The Restaurants We Can't Live Without By Tom Fitzmorris. . . Revised November 2009 Begue's French-Creole. French Quarter: In the Royal Sonesta Hotel, 300 Bourbon, 504-553-2278. Map. Breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days. Sunday brunch. AE DC DS MC V www.beguesneworleans.com    WHY IT'S ESSENTIAL    Begue's serves breakfast, lunch and dinner 365 days a year, as a hotel restaurant does. But it's most famous for its buffets, occurring at Sunday brunch, Friday lunch, and every holiday. All these are very popular, and as buffets go they're among the best of its kind, if more expensive than most.    WHY IT'S GOOD   The all-day dining room of the Royal Sonesta is quiet and handsome, and the standards for food were set high by a series of general managers and chefs who were committed to maintaining a major culinary presence. The menu sounds good, but in recent years it has become confused about whether to cook classic Creole food or avant-garde. Lunch and dinner don't draw enough people to motivate the staff. The buffets are as good as any, but there's a limit to the goodness of a buffet. Begue's serves one of the finest breakfasts in town.    BACKSTORY    The restaurant is named for Elizabeth Begue, the first superstar chef in New Orleans. Her restaurant operated in the late 1800s across from the French Market (where Tujague's is now). Her Creole food gained such renown that during the World's Fair in 1884 people came from all over the world to try it. There is no direct connection with Madame Begue here, however, nor are any of her recipes served. (That's always struck me as a missed bet.) Begue's opened in the 1960s with the Royal Sonesta Hotel, originally in a very formal space with classic French cooking. It originated the Sunday brunch buffet in 1970, when its chefs were Willy Coln and Gerard Crozier, both of whom went on to run five-star restaurants of their own. In the late 1980s, Begue's moved to its present location next to the courtyard and became the all-day restaurant of the hotel.    DINING ROOM   The dining room flanks the hotel's long, lushly planted courtyard with a wall iof windows, creating a garden-like environment. Offbeat paintings of verdant scenes around New Orleans line the walls. The buffets are set up in an adjacent room, keeping the traffic and bustle in the dining room to a minimum.    ESSENTIAL DISHES  Breakfast: Grillades and grits. Scrambled eggs with crabmeat and lobster sauce. Brunch: Cold items, especially oysters and shrimp. Omelettes. Desserts. Dinner: Crab cake. Shrimp and crabmeat remoulade. Seafood gumbo. Caesar salad with fried anchovies. Louisiana bouillabaisse. Sauteed shrimp with refried grits. Grilled double pork chop. Steamed lobster with vanilla. Sorbets and Ice creams. Bread pudding. Chocolate pecan pie.    FOR BEST RESULTS     Get the first seating for any buffet dinners. Know that holidays here are so popular that they must be booked long in advance.    OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT   At lunch and dinner, the restaurant's quality varies wildly, often in lockstep with the number of guests in the hotel. (The fewer, the worse.) It can be largely empty and too quiet. Prices for holiday dining are very high.    FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD    Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter. Dining Environment +2 Service +1 Consistency -1 Value -2 Attitude +1 Wine And Bar  Hipness +1 Local Color +2    SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES   Live music (brunch) Romantic Windows with a view Good for children Good for business meetings Private dining room (less than 25) Private dining room (more than 25) Open Sunday Open Monday Open most holidays Historic Oyster bar (in Desire, next door) Vegetarian dishes Easy, nearby parking (self-park garage in hotel, validated free, often full) Reservations accepted Reservations honored promptly Click here for the index to all the reviews so far. © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com