We attended a Thursday Family Dinner at Arroyo Vino Restaurant. The theme to our dinner was New Orleans. As we are big fans of both NOLA (New Orleans Louisiana) and the food, we had to go.
To start, we had the shrimp remoulade, a poached gulf shrimp with a very tangy creole mustard sauce. I loved that the sauce had the uncrushed mustard seeds. This sauce was so different than what I am used to having, which is a red sauce. It was original and delicious.
Next we had the Commander’s salad that had romaine, crispy bacon ( I skipped but was told it was delicious), boiled egg, and gruyere cheese with a black pepper buttermilk dressing.
Yum! Then we had the gumbo and rice. I have always loved gumbo. This is the first time that I have had good hearty gumbo since I stopped eating meat. This gumbo had chicken and Andouille sausage (which looked delicious. I was told it was delicious, too.) It also had scallions with steamed rice. The chicken and sausage were easy to pick out. They lent a wonderful flavor to the existing ingredients of the gumbo. Wow! I loved it. I didn’t even have to ask for a bottle of Tabasco.
For our main course we had a blackened redfish with a lemon caper butter. The fish was perfectly cooked. Sometimes when you get a fish blackened, it looks like a piece of charcoal and has no taste except a char taste. The Blackened Redfish came with lemon caper butter. Ok, I have never, ever tasted a lemon caper butter before and apparently I have missed out on something incredibly awesome. This butter was a delightful mix of lemons (how could you go wrong), capers, and butter.
The fish came with a huge stalk of broccoli. It reminded me of the broccoli I would get at Morton’s Steak House in Chicago. But this broccoli was delicious. This broccoli was accompanied with an incredible Hollandaise sauce. How wonderful! Between the lemon caper butter and the Hollandaise, I have never tasted such great sauces. I have had hollandaise before but this version is the absolute best I have ever tasted. I even dunked my garlic bread into it.
My kudos to Chef Alison. I liked Chef Colin but Chef Alison really brought her A game to Arroyo Vino. She is a keeper.
But back to the food, for dessert we had a bread pudding with pecans, coconut, raisins, and bourbon sauce. Big disclaimer: I intensely dislike bread pudding. It doesn’t rank as a dessert in my mind. I only tasted it because of the bourbon sauce. I am a big bourbon fan. I am certainly glad I put my prejudice aside. This bread pudding was moist and delicious. The ingredients were a wonderful selection of flavors. And yes, the bourbon sauce was incredible.
We made a reservation for the 5pm seating. The meal was 49 per person. Michael, our server, is very good at what he does. I think he is as excited about being there as we are, He always adds to our dining experience. By the way Arroyo Vino makes one of the best sazeracs I have ever tasted anywhere. That goes for NOLA as well.
