[joiei]

For reasons to boring to go into, I ended up in New Orleans for tonight. As I was getting into the city I made two calls to people i trust on restaurants. I asked them both the same question, where should I go have dinner, someplace on the newer side, good food but doesn't have to be expensive. They both with no hesitation recommended that I check out Patois in the outer Uptown area between Tchopitoulas and Magazine on the other side of Jefferson. So I took their advice, that was a strong recommendation to me, and called to see if they had room for me. I was in luck because they did, so I drove out and went for it.

It is a nice fairly upscale neighborhood place without being uppity. For my first course I ordered the Spicy gulf shrimp with hearts of palms, sprouts, cucumber ribbons and a lemon verbena emulsion. This was almost a salad, nice clean flavors.

For my main plate I ordered the Paneed Mississippi Rabbit with smothered tomato and okra, loncaile Kale, and spicy tasso reduction, wow what a great meal. The portions were a little large but not obscene. The flavors were obscenely good.

Patois is not on a tourist route it is tucked back into a neighborhood. In fact Clancy's was at the other end of the block if you know where that is. I highly recommend it, a nice slice of New Orleans with a chef who is using food stuffs from the local farmers market to help drive his menus.