Voodoo Bayou — Restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens

Had to eat outside because 8yr old didn't like the wonderful sounding brass New Orleans-Styled music just inside on the stage, unfortunately. The inside looks tremendous.

There during brunch hours on a Sunday so I enjoyed the crawfish Benedict which is served on muffins not English muffins so it is very rich. The hollandaise is good and the eggs were cooked to perfection. Most everyone else had the gumbo.

Our server didn't hear us say we wanted the eggs and bacon and toast for the 8 year old (big eater!) so that was delayed but it didn't ruin our time just caused him to wait.

It was announced the check would automatically be billed 18% beforehand which is not a problem but I sensed an overall lack of interest in our consuming more drinks. Only 2 of our 7 were over 21 and I did add a beer to my meal and was in constant reception of my Pepsi over and over but my wife really wanted more sweet tea and never seemed to grab the guy (she never told me during the meal).

One of our group was missing a set up and was brought one minus the napkin as the meal began. Just little stuff here and there where I thought maybe a little more courtesy was warranted. I get it in places like this where people come in and treat staff with a condescending attitude you sort of adopt the same attitude to dish it right back because after all we're all important people but I don't need any of that. I'm just a normal dad with a wife and 3 kids, two of which have their significant others (college and high school) and I'm running a nice $350 tab. I asked for them to offer maybe some forks for the monkey bread and beignets and I was just told yeah no that's finger food. They were all kind of waiting for forks and didn't feel like having to wash their hands. I wasn't having any that way but ok. The customer, in this case, is wrong. I stand corrected but I still added $18.00 (5%) more to the bill which already has 18% on it which was sort of a half-hearted 1pm effort so oh well.

My son wrote a 5 page review on the place and loves it and has visited 6 times with his girlfriend- for one of his classes at school so don't let my review make you feel any which way about it other than I think the food is extremely rich which should go without saying since the place is a Cajun themed chain restaurant if the upper tier variety.

The bar looked like...

Pros: Atmosphere Very cool ambience, very Louisiana. Live band playing was great, jazzy and chill playlist, not excessively loud so you can still hear yourself think and have a conversation.

Gumbo Ya ya was delicious, don't expect much of a serving.

Blackened Chicken Po Boy was great, small but excellent flavor and sauce.

Carbonara, was good, sauce is a bit too thin and noodles were way overcooked but it was still really good. Good serving size, blackened shrimp on ours was excellent.

Cons: My wife and I wanted to enjoy a new spot before a long drive back home, we had some work to get done in the area that morning before lunch, so we weren't dressed fancy or anything, but immediately felt judged by some of the facial expressions as we approached the front door. They felt it necessary to tell us 4 times that there is an 18% service charge on our check between being seated and our waiter. Weird. I ignore this. We were seated kind of out of the way near the kitchen, which i enjoy i appreciate the work of the kitchen staff and seeing their prep so if they were trying to hide us from view, it worked in my favor. Anyways, our waiter immediately cracked a joke as i looked at the whiskey selection about a whiskey being a lot of money. Not super funny, but I laughed nonetheless. Asked if we wanted anything more than water in a way that makes you feel like "are yall broke and not going to make me any money today?"

We ordered our drinks and food and waited a good while, but enjoyed the live band so it passed by just fine, food came and was overall really good, but excessively priced for what you get (this is all restaurants these days). We were running behind schedule now so last thing we ordered was the monkey bread to go, ordere early enough for it to be ready and cooked by time we leave. We paid our bill and left feeling like the staff breathed a sigh of relief that we didn't skip out on our bill. When we got to the monkey bread an hour or so later, we only got to enjoy the cooked outer parts with the included glaze and almonds as the bread was raw inside as you can see in the image. Good concept but...

I was really excited to eat at Voodoo Bayou after a coworker recommended it. My love for cajun food is about as high as it gets. I visit New Orleans frequently and my favorite thing about going there is the food. The restaurant is beautiful. They have mastered the ambiance from the lighting to the decorations; high-class silverware and dishes round out the atmosphere. Our hostess and server were extremely friendly and helpful. Unfortunately, that's where my praise for Voodoo Bayou ends. I was dining with a party of four well-traveled foodies and we sampled the menu from apps, to mains and sandwiches, to desserts. Overall, the consensus was the food was underwhelming. We started with pimento cheese dip which was paired with tasso ham (smoky and delicious). The dip was fantastic but we were kind of disappointed after getting the bill and seeing that the crackers were an extra $2 per plate. The buttermilk crackers are made on site but were overpriced. The app comes with an inadequate number of crackers to share with the table so we got extra. I was disappointed with my main, a Wagyu beef country fried steak. The plate comes out looking quite barren: just the steak, gravy, and 2 tomato slices. I noticed immediately that the breading had the classic sheen of oil that had not been soaked up after cooking. Uh oh, rookie mistake. I thought optimistically that it will still be good since the meat is choice. The breading tasted like grease and my second bite was gristle. Overall, it was overpriced and not as described in the menu. One of my friends had the biscuits and gravy which she described as "awful. So tough I had to cut them with a knife." Pillsbury bake-at-home biscuits would have been better. Whatever the recipe is for these biscuits needs seriously revamping. She paired the hockey puck biscuits with "double smoked bacon" which was fatty pork belly (chewy, fatty, pork pieces.) Not what we would call bacon. The mac and cheese, fried oyster poboy, and banana pudding were pretty unremarkable. I know we were a long way from New Orleans but for a restaurant which claims to specialize in cajun cuisine, it...