Jambalaya and a crawfish pie...

Last Saturday when I went into downtown Augusta to look for curtain material, I found hunger striking just as I was parking. I managed to get through my errand at Cozy Cottage Fabrics o.k., but knew I needed to eat as soon as possible. I had been wanting to go back to the Riverfront Barbeque and Grill, also located on Water Street, where I had eaten once before, with one of my staff and her mother. I had been favorably impressed with the food that time -- had had the blackened haddock, which came with one of the best restaurant cole slaws I've ever had (not too sweet, not awash with mayonnaise) as well as a tasty jalapeno cornbread -- and wanted to see if the place would stand up to a second visit.

It did. This time I had the seafood and sausage jambalaya, again accompanied by the cole slaw and cornbread, which seems to come with everything. The jambalaya was excellent, although one would definitely need to like spicy food to enjoy it. The seafood part was shrimp, small but plentiful, and two crab claws. Oh, crab meat is so delicious. I found the dish properly authentic tasting -- it could easily have been produced by some little hole in the wall in southern Louisiana. Indeed, the restaurant itself could easily sit on some corner in New Orleans' French Quarter: Big, dark wood bar, high, stamped tin ceiling painted a dark chocolate brown, a nice contrast to the vanilla-colored walls, very roomy, dark wood booths all around the walls; in the middle of the room a few small tables along a strip of highly polished black-and-white checked floor that I could see serving as a dance floor. Good blues playing on the sound system.

I have yet to try the barbeque, which comes in all guises, but I know that Barb really likes their barbeque ribs. The place isn't cheap -- my meal cost me $20 with the tip, and I had only water to drink -- but I didn't feel ripped off. As tired as I get of having to eat so often, as much as I dislike to cook -- and as bored as I get with my own cooking -- I do enjoy having a good meal at a nice restaurant. There is a real dearth of good restaurants in the Augusta area -- Slates, just around the corner from my little library in Hallowell, being one of the few -- so I'm pleased to discover another one, that I can recommend to people, and take visitors to.

Now all I need is some visitors.