The spice of life

Chef Eddie Lathers stirs a pot of red beans in his kitchen at the Bite of New Orleans Café. JAY DROWNS HERALD PHOTO

Bite of New Orleans' Cajun tastes great

Stacee Sledge

Feb 21, 2002 — Tucked into a shopping center on Northwest Avenue across from Yeager's, Bite of New Orleans Café offers all the traditional Cajun and Creole dishes you might expect, and then some. Recently, a group of friends — including a couple of major gumbo and okra fans — joined me to see if Bite of New Orleans Café was the real deal.

The interior of the spacious restaurant is unassuming and comfortable. Mardi Gras beads and coins decorate the tables, while ceramic masks and hot pepper-themed posters line the walls. Sprawling green plants are scattered throughout the dimly lit space.

Lively Zydeco music put us in the right mood for New Orleans chow, as our party sat down at a large round table and settled in for a spicy spread.

The menu runs for many pages, listing steak, crawfish, alligator, chicken and shrimp dishes, among others. Included in the menu is an informative glossary of Southern terms.

We began with the dinner salad included with all entrées. The crisp greens were served with a fiery Cajun dressing that was a hit all around. When I asked our server for the dressing details, he teasingly laughed and would only admit that it's a secret homemade recipe.

Bite of  New Orleans Café

Location: 3040 Northwest Ave. Phone:752-1468 Serving: Cajun and Creole dishes for lunch, dinner and Sunday breakfast. Menu items sampled: Chicken Creole linguine $11.95 Southern style catfish $14.95 Jambalaya $11.95 Gumbo $11.95 Shrimp étouffée $14.95

After our salads, we were all served the requisite cornbread — but this was no ordinary cornbread. Instead, we were brought flavorful cornbread pancakes, a great twist on an old standby.

I ordered the chicken Creole linguine, one of three pasta dishes on the menu. Resting atop a bed of al dente linguine noodles, grilled chicken breast was sliced and topped with a chunky, piquant Creole sauce that included red pepper, tomato, onion and herbs. It was just the right dish for a cool winter night.

My husband had the Southern style catfish. A boneless catfish fillet was lightly breaded with seasoned cornmeal, then pan-fried. Light and flaky, the fish dish had a pleasant kick to it.

It was served with crunchy, lightly seasoned hush puppies, cornmeal dumplings that traditionally accompany fried catfish. The name stems from folklore: Southern cooks used to toss bits of fried batter with the warning, "Hush, puppy!" to hungry dogs in the kitchen, to keep them from begging while the meal was being prepared.

My friend Wes is an okra and gumbo guru. He's tried them in restaurants all over the country, and declared chef Eddie Lathers' gumbo one of the best he's ever had, including those he's sampled in New Orleans. Spiced to a sear and brimming with meat, the hearty stew included seafood, chicken and salty andouille sausage.

But if there's one dish Wes knows even better than gumbo, it's fried okra. He grew up eating it often, and confirmed the fried okra at Bite of New Orleans Café is the finest he's ever tasted. The green okra pods were dredged in breading and cooked to a golden brown crisp.

Another friend had the crawfish étouffée. Étouffée, from the French étouffer, "to smother" or "to suffocate" is a popular Cajun dish of a thick, zesty stew of crawfish and vegetables served over white rice. Describing the crawfish as little lobster tails, only more tender, she was pleased that the dish was chock-full of them. No skimpy servings here. The sauce was creamy with a bit of kick, but not overpowering.

If you have trouble deciding from the plethora of menu items, jambalaya is a good way to go, as it includes chicken, seafood and andouille sausage. Similar to a Spanish paella, this dish was more gently spiced. The texture was a nice counterpoint to the crispy fried okra. Because it's a rice-based dish, it was ideal winter comfort food.

We were all too full for dessert, but if the quality of our entrées were any indication, the pecan pie, cheesecake, and sweet potato pie all deserve additional visits for a proper taste test.

The Bite of New Orleans Café also serves up weekday lunch and Sunday breakfast.

Breakfast choices include grits, an omelet with étouffée sauce, biscuits and sausage gravy, or a pork chop breakfast. They also offer beignets (French for "fritter"), traditional New Orleans yeast pastries, served hot and sprinkled with confectioners' sugar.

For lunch, you can select from a modified dinner menu (sans the okra and salad) or several "po boy" sandwiches, ranging from ham and swiss to oyster.

The motto on the Bite of New Orleans' business card reads "Some's hot! Some's not!" It's true: there seems to be something for everyone at this amiable eatery.

The Fine Print: I dine on my own dime. The opinions herein are mine alone, not the Bellingham Herald's. Agree? Disagree? Please drop me a line at StaceeSledge@hotmail.com.