The New Orleans Chronicles: Café Mespero

One restaurant that I stopped at while in New Orleans was Café Maspero at 601 Decatur Street.  The place was a dingy joint on the outskirts of the French Quarter, and I can’t say that I was impressed.

The menu included your standard New Orleans fare, including burgers, jambalaya, assorted steaks and fish, what have you.  Nothing really wowed me on the menu, and the wait staff followed suit.  Our waitress was nothing special, and deserved an average tip.  I ordered a burger with a side of jambalaya and an Abita Amber, a local brew that was on tap.  The burger was alright, not spectacular, but the veggies on the burger were pathetic.  The chopped iceberg and tomato slice were not fresh, and looked like the house salad that somebody else got, sub par.  I bit into the tomato, and the entire tomato skin on the slice came off without my knowledge.  The tomato itself was flavorless and grainy.  I went to swallow it down, and the skin came with it, and I realized that I couldn’t breathe.  I was choking on the tomato skin.  I literally had to pull the skin out of my throat in order to live.  It was scary, and is a risk you take when using non-fresh fruits and vegetables.  That soured my experience, as did my beer coming in a plastic cup.  Boo to that!  Beer from a tap in a restaurant should come in a glass, even if it is inexpensive.  So what if the plastic cup gives me the option to drink the beer on the street (which is legal in New Orleans).  When I am a guest at a restaurant, I feel that I should be treated as one.  We’re not at a keg party here, just trying to enjoy a meal at a restaurant, to no avail.  The jambalaya was mediocre at best.  The rice was mushy, there was a definite lack of spice, and the shrimp in it were most definitely the “pre-cooked in a frozen bag at the grocery store” style of shrimp.

When it came time to pay, I found that it was a cash only restaurant.  There was an ATM in the corner that charged outrageous fees.  I was forced to use this method of payment.  The last thing I wanted to do was to give this restaurant any more of my money, but I had to.  Not cool, not nice, and not worth it.

In conclusion, Café Maspero should be renamed Café Masper-blow, as my experience at the restaurant did, in fact, blow.  I highly discourage eating at this establishment, but if you have two bucks, you can walk up to the bar and get a “to-go” cup of Abita Amber for two bucks.  That is about all this stink hole was good for.