Bourbon St. Cafe — Restaurant in Oklahoma City

For context, I'm a born and raised Cajun, so I'm a bit more strict when it comes to reviewing Louisiana-inspired cuisine. Overall, I rate this restaurant as a 3.5/5 stars. The food is well-made, but poorly seasoned, yet the atmosphere and service help to make up for that. However, if you want authentic Cajun/Creole cuisine, you might be disappointed.

Full Review: For starters, the atmosphere hits you first, and they do a phenomenal job with it. When we went, there was a live jazz band playing, and they were also fantastic. It really reminded me of some restaurants back home, so I have to applaud them for that. I was expecting a little less of a fancy vibe, but it worked nicely since, even if I felt a tad underdressed, it was Mardi Gras so no one could really say anything.

The service was quite good as well. Our waiter was fairly attentive, and I really only had to actively flag him down once for refills on our water. He was friendly as well, and we had good interactions with him throughout the night.

Now, the food. I'm quite disappointed in most of the dishes we got, but not because of the quality of the cooking. I felt everything we got was well-made from a technical standpoint: the gator bites weren't too chewy (very easy to mess up), the pork chop was outstanding, and the catfish my girlfriend got was fried to pretty much perfection. The biggest hurdle for us was the fact that the seasoning was... Absent. With the exception of the Tabasco glazed pork chop (which was easily my favorite part of the meal), most of the rest of our food tasted quite bland. Granted, you had salt, pepper, and Tabasco at the table, but I saw no signs of a classic Cajun seasoning like Tony's or Slap Ya Mama. We got fries, "dirty rice", and fried okra as our sides, and none of them had any flavor. The rice was an exceptionally bad example, as it didn't even resemble the dirty rice I grew up with. Finally, a review of this restaurant would not be complete with a scathing commentary on the boudin balls. To begin with, the ball itself was well-cooked. I am happy to see that, at least on a purely technical level, the chefs are on the top of their game. The boudin itself was a little bland for me, but the cheese on the inside helped with that. I can't fault them for this if they don't make their own boudin, but I do feel the need to comment on it as it's not very representative of good boudin. HOWEVER! The biggest sin comes in the form of the "finisher" for this appetizer. Why oh why did the boudin ball need to be smothered in a tomato sauce? It felt like I was eating a Cajun dish that a chef tried to reimagine as an Italian dish. I didn't mention it earlier, but the cheese inside the ball was mozzarella. Traditionally, you would use a cheese like pepper jack in boudin balls to give it an extra zing as well as a rich cheesiness. The mozzarella was an odd choice when I first read it, but it frustrates me when I realize that was likely to tie more closely into the Italian feel the dish was trying to go for. If the owners read this, please consider going with a more traditional feel for this dish. If you are looking for a sauce, add it to the side and make it something like a honey mustard or a spicy dipping sauce. I've had really good boudin balls with both of those, and the dipping allows someone to eat the dish without the sauce if they don't want it.

I am much more critical of these types of restaurants, as this is the culture I grew up with. I have a good cookbook from my mom with a lot of these recipes, and I visit home every now and then to get the real deal. While the technical quality of the cooking was excellent, the lack of flavor and the atrocity of the boudin ball appetizer left me shaking my head. However, the service was great, and the atmosphere was pretty...

After looking at their menu online, I was excited to go and was really looking forward to my dinner.

Should I start with the good or the bad?

Let's go good first:

Bourbon Street Cafe is very festive and has a great location right on the canal. There are lots of place to go and things to do in the immediate area. I really enjoyed their patio, especially on a perfect night to be sitting outside.

They did a pretty good job of creating a New Orleans feel.

I was seated immediately, and they had a pretty good draft beer selection. It wasn't extensive, but they had good choices.

Now, the not so good:

Although the waitress was fairly quick to take my order, it took a pretty long time to get my beer.

I ordered a side Caesar salad as an appetizer and the Satchmo's, which is their blackened salmon topped with a crab sauce on top of mashed potatoes and a side of asparagus (well that's what the menu says).

Even though I specifically asked for the salad to come out before the dinner, they brought it with my meal, which took longer than it should have.

Instead of the asparagus side, they had given me the mixed vegetables. I mentioned it to the waitress, and she did bring me a side of asparagus.

I'm glad I asked for the asparagus, because it was the highlight of the meal. It was cooked to perfection with just a slight amount of crispness. The flavor was really good as well.

Ok, now we have to get to the rest of the meal.

The salmon was way over cooked which made it very dry. Luckily it did have the crab sauce which was ok. The potatoes were also really dry, and didn't have much flavor. Mashed potatoes are incredibly easy. All you really have to do is add garlic, butter, salt and pepper for good basic mashed potatoes. They seemed to have forgotten every one of those accept for the salt. Lol

The steamed vegetables were cooked right, but they were kind of cold, and like the potatoes, missing flavor.

Now, to be fair, this may have been an off night; however, I can only critique what I experienced.

One day I may give them another shot even though I'm GUESSING they are getting by on their location...

The food at this location is really pretty! The drinks are fabulous and the menu is varied and very Cajun! I share this to say that I will never step foot near this restaurant again in my entire life. The service was so incredibly bad that the rest pales in comparison. It could be the greatest food on earth and after my experience last night I wouldn’t return. We arrived at 5:30 for our reservation. Around 6:15 we got our drinks. Our food arrived quickly, about 20 minutes after ordering. Then we waited until 8:30 at our table for the check. It was a celebration for my birthday and several people had driven hours to eat and get to dance in Bricktown. This sucked up so much time for no reason that it ruined a lot of the evening. Around 7:50 we got our checks the first time after the waiter asking person to person what they had ordered because he forgot and didn’t keep track. Then he ran our cards, cancelled the charges, and took the receipts back because he forgot to add gratuity. He brought back the new checks with the added gratuity one by one over the next 40 minutes. The people that paid cash never got their change back because he said he “lost the book” aka got to keep 40+ dollar tips by just being ineffective as a waiter. They finally ran my card again at 8:35 and the manager told us if this was so upsetting then to simply not return. She gave us an email to reach out to remove the extra charge from running it twice. They skipped desert offerings or doing anything for my birthday all together and we were still there that late. The manager was annoyed that we were annoyed for having to wait an hour and a half just for the check. No apologies. No excuses. Just curt and rude responses with no added context. I’m not one to typically rant but this was such an unpleasant and unnecessary experience that I wanted to advocate for going to any of the other fabulous restaurants in Bricktown! The other people in our room were also losing patience and being ignored so it seems to be an ongoing issue as well. There are too many awesome choices to risk having an experience like...