus two sides. He lost the dare, and said the wings were dry and the barbecue sauce on the ribs too sweet and bounteous. Pulled pork was quite sweet as well.
A different companion did the very smoky brisket and had to send it back as it was too tough to chew. It was graciously replaced, but still with too much sauce. Chefs, trust your meats!
Many dishes come with two sides: dirty rice (not dirty enough), fries, sweet potato fries (they’re good), redskins, tater tots, and, I kid you not, poutine tots. Combining two culinary sins in one dish, I ordered the poutine tots and found them surprisingly tasty, though you should shut your eyes to avoid the gray and viscous gravy.
For dessert, Key lime pie was solid and artificial-tasting. A mammoth serving of bread pudding is on the dry side but includes housemade vanilla sauce to make up for it.
On the drinks menu, I noticed that the Moscow Mule had been patriotically renamed the American Mule, though the ingredients are the same. I very much liked the Bayou version of a gin fizz, though it had been altered beyond recognition from the original recipe, which uses lemon juice, simple syrup, soda water, and an egg white. This one added to the gin lime juice, Grand Marnier, Triple Sec, Sprite (!), and heavy cream. They had me at the cream. Another possibility is Voodoo Juice, which mixes six different types of Cruzan flavored rum (mango, pineapple, etc.), cranberry juice, orange juice, lemon and lime. More is more. If I were the bartender I’d ask for overtime. If you try it, let me know.
There’s a 4% surcharge for using a credit card.
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