Last Updated on Monday, 28 February 2011 09:57

Restaurants - Creole Homestyle Restaurants

Mena's Palace

Neighborhood Cafe. Creole.
French Quarter: 200 Chartres. 504-525-0217. Map.
Very Casual
AE DC DS MC V
Website

WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
It doesn't look like it's going to be good, but it is. And has been for a long time, even as it's evolved from a workingman's restaurant into a place that catches a lot of tourists. The visitors could do a lot worse. Here they will get very good platters of the local everyday-dining staples: red beans, fries seafood, stuffed peppers, pastas with all kinds of sauces, big salads, and poor boy sandwiches.

WHY IT'S GOOD
This is an old-fashioned kitchen, cooking everything in house with equal amounts of flavor and portion size.

BACKSTORY
Greek-owned, all-day downtown eateries are familiar in most big cities across America, but we have never had many of them here in New Orleans. Mena's is a great example of the genre. Opening in the 1960s at the corner of Iberville and Exchange Alley (where the Country Flame is now), Mena's has served breakfast and lunch to hundreds of thousands of people, a mix of office workers and French Quarter denizens. In the late 1990s Mena's moved a half-block toward the river into the former Messina's Oyster Bar. That expanded the restaurant and made it more comfortable.

DINING ROOM
Very casual. One big room with large windows that make some of the tables bright while leaving the rear part of the place a bit darker. The menu is posted on an old-style fluorescent-backlit sign that I think came from the old place. The "palace" part is obviously a joke, but it's worn so thin that the owners don't use it officially anymore, even though long-time locals still do.

ESSENTIAL MENU [»=Recommended]
»Basic breakfasts
Omelettes
Caesar salad
»Greek salad
Seafood gumbo
»Chili
»Hamburger steak
»Red beans and rice
»Fried seafood platters
»Poor boy sandwiches
»Lasagna (Tues special)
»Roast chicken with herbs (Tues special)
Roast pork with oyster dressing and macaroni and cheese (Wed special)
Lima beans with veal cutlet (Thurs special)
Veal Parmigiana (Fri special)
Meatloaf (Sat special)
Apple pie
Pecan pie
»Bread pudding

SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES

• Good for business meetings
• Open Monday lunch and dinner
• Dinner ends early (8 p.m.)
• Open all afternoon
• Unusually large servings
• Quick, good meal
• No reservations