Sunday, December 11, 2011

Sunday Brunch at Nola's (Downtown LA)

LA needs more Cajun places and Nola's in Downtown LA moved in to fill part of the gap. I was pretty excited to try it when they invited me in, but my schedule only allowed to come for Sunday brunch.
I didn't realize that the Sunday brunch was a champagne buffet until I got there. I was planning to try their jambalaya, gumbo, and po'boy but they weren't offered at the buffet. Oh well ...
The buffet offerings included fried chicken, fried catfish, shrimp Étouffée, red bean and rice, beignets, and fruits. Oh, and of course, free flowing mimosas.

buffet
Both the fried chicken and fried catfish were great, I went back for seconds for both of these. Since the beignets were put out buffet style, they were unfortunately not that fresh and kind of hard. I liked the shrimp Étouffée too - the good thing about having the buffet style is that I could get as many shrimp as I wanted.

The place was packed and when I was leaving every table was occupied. Most of the customers seem to be big families of African Americans coming from church or celebrating someone's birthday.
They also had a jazz singer and musicians performing live throughout the afternoon. I don't know my jazz musicians and can't remember her name but I remembered that she was in her 60s or 70s and boy could she still sing.
Jazz
When I was there, they were thinking of having a cover charge for certain artists, so you may want to double check before walking in for dinner.


The cocktail list looked promising so I decided to also try their Sazerac. Considering this place has no "cocktail program" per se or a renowned mixologist, the Sazerac was surprisingly pretty good though a bit off balance.

Now, I still need to try their jambalaya, gumbo, and po' boy before deciding how good their food overall is, but it is at least a fun place with live jazz (barring cover charge), pretty good drinks and food - and a unique addition to downtown.
Nola's: A Taste of New Orleans
734 East 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 680-3003
nolasla.com
Nola's A Taste of New Orleans on Urbanspoon

Disclosure: this meal was hosted

1 comments:

Sophia Lee

I love NOLA's! Their jambalaya is amazing...and so is their seafood medley and desserts. :-)

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