Gabrielle Serves a ‘Game-Changing’ Gumbo, Critic Says

Helen Freund heads to Gabrielle, the Eater Award-winning post-Katrina Comeback of the Year, for hospitality that reminds her why New Orleans is a special place to dine. She’s particularly taken with the “game-changing” quail gumbo, “an utterly delicious” version that is “swampy and thick” and almost like mole. She also became a convert to Greg Sonnier’s New York Times story-worthy duck dish.

The duck is roasted all day and arrives as soft and pliable as pulled pork, but with the characteristic depth and earthiness of a game bird. Crispy duck cracklings top the dish, while red pepper and mushrooms are folded in and a tangy orange-sherry sauce pools around the meat and across crispy shoestring potatoes. After just a few bites, I, too, became a Sonnier duck enthusiast.

While she was clearly taken with all the dishes she tried, she points out that dining at Gabrielle is “about a lot more than that.” Read the rest of the review here. [GAMBIT]

Meanwhile, Tom Fitzmorris heads to “hip enough” Ox Lot 9 on the Northshore, located in the Southern Hotel. He says that the restaurant has moved on “effectively” from the previous menu, which he described as “reminiscent of the 1990s and the pre-Hurricane Katrina years,” to a menu that “combines the current styles of dining and some adventuresome ideas as well.” Fitzmorris recommends the crab claws, fried frog legs, seared scallops, quail, seared fois gras, lobster bisque, steamed mussels, speckled trout and crawfish tails, spear-caught pompano, stuffed rabbit, pork, and spiced duck. He’d like it to be open more hours during lunchtime though. [CITY BUSINESS]

Ian McNulty visited Carrollton Market, but tells readers “isn’t a review, but an appreciation of what has grown here.” The restaurant hits three crucial factors: creativity, precision, and gratification. The roasted pumpkin soup was “so velvety it seemed to be absorbed in the mouth.” A crab cake with scallop mousse as the only binder had an “intense” flavor. Roasted speckled trout was “crisp-skinned and flavorful.” “It was a dining experience at a modern New Orleans restaurant hitting its stride,” McNulty concluded.