Snake River Grill in L'auberge

Now for the good stuff. Last night I went to the high end venue at the casino on this side of the lake. Snake River Grill is offshoot of a famous restaurant in Jackson Hole. Service was excellent as usual. One of the few places in the city that you get consistly great service. My dinner was a prime example of the type of service here. I felt like going the small plate route as they have a number of interesting dishes. I just did not feel like a big honking hunk f meat. If I had ordered 4 appetizers in any other Lake Charles venue they would have appeared on the table all at once or at least so fast that I could not have finished one plate before another one or two arrived. My server, Cory (I highly recommend asking for him if you eat here), knew to course the plates like a regular meal. I was always allowed to finish one dish before another appeared and it was never more than several minutes before the next one appeared after I had finished. Below is a complementary crudite dish. Be forewarned that dip though tasty was extremely spicy

This is the bread basket. Pretty standard and OK

This is what they call a shared appetizer. The sausage stuffed bacon wrapped dates were my favorite last night. They were smoky, sweet, and spicy. A combo I particularly like. To my knowledge it has been on the menu for at least 4 years and deserves to stay there. It is a great aperitif to stimulate the appetite.

These are the sirloin tacos. This dish has been praised by one of the restaurant's vendors for a number of years. So I decided to try it this time. Sitting on refried black beans ( which I prefer) these mini tacos have a slice of sirloin cooked to temperature sitting on a dollop of spicy guacamole. The perfect combo and one I recommend now also

A corn and rock shrimp chowder followed. It is well prepared and the shrimp very good but I had two personal qualms about it. To me the potatoes could have been cut a little smaller to the size of the shrimp. Putting a big piece of potato in my mouth threw me off. Another was a predominant herb flavor that overwhelmed the dish. I could not figure out what it was. It could have been sage or just too much bay leave. Whatever it was I did not care for it particularly.

Here is a sea scallop dish I ordered. Two well prepared scallops sitting on some truffled mashed potatoes with some haricot vert in the middle. The components of this dish were excellent on their own. The scallops seared just right with the middle slightly undercooked with a nice pepper note. The mash sweet and earthy. However I did not care for the combination of the two. The potatoes seemed to make the scallop heavy. Again probably just my personal taste

Finally some small cookies (lemon bars, in house oreos, chocolate chip, raspberry thumbprints, and sandtarts) served with Schraffenberger dipping chocolate. A very nice end to the meal and another example of the service. This was not on the dessert menu but rather a dessert offered with a three course meal offered that night. This had caught my eye and I asked if I could get it and they obliged me.

Tonight should be another taste adventure and I will post that tomorrow morning.

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