Louisiana Purchase North
13503 St. Albert Trail (Christy’s Corner shopping centre)
780-488-3536
Louisianapurchase.ca/north (Reservations online)
Delivery: Skipthedishes.com
Mon. to Sat. 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. (1 a.m. Fri. and Sat.)
Sundays noon to 10 p.m.
Dinner for two excluding tip, taxes or beverages: Basic, $30; loaded $60
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
By GRAHAM HICKS
The dining purist will not be amused.
But, for my money, Louisiana Purchase does a very good job “Canadianizing” Creole/Cajun/Louisiana cooking – turning down the spicy heat, adjusting famous Cajun dishes for Edmonton palates more accustomed to Ketchup than Tabasco, while not losing the essence of Louisiana cooking.
The cuisine is steeped in history – the Canadian contribution coming from the Acadians, The Maritime French colonists who were expelled by the British in the mid-18th Century. Many made their way to the French/Spanish settlements in today’s Louisiana, purchased from France by the USA in 1803.
The fried green tomatoes were buried under batter. Graham Hicks/Edmonton SunEdmonton
Creole/Cajun cooking is a heady blend of Acadian, French, Spanish, American indigenous, Caribbean and African influences, using ingredients native to the American Mississippi Delta/Gulf of Mexico – shrimp, crayfish, collards, okra.
Louisiana Purchase, the restaurant, has much experience at “Canadianizing” these New Orleans staples. Its downtown location, at 10322 111 St., has happily flown under the social-media food radar for 30 years!
The original restaurant was sold eight years ago to another low-key local group. Just a few months ago, a bold move was made, opening Louisiana Purchase North as a second restaurant in the long-vacant (four years) former Lazio’s at 137 Avenue and St. Albert Trail.
I took my family to the north-end Louisiana Purchase this past weekend with some trepidation.
How would North Edmonton/St. Albert suburbia – including many beautiful ethnic communities and their cuisines but none from Louisiana – embrace Cajun/Creole cooking?
The space is big (200 lounge/restaurant seats in winter, 300 in summer), how could it be filled? How compromised would the cuisine be, to sell in North Edmonton?
The answer is a fair bit.
But give credit to the Louisiana Purchase owners and its kitchen staff’s experience in the downtown. They offer a satisfying — if toned down — Louisiana dining experience. And for the novice, standard dishes such as ribs, battered shrimp and fried chicken are on offer, mildly flavoured with hints of Creole and Cajun.
The basics at Louisiana Purchase North are well covered. The entrees were in the $25 range, the generous portions being more than enough to divide between five of us.
Despite a busy evening (most of the dining room tables were occupied by 6:30 p.m.,) the food arrived within a reasonable time frame, was staged, hot and fresh off the skillet. Our server was friendly, efficient and knowledgeable.
The dark red interior lent itself to the Louisiana theme. The lively Bourbon Street background jazz created atmosphere, but was not so loud as to drown out conversation.
The “Satisfaction” Jambalaya – named after the Rolling Stones rock band’s deep affection for the music and cuisine of the Mississippi Delta – was just fine, an authentic mix of shrimp creole (rice), thickened and sauced red beans, smoked sausage and chicken, all gently peppered.
The boudin sausage – stuffed with ground seafood – had a lovely soft texture but not much taste. Graham Hicks/Edmonton Sun Edmonton
Boudin is quite unique to this cuisine, being a ground seafood sausage of shrimp, salmon and crawfish. It had a nice gentle texture … but not a whole pile of taste.
The crab cake was again heavy on the batter, but still tasty. Graham Hicks/Edmonton SunEdmonton
Louisiana Purchase is heavy on the deep-fryer – the appetizer crab cake and fried green tomatoes were delivered deep inside crispy, crunchy breadcrumb/cornmeal batters. But, hey, that’s probably the case in most of today’s Louisiana crab shacks. And, as far as deep-fried crusts go, these were first-rate.
I hate to admit it, given its artery-hardening and body-fattening qualities, but Louisiana Purchase’s “Uncle Sam’s Sticky Fried Chicken” is among the best sweet, knobbly, deep-fried chicken I have ever tasted.
Whether this is a contemporary dish in New Orleans, or simply a Louisiana Purchase specialty, I have no idea. But if you are going to break your January diet, this is the way to go.
Outrageously sweet, but Uncle Sam’s sticky fried chicken was magnificent! Graham Hicks/Edmonton Sun Edmonton
The fresh chicken pieces are glazed in a sesame, ginger and soy sauce, tossed in a super-sweet honied batter, deep-fried to a dark brown hue. The crispy, sticky coating delivered cotton-candy sweetness, the underlying glaze a cool, contrasting level of savoury. The meat itself was super tender and alarmingly juicy.
Likewise, the chocolate pecan pie dessert was well worth its $11 price tag – fresh, made in-house, the pecans toasted to perfection, real whipped cream and rich, dark, highest-quality chocolate.
Don’t expect fine-dining from Louisiana Purchase North. Connoisseurs who have been to New Orleans could criticize this menu until the cows come home.
But what this restaurant does, it does very well, offering an interesting style of cooking, suitable for all ages and backgrounds, carefully adjusted to middle-class Canadian tastes.
I’d go back in a heartbeat.