Cruising New Orleans Cuisine Scenes

© 2008 Patty Lee 

Go Green!  Find fresh salads of all calibers, located in and around the Crescent City, that can meet your entire dinner needs if you like. Café Rani (pronounced rain-nee) comes to mind right off the bat for creative scrumptious salad choices galore. Situated in mid-block on Magazine Street (with off-street parking, and featuring a live aged-oak-tree standing tall and regal within a long rectangular courtyard-patio that buffers the restaurant from the street), this salad spot offers a clever variety of menu-mentions and intriguing ingredients. Café Rani (named after the daughter of one of the owners) is largely all about pleasing salad connoisseurs. Their Jamaican Jerk is anything but jerky and instead is piled high with spinach, walnuts, grapes, raisins, apples, sun-dried tomatoes, filet of chicken breast, bleu cheese and pepper jelly vinaigrette. Their newly-added Soprano Salad sports a spring mix, with romaine lettuce, and parmesan dressing (which is made in-house, by the way) along with tomato bits, olive salad, feta cheese, artichoke, olives and sliced mushrooms, served with a pesto crusted chicken breast and garnished with Swiss and provolone cheese and topped with even more parmesan! 

Then, o’er by Harahan, salad seekers can find a nice, large La Madeleine Bakery Café and Bistro. Although a chain restaurant with several others by the same name around New Orleans and its suburbs, this La Madeleine by Elmwood Shopping Center is near the movies and is a great location for ala carte dishes including a salad as the entire dinner, whether you are on the run or might have time to dally. They offer their Caesar Salad with or without warmed chicken on top, tossed with their zesty in-house bottled-to-sell tangy Caesar dressing.  And, their Spinach Salad is just as satisfying with its bacon, pecans, strawberries, mushrooms and red pepper. Another tasty treat is La Madeleine’s newly-named Sun-dried Tomato Pasta Salad which is called a salad but isn’t served with any lettuce.

Speaking of lettuce, and lots of it, Galatoire’s - famous for fine food in the French Quarter - is still one of several local legendary locations that offers an over-sized, extremely crisp fresh Wedge Lettuce Salad that consists amazingly of one item: the whole heart (not head) of Lettuce. Served with a choice of dressing like House Creole or Bleu Cheese, this salad-side is so large that it could mimic a total dinner for any small eater; quite an impressive show ‘n’ tell! 

For other New Orleans wining and dining “show ‘n’ tells”, stay tuned . . .

Remember!  Circulate around our famous city of unique wining and dining experiences!  Don’t drink and drive!  Always be safe.  And, enjoy! – Patty Lee 

Café Rani, 895-2500, 2917 Magazine St.

Galatorie’s Restaurant, 525-2021, 209 Bourbon St.

La Madeleine Bakery Café and Bistro, 818-2450, 5171 Citrus Blvd. (Harahan)

Writer-producer Patty Lee is a New Orleanian by marriage to local musician Armand St. Martin who entertains regularly at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel.