The Blue Duck

They do sandwiches with a wide range of soups, some salad, decent sides and plate lunch specials. I will give you a link to the website later that contains a PDF of the menu. The owner is not only a chef but a bluesman to boot. On Friday and Saturday nights after cooking dinner for the crowd he doffs his apron and puts on his guitar. Then with his band plays away the night. Sorry I do not have the night menu but I ate there once and it was better than decent.

I started off with the black eye pea soup. Black eye peas cooked with bacon, jalapenos, onion and garlic in chicken stock then pureed. It came out steaming hot and my first bite was a gigantic garlic hit. It was not pleasant leaving an acrid aftertaste. However I soon figured out it was the steam heat that was causing this effect. After letting the soup cool a bit it mellowed considerably. The garlic was at the very edge of the envelope but it was not a sledgehammer any more. It grew on me and I loved every bite after that


I had ordered half a Ninth Ward and half a Peacemaker. For those who need interpretation a Ninth Ward is a debris po boy. Need further translation this is a beef chuck pot roast cooked low and slow in its own juices till it literally and actually fall apart. Mother's on Poydras made this home style po boy famous. It is sorta like pulled pork except beef and no BBQ sauce. It soaking with gravy as it the bread. They use Gambino Bakery New Orleans French bread here. Mine was just as good as I have had at Mother's

There is a story or myth behind the Peacemaker. The story runs that a man in New Orleans was out late getting drunk. So on the way home instead of picking up flowers for his wife he goes to the local po boy place and get a fried oyster sandwich. Only in New Orleans would you bring home food to make the peace. Along side it is some Onion Crisps. These are thin sliced onions soaked in a specially seasoned wash then coated with the corm flour based fry mix and flash fried. The oysters were excellent and some additional hot sauce made the po boy perfection. The onion were tasty and crisp but I prefer mine just coated in seasoned flour. That would have been the perfect combination for me however I would not throw this combo out the bed.

If you do not order a side you get a small bag of kettle chips made just outside of New Orleans. They are Ron Zapp's pride and joy.

I finished off with bread pudding. Unfortunately not enough egg custard mixture had been used or they had not let it soak long enough. My piece had dry sections of bread and was very dense and dry. It did have a cinnamon flavor and looked great.

Below is the link

http://www.blueduckcafe.com/