NVM Review

By Warren Rojas

To his credit, pastry chef cum restaurateur David Guas never seems to run out of gas.

Pity his Cajun-inspired cooking often lacks the delectable fire one expects from Crescent City favorites.

Guas’ first solo project certainly looks/sounds like a cozy N’awlins retreat, featuring a soundtrack that cranks out enough zydeco, funk, jazz and Dixieland to fuel a week-long procession. Lest you get too comfortable, though, signs posted all around remind everyone, “Please bus your own table. This ain’t ya mamma’s house. Thank you.”

Daily specials range from red beans and rice to chocolate pudding with bacon brittle, while signature treats like PorKorn (caramel-bacon popcorn) and home-spun sweeteners—apple butter and pepper jelly accompany fresh biscuits, local honey and cane sugar syrup await java lovers—remain evergreen.

Plenty of folks parade in to do the French press-beignet power- breakfast thing, as well they should.

The marquee sweets—light, airy and pull-apart warm to their webby cores—are magnificent, if not a bit humbling. For men, anyway. As evidenced by the steady stream of still-swooning dudes unsuspectingly marching back out into polite society sporting ersatz clown makeup, their mouths and chins dusted white from biting into the powdered sugar-topped pastry puffs.

Other sweets are just as intoxicating, including golden croissants clutching pleasing pockets of bittersweet chocolate (enough to sate bleary-eyed chocoholics without triggering insulin shock) and nut-packed pralines that remain cookie-crisp in the hand but begin their delicious dissolution upon touching the tongue.

Crawfish etouffee is so distressingly bland, I half expect a nurse to sidle up with some JELL-O or a cup of ice chips. Gumbo puts up a little more fight, its chocolaty roux, no doubt, abetted by ample amounts of garlic, onion and smoky, beefy Andouille sausage.