LaFitte's...LaFailure

Well, here I go again, writing about my culinary adventures. The latest exploration is a visit my wife and I made to LaFitte's Restaurant located in the Doubletree Hotel - Denver North (Westminster, CO). LaFitte's touts that their menu is New Orleans inspired but I seriously doubt it -- I have not been to New Orleans but, if the food down in the Big Easy tastes like this, it will be the last place in this life or any life for that matter, that I will visit to eat. When one first looks at the menu, there is a little tingle of excitement as there are items like jambalya with chicken and sausage, or cajun crab cakes and other New Orleans inspired cuisine on the front page. Then you look inside the menu and there nothing there but standard fare sandwiches and burgers...what a huge disappointment. One has to go to the back of the menu to view a token list of Big Easy dishes.

Still, I am a bit excited as I want my tongue to take that culinary adventure to the Mississippi Delta (even if I am in Denver, CO). First, we order the crab and sweet corn bisque for us to share as an appetizer. This was probably the best dish of the evening as the crab and corn were wonderfully sweet and flavorful in a rich cream bisque but the dish was very underseasoned (a little bit of salt and fresh cracked black pepper would have gone a long way). From here, the adventure descended in to the depths of culinary hell. I ordered the crawfish etoufee and my wife ordered the St. Charles (lite) pasta with shrimp. The presentation of my dish was outstanding and showed incredible potential as it was a whole cooked, bright red crawfish sitting on a island of white rice surrounded by a pond of dark roux with colorful herbs sprinkled around the edge of the bowl. That is the only good thing I can say about it, as the rice was bland and the roux was completely flavorless (ever eaten paper mache paste?). I had hoped for bits of mud bug in my roux but, it didn't even have the taste of crawfish (as promised in the menu) in the darkened sauce much less any of the delectable crustacean...how incredibly disappointing. My wife's dish was very underseasoned and swimming in a lake of olive oil which was very unappetizing to look at. However, her shrimp were perfectly cooked and well seasoned so we know that someone in that kitchen knew how to cook and use seasoning (or did they call for takeout shrimp from Joe's Crab Shack just up the street?). In the end, I found myself wishing that I had ordered a deluxe cheeseburger with fries instead of what should have been their signature taste.

I will say that the service was good and all the staff that we came in contact with were friendly but that is not why we came to the restaurant was it -- we were looking for a tasty venture and ended up with a culinary disaster that would have probably qualified for FEMA assistance. Of all things, breakfast that morning was good, hearty and enjoyable but with a name like LaFitte's their dinner fare should have been the shining star. I do not recommend eating at LaFitte's.

Big Mama's, Big Eats

I do love BBQ and especially midwestern BBQ. With that being said, I have not had a ton of exposure as I live in the Pacific Northwest and only visit the midwest (St. Louis, MO Metro area) occasionally. My last trip was just made a week ago when I was visiting my daughter in Belleville, IL and we decided to re-visit a mom and pop style BBQ restaurant called Big Mama's Barbeque located at corner of W. Main Street and N. Belt West. Upon entering we found a very clean homey dining room with tables that had hundreds, if not thousands of business cards under a plexi-glass cover (of course I had to leave mine). But, the dining room was not the reason I came, it was the BBQ!

We sat down and immediately received a warm and friendly greeting from the waitress. While we were perousing the menu, the aroma of BBQ and smoke lightly scented the dining room which of course made us even more hungry. My daughter and I both decided on the pulled pork sandwich with sides of buffalo fries and cornbread muffins and sweet tea to drink. We didn't have to wait long and our meal adventure was presented to us and we quickly dived in. The sandwich was delightful with a light smokey/sweet flavor (not overly sweet) and the meat absolutely fall apart tender. The bun was incredibly fresh and soft but did not take away from the pork, instead it was supporting act that truly brought the taste of the sandwich to the forefrunt. The sides were also very good and played a supporting role to the sandwich -- the buffalo fries were fresh, crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside with a moderate spicey buffalo flavor, and the cornbread muffins were light, warm and mildly sweet, served with a maple butter which was delightful. The only complaint that I have is that the sweet tea was so syrupy sweet that it was difficult to drink (I actually had to ask to have it mixed with unsweetened tea to make it palatable). I certainly wished I had a bigger stomach as there was so much more on the menu I wanted to try. I will be back!

Other items on the menu included beef brisket, half a chicken, crispy pork snoots (which I intend to try on my next trip) and a 2+ pound pork steak...can you say pig heaven? If you happen to be in the Belleville, IL area, take the time to go to Big Mama's...you won't be disappointed!

Big Mama's Barbeque
5110 N. Belt West
Belleville, IL 62226
(618) 239-0695