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After feasting on a late lunch of inept DA with a side dish of corrupt cop, I took JAG to Muriel's where she completely out ordered me. In fact, it was drubbing not seen since the BCS Championship Game. I will admit to being rather euphoric from winning a directed verdict. Further, I am not the biggest fan of Gus's food. And when I say not the biggest fan, I really mean I don't like it.

A 2002 red Burgundy was brought to the table. It could have had some ooomph to it. But it was definitely a well rounded wine. JAG ordered the crawfish and goat cheese crepes that are excellent. A great tomato sauce, very solid. I went with the prosciutto and gorgonzola tart. It was pretty good but not as good as the crepes. However, there seemed to be very little prosciutto in the tart. I found this curious as prosciutto is listed as the first ingredient.

For the main course JAG had the special softshell crab entrée. The crab came atop a rich delicious roux based sauce. Yum. I ordered the wood grilled tuna. I was still picking the remnants of DA out of my teeth from my late lunch. So I was looking for something light. Well, this fit the bill. A semi decent piece of wood grilled tuna came on top of a salad of arugula and ripe tomatoes. When the waitress brought the dish to the table JAG looked at me like "I thought was dining with a man tonight". Regardless, the dish was ok, but very boring.

We decided to partake in dessert at the restaurant. It was a blueberry upside down cake with a marscopone sorbet. The cake sucked bad. The sorbet was our salvation. Amazing.

Overall, I find this place to be very shakey. JAG completely housed me but to me it shows you do have to choose your spots on the menu.

I think JAG could school a lot of us in local haunts.

I really like Muriel's (and have under three chefs now, going back to Eric).

The crawfish and goat cheese crepes have been my favorite thing on the menu since MindyMoo turned me on to it years ago.

I think Bam Bam would have been happier with my suggestion of the pork chop entree.... I actually liked his entree quite a bit, but then again I only had a couple bites. My entree was very good. The okra/corn/roux based sauce reminded me of a recipe for okra gumbo that was in the TP Living Section about 2 years ago. I made it and it was pretty much what I had last night. It was a pretty rich dish which I happily shared.

The mascapone gelato on the blueberry cake was good, but the cake itself was a definite miss.

I really like the restaurant itself, the dining room is very nice. Even the bathrooms there are nice. The bar area is large and inviting too.

I have mixed feelings about this place. Although last Christmas we went to the wine and food party at Christmas in the Oaks, and the Muriel's offering of shrimp and eggplant was by FAR the very best thing to be had, and that's saying a LOT. Wait... the guy who makes those praline cannoli's for the convention center was there... hmmmm.... ok, it was a toss up.

I went on the ol 'Net and scored the recipe, or what was supposed to be the recipe... but I saw lots of bay leaves in the dish, and the recipe didn't call for that, so I jazzed it a bit, and it was every bit as good as what we had that night.

So all in all, I'm feeling favorably towards Muriel's. lol