This past week I was in New Orleans for work and before I left for the trip I asked all of my friends who had been to the city recently to recommend any restaurants they thought might be vegetarian friendly.
One of my closest friends from growing up recommended an Italian/Creole fusion place on Frenchmen Street called Adolfo's. Frenchmen Street is know for its great, live, jazz music so we were looking forward to dining in that neighborhood.
We took a cab from our hotel to Frenchmen Street and walked a few blocks before we found Adolfo's. The entrance to the restaurant is a very unassuming red door next to the entrance of a bar called the Apple Barrel.
We walked up a narrow flight of stairs to the restaurant and put our name in with the host. He said there were six parties in front of us.
We wound up waiting outside on the sidewalk for an hour before our name was called. Everyone else waiting was talking to us about how great they heard the food was and about what people on Yelp recommended ordering.
Once our name was called we were seated not in the cute part of the restaurant, but the cast off room on the side.
The center of the restaurant looks like Tony's from my favorite Disney movie, "Lady in the Tramp." It has adorable ambiance galore.
We however, wound up in the little side room which was disappointing.
Our waiter came over to bring us menus and ask for our drink order. We both ordered Diet Cokes which came so flat they tasted like nothing. Strike one.
While looking over the menu my coworker admitted there wasn't much for her to eat since she's a vegetarian and she doesn't like eggplant. Most of the veggie options involved eggplant.
When our waiter came back to take our order and she asked about other veggie options he was flippant and down right rude. Strike two.
We wound up ordering Caesar salad to start. The salad was nothing more than lettuce and a lemony, Caesar dressing. No croutons, no parmesan cheese. Strike three.
Our waiter then brought by a plate of garlic bread which was the saving grace of the first course.
For dinner, my coworker wound up with a bowl of spaghetti with alfredo sauce. They went super light on the sauce. I felt terrible she was stuck with such a pathetic dish.
I ordered two appetizers for dinner: the eggplant parmesan and the spinach and ricotta cannelloni.
This eggplant parmesan was one of the best I have ever had. In addition to the perfectly fried eggplant and the juicy tomato sauce, on the bottom of the plate they melted mozzarella cheese. It was heavenly. That dish alone was worth the hour wait.
The cannelloni was stuffed with ricotta and spinach. The spinach tasted like it had been frozen and then wasn't cooked all the way through. Strike four. If this were a baseball game, Adolfo would have been thrown out of the park.
When the check came our waiter informed us the restaurant is cash only. They don't advertise this anywhere in the restaurant and I am sure we weren't the only diners surprised by this news.
To be fair, Adolfo's is known for their fish sauce and we didn't order that. Perhaps had we ordered the fish sauce our minds would have been blown and we'd forgive the hour wait, the poor service, the mediocre appetizers and the surprise "cash only" announcement.
Have you been to Adolfo's? What was your experience?
