Southeast Asian-inspired Marjie's Grill Opens on South Broad

Marcus Jacobs and Caitlin Carney, formerly of Herbsaint and most recently, a popup called Sparklehorse, have softly opened their highly-anticipated Southeast Asian inspired restaurant called Marjie's Grill.

Based on the cuisine and flavor profiles from Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, menu items are created around seasonal availability, Jacobs says, but the plate-lunch style lunch menu will stay more or less consistent while the a la carte dinner menu will see more fluctuation and collaboration with local meat and vegetable purveyors.

For lunch, a a list of meats adorns one side of the menu (fried catfish, wok-fried shrimp, slow grilled chicken and pork) and a list of veg on the other side, like winter vegetables with dried shrimp and chiles, cool roasted sweet potatoes with cane syrup, or charred cabbage with scallion and carrot. Meat +1 is $12, meat + 2 is $15, and so forth.

Dinner includes larger dishes for sharing, such as charred broccoli with blood orange, dried shrimp, and sesame; slow grilled pork shoulder with cracklins, sheepshead on the half shell with dill sauce, or a sirloin flat iron steak with a herb-tomato-chile salad with a fish sauce dressing. However, keep in mind that the dinner menu items change from day to day, based on ingredient availability.

"We build our dishes around what our purveyors have that day," Jacobs says.

Marjie's Grill also has a full bar with canned beer and Miller High Life on draft. "We're serving the stuff we like to drink," Jacobs says, also noting that Steigler Radler is very well suited to his cuisine. Carney has curated a small, interesting, affordable wine list - 3 red, 3 white, and 1 sparkling by the bottle, and 1 red and 1 white by the glass.

For the hard stuff, Jacobs says they will be utilizing the "cafe service" technique, which involves selling booze by the serving and introducing the customer to their wide variety of non-alcoholic beverages for mixers.

Marjie's Grill will have Happy Hour from 4-5:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, with drink specials and bar snacks. Jacobs says also that the restaurant will be open this Saturday for Christmas Eve, which will have be more festive and casual than usual and "a lot of fun."

Status: Open. Lunch: Tues-Fri 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; happy hour 4-5:30 p.m.; dinner service 5:30-9 p.m. Open noon-9p.m. on Saturdays straight through. 320 Broad St. 504-603-2234. Instagram: @marjiesgrill