Vetting Philly’s New Orleans food scene with two NOLA ex-pats
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Gumbos and po'boys go head to head.
Photo courtesy of Khyber Pass on Instagram
Neal Santos
Mardi Gras is basically New Orleans' Mummers parade: an excuse to dress up and get plastered. When you're in that kind of state, any food will do.
Don't bother looking for New Orleans food at Fat Tuesday on South Street, for instance. "We serve stuff you would eat if you got hungry while you were drinking. It's not anything you'd come here for," an employee of that bar explained recently.
This story examines local restaurants that are seriously trying to cook Creole and Cajun food for those who want to celebrate Fat Tuesday on Feb. 17 and still be able to show up for church on Ash Wednesday. To supplement my two weeks of eating in New Orleans as a tourist, I enlisted the help of Heidi Hess, a New Orleans native who teaches at Conwell Middle School in Kensington, and Lane Savadove of EgoPo, a New Orleans theater company that relocated to Philly after Hurricane Katrina (and which, coincidentally, has a show opening tomorrow night.)
Although Strangelove's, Warmdaddy's and Rex 1516 each have a few Cajun or Creole menu offerings and Cajun Kate's and Carmine's Creole Cafe Act II have fans out in the burbs, we directed our attention to four Center City spots dedicated to letting la bonne bouffe rouler.
Beck's Cajun Café Reading Terminal Market, 59 N. 12th St., 215-592-0505, beckscajuncafe.com. Beck's is a stand in Reading Terminal Market, meaning no evening hours and no Hurricanes or Sazeracs to cloud the judgment. It features cafeteria trays of New Orleans food and diner-style seating and has a sister spot in 30th Street Station.
- Bourbon Street Cred: Owner/chef Bill Beck is a Philly native who won most of his "Best of Philly" awards for Miami fusion.
- Taste Test: "Not bad" was the general consensus on Beck's, although Hess didn't like the way the rice was mixed with the sauce in their gumbo and wished for more crawfish in their etouffee. The shrimp po'boy was fresh and tasty, but Hess found the French bread too chewy and Savadove agreed.Both thought the shrimp flavor lost to its fry.
- Mardi Gras Plans: Baby-Jesus-containing king cakes on offer through Feb. 17.
Khyber Pass Pub 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888, khyberpasspub.com. Cantina restaurant czars Stephen Simons and Dave Frank transformed this former rock dive into a Southern gastropub in 2010.
- Bourbon Street Cred: Co-owner Frank loves New Orleans and visits there frequently.
- Taste Test: Gumbo of the right soupy consistency, properly topped with a rice dollop, said both New Orleaneans. Savadove loved the complex, not very spicy-hot flavor of the Cajun-style dark roux base. "They have Crystal [-brand New Orleans hot sauce] for that," he said. The shrimp po'boy had Hess at its New Orleans-sourced Leidenheimer roll; Savadove praised that sandwich's expertly cooked shrimp.
- Mardi Gras Plans: Their new daily brunch, featuring pork-belly doughnuts, launches Feb. 17 at 10 a.m.
Café Nola 414 S. Second St., 215-574-1687. This twinkling jewel box of a restaurant is the latest incarnation of a New Orleans eatery that's been kicking around Greater South Street since the early 1980s.
- Bourbon Street Cred: Chef/owner Nick Ventura hails from the Mama Ventura Jersey Italian restaurant family and Nola's window boasts of "Creole-Italian Cuisine." Serves Mexican Cholula hot sauce.
- Taste Test: Our Gumbo Ya Ya and etouffee were two nearly indistinguishable plates of mushy rice 'n' fish/chicken and sausage. The gumbwo tasted mainly like flour. Both dishes were too thick and too expensive, even given their generous amounts of protein. But the very Philly Metropolitan Bakery wheat rolls were wonderful.
- Mardi Gras Plans: Nola is the last stop on the South Street-area Mardi Gras parade/bar crawl on Feb. 15.
Catahoula 775 S. Front St., 215-271-9300, catahoulaphilly.com. The former fancy La Creole is now a friendly neighborhood bar featuring New Orleans food and the Saints on the TVs.
- Bourbon Street Cred: Owner Nikki Kaufman and chef Dave Williams are from Israel and South Carolina, respectively. At least one Abita beer always on tap.
- Taste Test: Cajun-style "Acadian gumbo" was right on the soupy-consistency and rice-glop fronts and tasty in a beef-gravy kind of way. The shrimp po'boy was, quality-wise, somewhere between Beck's and Khyber.
- Mardi Gras Plans: $5 Abita drafts and free Mardi Gras beads.
Based on these few dishes, Khyber Pass is Philadelphia's New Orleans food king, at least this Mardi Gras. All four of these places might want to do some Katrina-style battening of the hatches before the September opening of Tremé and Café Beignet, a New Orleans food/music complex on North Broad from John Mims of Carmine's Act II and New Orleans.
