Lunch at Louisiana Kitchen

Last week Julia emailed to see if I'd want to join her for brunch at Louisiana Kitchen in Bethesda. Guess what I said!? It's been ages since I've seen Julia, and I was looking forward to catching up with her. She offered to come and pick me up (score!!), head out to the Dupont Farmers Market and then have lunch. I was game!

I don't like to wake up early on a weekend, especially after going salsa dancing the night before, but I was ready at 10 am when Julia picked me up. We strolled through Dupont Farmers Market (I bought kale, chocolate milk and apricot blossom branches), took some photos of gorgeous tulips and cherry blossoms, and finally headed out to brunch.

It took us a while to decide what to order. Each time we thought we made up our  minds, we saw something marvelous coming out from the kitchen.

The food ranged from Po' Boys, Salads, Soups and Omelets to Pancakes, Egg Rolls and a few desserts, all with Cajun Creole flavors, of course.

We finally decided to both order Poached Egg “Bayou”: Two poached eggs on spicy, Cajun fried rice cakes, topped with crawfish meat in hollandaise sauce. BUT I had to make one change (of course): instead of the Cajun fried rice, I asked for “slabs” of fried grits. Julia did the same.

Once the food came, the biscuits stayed untouched. Not that they did not look good, but the rest of the food looked so much better. Plus, we also ordered dessert.

The slabs of fried grits were out of this world. Cooked to perfect tenderness on the inside and then crisped up on the outside. Unfortunately my eggs were a little overcooked and the egg yolks did not ooze out as much as I would have liked. Luckily both the potatoes and the crawfish hit the mark!

We were pretty full, but there is always room for dessert, especially when dessert in question is Beignets!!! I first tried beignets when I visited New Orleans with Anna about 6 years ago and fell in love (with beignets that is!): how can you go wrong with fried dough and sugar?

These did not disappoint.

What a fun way to spend a Sunday morning and afternoon: good chat, good food and plenty of time for a nap. {Unfortunately, the nap did not happen.}