In the Garden District of New Orleans, on the corner of Magazine Street and 7th sits a local restaurant called Joey K’s. You can’t miss the sign hanging above the door. You also can’t miss the sign in the window that says “Sorry We’re Open”. It really made me laugh.
Based on the position of the entrance, as soon as I walked in I realized that back in the day, this space must have been an old pharmacy. The restaurant was cute inside with New Orleans artwork decorating the walls.
I took a seat at the bar and took a look at their drink menu. What my eyes fell to was their sangria. As I have written about many times before, sangrias are one of my favorite cocktails. I love trying each restaurants versions. At Joey K’s they make a homemade one however, what was interesting is they only serve the white during the Spring/Summer and the red during Fall/Winter. So since I fell into the Spring time frame I was thrilled to try the white. It was light tasting with fruity accents. It was not overly sweet. It was refreshing.
The menu had many great sounding dishes. It was hard for me to make a decision of what to order. So I asked my bartender what she recommended. She said there were two items that customers are always ordering.
The first is a New Orleans classic – red beans and rice. It was the perfect size in a small bowl. The beans were huge and mixed with pieces of sausage. The sauce had a nice smoky taste. It was not too heavy even when I mixed the rice and scallions. It was the perfect starter.
The second item that was recommended was the eggplant napoleon. The dish had a beautiful presentation, it was almost a shame I had to take it apart to eat it.
There were eggplant slices that were breaded and fried, then stacked with fried shrimp in between the layers. Then it was topped with a generous portion of crawfish cream sauce.
Breaking this dish down, each component was perfect on their own. The eggplant was sliced just right so that it became crispy after being fried. The shrimp were coated in a thicker batter than the eggplant. I could tell the shrimp were fresh because they were very tender.
The crawfish cream sauce was my favorite part of this dish. This is where all the flavor was located. The sauce reminded me of a sausage gravy that is served on top of biscuits for breakfast.
The salty taste from the fried portions was balanced out thanks to the sweetness of the cream sauce. They all worked well together.
If your hanging out on Magazine Street stop into Joey K’s. The staff is extremely friendly and the place is loaded with regular customers. However, do not plan on visiting them on Sunday’s because they are closed.
Check out their menu at http://joeyksrestaurant.com/
Enjoy!
T
