Pats of Henderson

Another foray to Moss Bluff wasted. This new place with newly posted hours was not open when they said they would be. They have either folded or are taking their sweet time reorganizing. Still hungry for oysters I came back down and stopped off at Pats of Henderson. Below is a little lagniappe you get when you sit down. Catfish bites with tartar sauce. The catfish bites were extraordinarily bland. No seasoning what so ever. I squirted lemon on them and then some in house seasoning. Pretty good.



I ordered a dozen raw oysters. They brought a dozen ranging from the fairly big to the ridiculously small. Just a dozen and only a dozen. The small ones should have been counted as one quarter and an at least a baker's dozen brought out. As you can see I ate most of them before I thought to take a picture. They were nice and briny.

Next came shrimp and oyster gumbo. Spicy broth with a nice roux and fantastic rice on the side. As you can see the shrimp and oyster are cooked just right. I suspect they have a big pot of gumbo base which they add the protein to at the last minute. I will remember that in the future and just order oysters.

Continuing on the oyster theme I ordered a plate of fried oysters with onion rings. These rings were thicker cut than yesterdays but still in house made. It makes for a better ring. These had a flour coating which I love and were outstanding after salt and pepper. They gave me a hush puppy which had whole kernel corn in it. A bit different but delicious. Also a dollop of seafood jambalaya. Too much tomato although it was nice and spicy. They oysters were fresh and fried properly but again the wrong kind of coating . This seemed to be a batter of corn flour and regular flour. It makes a thick crust which while keeping the oysters hot took away from what I wanted oyster. I prefer a corn meal dusting for my fried oysters. The gritty corny outside accentuates the briny moist interior for me. I know where to get this kind and will go there in the future.

The bread pudding was the ground bread type with some sweet spices and coconut in a not too alcoholic rum sauce. I enjoyed it for the most part. Again one of my peculiarities. I like the flavor of coconut but do not care for the texture of coconut flakes. But this one was good enough to overlook that. I especially like the rum sauce. A lot of places put too much alcohol in their sauce. This in my opinion ruins the taste because all I taste is the raw alcohol

The best thing here I got I can not take a picture of. It was the finest service I have had in a long time in this city. Jim was perfect. I was virtually the only person in the dining room. These days the server would have put everything I ordered to the kitchen and brought it out all at once so they could go smoke or do whatever they do when they should be watching out for the customer. Jim was attentive but not overly so. Friendly but again not overly so. The courses came out in a timely manner with virtually no overlaps. Jim made some adjustments based on what I ordered and the time the kitchen would take to perform it. Also dessert was suggested instead of the ticket just appearing after the main course. The man knows how to build a tip and he got a generous one from me. I did appreciate it and told him so.