If we can't have Caniglia's anymore, The Towns at Little Italy is a worthy replacement. Now, if everybody started grilling steaks all at once there one day, it might smell just the same.
I'll have the mostacholi as my side dish, please.
So -- speaking of food -- we ended up downtown at the local Louisiana-style eatery, Jazz, which is part of a Kansas City-based chain. The food is good, and pretty authentic . . . the gumbo more than passable and the fried oyster po-boys first rate. Nice and sloppy, just like I like 'em.
Now, if they could just get Abita beer up here in Huskerland. . . .
Anyway . . . we walk into Jazz to the honest-to-God chank-a-chank of a real, live Cajun band. In Omaha-by-Gawd, Nebraska. With the Sunbeam Bread and old Jax Beer signs on the wall, I could have deluded myself into thinking I was at Mulate's in Breaux Bridge, La. All that was missing was the dance floor.
And the Dixie Beer. Or the Abita Turbodog. I'm not picky.
The Omaha-based Cajun band was passable by Louisiana standards, hunky dory by Midwestern ones. For a second -- until the uttering of the words "You guys" -- I had half-convinced myself the lead singer had a faint South Louisiana accent. Somewhere between Cajun and 'Yat, as softened by professional-class Baton Rouge, if I had to place my auditory hallucination.
But it was just that. A hallucination.
And like the Las Vegas version of Paris, the Authentic Omaha Cajun Experience went a little awry when the percussionist (already a no-no if you're talking Absolutely Traditional Cajun Band) brought out bongos for a couple of numbers. It was as if Desi Arnaz had brought out a German oompa band to play Babalú.
Such is the lot of a Louisiana Boy on the cusp of the Great Plains, where people do listen to oompa bands. You notice things like bongos in a Cajun band. Sigh.
But that oyster po-boy was damn tasty. Mais cher! Ça c'est bon, oui!
No comments:
Post a Comment