I went with 6 friends to the free Arena Bowl concert this past Saturday night at the Jax Brewery parking lot featuring Dash Rip Rock, The Molly Ringwald's, and Huey Lewis and the News. Great concert btw, even with the rain, which cooled everything off.
Anyway, 2 of these friends are moving to CO today, so they wanted to go eat dinner at The Coffee Pot on St. Peter b/c their good friends with the manager over there and wanted to see him before they left. I've never been to this restaurant and have really never heard anything about it. With a name like the Coffee Pot, I was expecting more of a breakfast oriented place, but they had a lunch and dinner menu.
We started off with 2 orders of crab balls. I had 2 of these and they were pretty good. These were fried balls with lump crabmeat and they were spicy. They were served over a bed of lettuce. Some of the people I was with commented that these might be better with some type of sauce drizzled over them. I'm not always a fan of sauces as I like to be able to taste the ingredients of the item, but a little sauce drizzled over these might have been good.
For an entree, I ordered the seafood platter(which is what I do when nothing else really grabs me on the menu). My GF also got the seafood platter. My best friend got something called New Orleans chicken. Another friend ordered grilled chicken with some kind of okra side, and her BF ordered the special, which was a rack of ribs, a filet, and a side. The seafood platter was ok. It came with shrimp, oysters, catfish, a crab cake, and fries. It wasn't anything spectacular, but I've yet to find a "spectacular" fried seafood platter. It's just my goto when I'm wary of the rest of the menu. My friend who got the okra dish said the okra was ICE cold. She told the waiter who stated that the cook was still in training. He brought out another plate of this, which was hot this time. The New Orleans chicken dish my best friend had looked good. I didn't get a taste of it though. The grilled chicken with okra plate looked ok, but it was just grilled chicken.
Please note that my friends, as I'm sure you can tell from what they ordered, are NOT adventurous diners. I don't know why they bother to go to "New Orleans" restaurants and order grilled chicken or ribs. At least the GF and I went for the seafood.
For dessert we had 2 orders of calas and a bread pudding. This was the first time I've ever eaten a calas. It was pretty good. Kinda like french toast with rice lol. The bread pudding was also good.
Overall, this place was ok, but I don't think I'd go back. Maybe for breakfast, but rarely am I in the Quarter at breakfast time. A funny thing...a lot of people came in, sat down, looked at the menu and then got up and left. The manager, my friends' friend, said that the same guy who made their wooden sign outside that says, "The Coffee Pot" and "The Old Coffe Pot" made the sign for The Gumbo Shop and a lot of people mistake The Coffee Pot for The Gumbo Shop and then take a look at the menu and realize their mistake and leave. He then went on to say how bad The Gumbo Shop is and how their(TCP) food is sooo much better. Well, I've never eaten at The Gumbo Shop, but I didn't find The Coffee Pot all that great. I think the manager was just pissed that people come in and then leave.
On Sunday, the GF and I were on Williams Blvd. on the way to the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Grocery store when we decided we were hungry and it was best not to go grocery shopping hungry. We decided on Mexican, but she didn't want to try any of the numerous Taqueria's up and down Williams so she chose Casa Tequila. I'd been here once before, pre-K, and remembered liking it. First off, let me say, I did not like their free salsa. It wasn't spicy and it was very watery. It was hard to get the salsa on the chips. The free bean dip they served was better, but it also wasn't spicy enough and this place doesn't have any type of hot sauce(the green jalapeno stuff some other mexican places have)on the table.
I ordered a combo plate(the name of which escapes me right now) which included a cheese enchilada, a beef enchilada, a tamale, and a beef taco, along with a side of rice and beans. All of these were actually quite good. It's Americanized Mexican I know, which means loads of cheese, but I found it to be just as good as Casa Garcia. I actually liked the rice here too. Usually I find Mexican rice to be bland at most places, but this stuff had a good flavor.
The GF had another combo plate(recommended by the waiter) which consisted of a beef tostada, a chili relleno, a chicken enchilada, and a cheese enchilada. She thought the cheese stuffed chili relleno was great and found everything else good as well.
Casa Tequila is a good Mexican restaurant on par with Casa Garcia IMO. Not the best in the world, but better than Cuco's or Chevy's.