The Mamou — Restaurant in Springfield

It's solid good, but absolutely not- near the original Big Mamou. I travel all through the Northeast and Big Mamou was one of my 3 favorite restaurants in my whole region. The Big Mamou was a strong 5 stars and I never had a less than excellent dish. Chef Wayne's Cajun on The Go stand he had was a solid 4.5 stars, only because it didn't have all of the items I liked, but the quality was very close. I used to buy and pack up $100+ worth of food to take home, because it was so good and my kids liked it so much. While this food was a good solid experience, I won't be packing up food to take home. That is why my 2 visits this month disappointed me a little. Again, the food was solid and could even be close to a 4, but I'm biased about the original and this was a little of a let down from that. Here is what I saw. Lunch cajun chicken pasta for lunch and gumbo and the bread pudding for dessert. a) Cajun Pasta - very heavy handed with the spices and I love spicy. There was so much seasoning that it was easily seen throughout the sauce. The spice was the predominant taste. Cajun on the go and The Big Mamou was perfect. The 3 real skinny slices of chicken was really cheapening out on the ingredients. Not much ingredients, with very little chicken, broccoli, etc. It was a reasonable $14.99, but should have had more chicken in the dish. b) Gumbo was very good taste. Outstanding really, but using the wide rim bowl to make it look bigger doesn't hide that it wasn't much of a bowl and a little skimpy on the ingredients. I really liked it, but for $11.99, I wouldn't take it home with me. Really should be more like $8.99. c) Bread Pudding - Waitress said it's the same as Big Mamou. Not close. The bread Pudding lacked the same flavor, maybe because of skimping on ingredients. The sauce was not the same, but more of a caramel sauce with a big glob of whipped cream. It was basically a good dessert, but nowhere close to the original. Lunch Chicken Mississippi and Thunder Thighs. My associates had a salad with blackened salmon. a) Chicken Mississippi - Good flavor, but for $21.99, way too much for what I got. It had several medallions of chicken that didn't even seem like half a breast. I liked it, but won't order it again. b) Thunder thighs - Good but not great. Again, expensive for what it was. c) Associates salad was very good he said and the salmon piece was good size and fair priced. He said it was very good. I will probably order the Jambalaya and add salad next time.

I will go back again and will enjoy it, but I will not take any home. For the money, I would say that Springdale Cajun in Holyoke is a better value. Their Cajun pasta is better and the restaurants menu is much more reasonably priced. The owner opened after Big Mamou closed and she did cook there, so she knows how to do Cajun and her food is at least as good, more generous with her ingredients and better...

We consider ourselves to be pretty hard core "Big Mamou" fans. We've held past events there and was excited to hear about the reopening of "The Mamou".

Pros: Bigger inside Nice bar/ interior layout More wait staff

Cons: Food New Orleans Atmosphere . Upon entering the restaurant, it looked very nice. However, with the one exception of the one wall with chief Wayne's face and awards, the other walls were bare. Where is the New Orleans influence? Where's the yellow and gold beads, or pictures of people playing NO music, and crocodile heads? Where's the decor that speaks to the creole/ New Orleans restaurant vibe. The walls were blank canvases needing inspiration.

Food We wanted to get a true representation of the food. So we bought several appetizers, meals, deserts and drinks ie.. thunder thighs, gumbo, calamari, crawfish bouletts, blackened ribeye, bread pudding and chocolate pie.

Some of the food/ sauces were either over cooked, bland, or burnt. It seemed like the cooks were given the recipes but could have spent more time with chef Wayne mastering the flavor profiles. They were close but something was missing.

On a brighter note, the Blackened Ribeye was very good. However, with such a high price point, we were expecting more than just 3 small shrimp on top of it.

We haven't given up on " The Mamou". We look forward to returning in the future to see if things have gotten better. We loved " Big Mamou" and hope that "The Mamou" is...

We live out of state and used to stop at the original location every time we were near Springfield and were very excited to learn about the reopening. We stopped in tonight and were not disappointed! The atmosphere is reminiscent of New Orleans and the food is just as good as we’ve had in Louisiana!

The manager was friendly and helpful when we called for a reservation and again when we had to push our time back due to travel delays. When we arrived we were seated right away and our server Keke immediately took our drink orders. She was an awesome server, friendly and efficient.

We started with the gumbo which was served quickly and was full of flavor. We had jambalaya for our entree. It was packed with shrimp, chicken and andouille sausage. The food took a little longer to come out but it was well worth the wait.

People need to remember that this is only their first week and it takes time for a restaurant to establish their rhythm. Be patient and give grace- you won’t be...