Lagniappe

Lagniappe is a Cajun word for “a little extra.” For lunch yesterday, I really wanted to get a Southern Chicago style tofu dog from Frankie’s. It was pouring down rain, but I made the drive across town anyways. Turns out they were closed for the holiday! There are a ton of other places around Frankie’s, such as Chelsea’s (great live music here), Pinetta’s European (small place, but good food), Zippy’s Mexican, Schlittz & Giggles (great pizza, had some at downtown location), Rock-n-sake, Parrain’s Seafood, and Jimmy John’s. There’s also Juban’s and Acme Oyster House on Perkins that were a few minutes away. However, I decided that I’d go to another place I really wanted to eat while in BR – Rotolo’s, a pizza place right outside TigerLand that I loved for $5 calzones on Wednesdays. Turns out they were closed until dinnertime in observation of the holiday. I tried to look up the menus to Plucker’s and Brew-Bacher’s Grill on my iPhone, hoping to find a veggie burger but neither place offers that. I settled on Plucker’s because it was closer and the rain was still coming down heavily. I ordered a salad and requested to not have the chicken or honey barbeque sauce put on the salad. I ended up pushing the fried onion straws to the side of my plate. My friend ordered a half order of fried pickles for appetizers, so I tried them. I love fried pickles, but these weren’t the best I’ve had.





Since Rotolo’s opened in the evening, I went there for dinner. I ordered a small pasta salad, which had shallots, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives. I requested just balsamic dressing instead of the balsamic/ranch combination normally served with the dish. I was torn between calzones to order, but settled finally on the Sicilian without cheese. The Sicilian has artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, garlic, and an olive oil based sauce. I always used to order the four cheese calzone with peppers and pineapple, but I’d explode if I ate that much cheese now.







Some other places to eat that I saw while driving around include Thai Kitchen, Red Zeppelin Pizza, Albasha Mediterranean, Zoes Kitchen, and The Bulldog (more of a bar, but whatever). Another great place to eat is Copeland’s – their potato soup and cheesecake are amazing. I used to always order that soup, a salad with cheese toast points, and cheesecake. When I was in NOLA, we didn’t get dinner, but I was hoping to go to Bennachin, an African restaurant. Next time, perhaps!