Due to a death in the family, I was out of town.
I used to be a huge Sambet's fan. I'd eat there once a week, like clockwork. Then...well, things changed. I still like Sambet's, and I still go from time to time. Lately, though, it doesn't seem that the food is quite as good as I remember it being; it seems like everything's dropped down a notch or two. This SDC just confirmed that; the boudin sandwich just seemed kind of off. (I think they're using a different boudin; one that I like less.) I'm still fond of the crawfish etouffee, though.
I still say, "Go". They're reasonably priced.
I still like Sambet's, but nothing I had this time around really knocked me out. I thought the crab cake was surprisingly mediocre, and the crawfish etouffee was too close to the gumbo. The gumbo was fine, but didn't seem quite as flavorful as it's been in the past. My boudin po'boy was OK, but didn't knock me out. Good gator bites, though. And they've fixed the missing tiles in the ceiling. Still pretty good bang-for-your-buck restaurant.
Weird. Here's a second conspiracy in a row, at a place I generally like, and yet everything seemed to be off somehow. Bad night? Bad economy?
There seemed to be an unusual consensus among the conspirators for the meal we had at Mirabelle: The food was good, but faintly disappointing and not worth the price.
This was true of pretty much every phase of the meal: The duck spring rolls and pork tenderloin flautas were solid, but seemed a touch pedestrian given the ingredients list. The crab cake was an improvement on those we had last week at Sambet's, but were otherwise standard.
Speaking of Sambet's, the duck and sausage gumbo Mirabelle offers is much better than Sambet's version, nicely dark and savory. At $7.95 a bowl, this is probably the best deal on the menu.
The pork chop entrée I had was just fine, but I've had better ones at half the price. (The side salad was cheap. At $1.95, I'm not complaining.) My dessert was so unmemorable I had to recheck the website to jog my memory as to what I ordered (bread pudding; Gumbo's version blows it away).
Service was very good, even to the point of our waiter being exactly as much of a smart-ass as we deserved:
Waiter: This pepper grinder is a little slow.
Me: That's OK. You'll be there 30 minutes grinding it out.
Waiter: Well, if you don't need your Diet Coke refilled...
Me: Touché. Well played, sir, well played.
The thing is, if I had dropped $25-30 on this meal, I would have gone. "This is pretty good. I wouldn't mind trying this again." However, given that it was more like $55, and Mirabelle has topped local restaurant polls this decade, it was fairly disappointing. At these prices, I expect more innovation and excellence than was on display here. Simply put, the worst meal I've ever had at Hudson's-on-the-Bend (which was still very fine indeed) beats the best one I've had at Mirabelle.
Some adjustment is in order.
I wanted to like this place. You have to give props to a restaurant that will not only serve you a bowl of pho, but will also unlock your iPhone. However, the lengthy wait for any food at all left me pretty annoyed. I was willing to make allowances for the size of our party, but it took forever just to get appetizers out. When everything did come out, it was...good, but not great, certainly not enough to justify the lengthy wait. I wouldn't mind going back, but I'm not exactly rushing; when I think pho or bun, there's several other places much higher on the list than Cafe de Bella.
This has a little wider range of dishes than your average Pho place (in fact, I'm not even sure they have pho, as most of us went with the bun (vermicelli) instead). I liked my House Special Bun, the grilled pork sandwich, and the strawberry-banana smoothee just fine, and I think the food is better than your average Vietnamese place.
On the downside, they're much slower than the average pho place, probably because there were only two or maybe three people doing all the work, and our large party seemed to overwhelm them. Plus I can't say that the "two large TV screens" décor is to my taste, at least not when one is showing college hockey, and the other is showing Beowulf (sorry, Neil, but from the looks of what I saw, I can't say that I regret missing it), and then a Jet Li film Kiss of the Dragon. Normally I'm in the pro-Jet Li camp, but I'm not sure bright sprays of blood, or Bridget Fonda being shot up with smack, is quite what I'm looking for to accompany my meal.
Cafe de Bella better than your average pho place, but if you go, be prepared for a wait.
See the logs for April of 2009.