Canal Restaurant & Bar 65 Water St. (July 15)

Overall impression:  Great place to go for drinks. Large and diverse food menu, attentive service.

 http://thecanalrestaurant.com/

I'm normally not one to get excited about Cajun/Creole food, mainly because I'm a vegetarian and it usually isn't the right fit. When we visited New Orleans a couple of years ago the only "classic" local cuisine I could eat were beignets (but hey - beignets!). Lucky for me, however, I have the new-place-a-week challenge, so that got us out to the Canal Restaurant (New Orleans Cuisine). I liked it, and I'd like to go again. The food was good, not amazing (I'll have to try some more dishes to get a better picture), but the relaxed bar atmosphere was nice.

Early-ish on a Wednesday evening it was pretty quiet. There was a group finishing up a meal at one of the other high-tops at the bar plus a few regulars coming in, having drinks at the tables outside. It was biker night, I believe, both the Canal and the bar across the street had lots of motorcycles parked out front. I wonder how busy they get late at night, when there is music. (Though late night DJ isn't so much our scene, so I probably won't ever find out first-hand. I was actually confused by the website announcing "Djing". I though, Jing? What do they mean by Jing? Oh, right, DJ-ing). Anyway, quiet was relaxing. The space is comfortable, set just below street level but very open feeling. The non-DJ music runs towards 80's hits.

I had a cocktail, a cucumber jack. Vodka, tequila, cucumber, lime. Good, but I'm not completely sold on the cucumber and lime combo. For food we started with the fries of the day (yucca), and Eric had shrimp tacos, which he enjoyed. I tried the roast vegetable jumbalaya, mostly because I hadn't had jumbalaya before and liked the idea of a vegetarian version. Unfortunately I don't think jumbalaya is my thing, but that's ok. For dessert we shared a gigantic piece of chocolate cake. I have been mostly off of eating added sugar for over a year, no cookies or cake except for my birthday. My birthday is in one week, so I declared this the dessert occassion. It was lovely. (Sorry to say, no beignets).

I think this is a great place to meet friends after work. On a July or August Thursday you could go to the farmer's market at Crompton place in the evening, then head over to the Canal for refreshment (alternating weekly with El Patron, of course). Beautiful summertime!