Emeril's New Orleans Surpasses Expectations

Tonight I took my girlfriend to Emeril's restaurant in New Orleans to celebrate being together for two years. It was interesting to go after watching Emeril create his dishes on TV for the last few years and we were curious if the dishes were as good as they were in HD. The thing that you don't get on TV is the experience that they provide as well as the extraordinary flavors.

I made my reservation on OpenTable.com which was very convenient but didn't mention the bar seats by the kitchen. Some of my girlfriend's clients made us aware of this and when the restaurant called to confirm my reservation I was able to get one of those seats. The bar seats are very similar to the seating seen on Emeril's show and make the experience something special.

Sitting at the bar does present the challenge of trying to settle on a selection after seeing all the wonderful dishes pass by. Before leaving the house I was settled on the Andouille crusted Redfish, but after seeing the lamb and beef pass I settled on the ribeye. We started off with a cheese sampler that had five different cheeses with something to compliment each cheese. At $14 I considered it to be reasonable to sample the cheeses that went so well with my wine.

Speaking of wine, it is possible to get a $15,000 bottle but we got the house wine at $8 a glass and the house wine is excellent. After the cheese sampler we went on th the Calamari that had olives mixed in that my girlfriend described as a Calamari Muffalata. The Calamari was great but there was a lot of it and we didn't want to get full before the entree.

From there we went to the Emeril salad which tasted great with the balsamic and was very light which was refreshing. When our entrees came my girlfriend Sandy had chosen the fish of the day that turned out to be swordfish which she enjoyed. My ribeye was great and cooked perfectly and I really felt bad that I couldn't eat the whole thing.