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Restaurant Ratings

The ratings are based mostly on the degree to which the food excites us, and a little on environment, service, and other considerations. I rate restaurants relative to all other restaurants in the New Orleans area. Here's what the stars mean to me:

starstarstarstarstar
Among the best locally.

starstarstarstar
Excellent and ambitious.

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Worth crossing town for.

starstar
Recommended.

*
Acceptable.

No star
Unacceptable.

Cost Ratings
Each dollar sign indicates a ten-dollar range, including a normal meal for the restaurant (dinner, if they serve other meals), not including drinks, or tips. So, for example. . .

1$--$5-15
2$--$15-25
3$--$25-35

. . . and so on, with no upper limit. While this scheme may suggest mathematical precision, know that perception of price varies from diner to diner as much as the star ratings do. So consider this an estimate.

All reviews are based entirely on meals I have personally taken at the restaurant and paid for from my own pocket. I don't take free review meals, nor am I reimbursed by anybody for my restaurant expenditures.

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Parran's Po-Boys

Sandwiches. Platters.
Metairie: 3939 Veterans Blvd. 504-885-3416. Map.
Lunch Monday-Saturday. Early dinner (until 8 p.m.) Thursday-Saturday.
Casual.
AE MC V
Website

WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
A venerable fixture in the Veterans Boulevard sprawl, Parran's has made well-aboive-average poor boy sandwiches for decades. The menu also lists a healthy assortment of neighborhood-style platters, with an emphasis on seafood and Italian dishes, all prepared credibly for very low prices.

WHY IT'S GOOD
Few poor boy shops cook their own meats in house. This one does, including the roast beef gravy. The seafood is fried to order--the telltale sign being not only the crisp greaselessness of it, but the time it takes to finally appear. The bread is warmed for the poor boys--a rare touch, but an essential one. Parran's menu is more extensive than most, and its Italian dishes are better than you expect (although still short of great).

BACKSTORY
In New Orleans, your godfather is your parran (said with the French pronunciation, although the restaurant uses the anglicized version). The place was opened in 1975 by Dominick Impastato, a fellow 1968 Rummel Raider. Al Hornbrook runs it now, and has brought Parran's to the highest level in its history. Parran's claims to have invented the seafood muffuletta--a standard fried seafood sandwich on a muffuletta loaf,

DINING ROOM
The neighborhood restaurant in Metairie is like as not in a strip mall, and that's where Parran's is. An old one, at that--but raffishness is part of the poor boy ethos. A small ordering area up front expands into a spacious, utilitarian dining room in the rear.

ESSENTIAL DISHES
Poor boy sandwiches:
Roast beef
Ham
Meatballs with red sauce and mozzarella
Panneed veal
Hot sausage
Pastrami
Turkey

Muffuletta
Seafood muffuletta.
Fried seafood platters.
Seafood pasta.
Panneed veal parmigiana.
Lasagna.
Daily specials.
Bread pudding.

FOR BEST RESULTS
Don't come in a hurry. Made-to-order poor boys are not fast food. The Italian dishes are marked more by their size than goodness.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
They should slice the muffuletta meats thinner and ask whether the customer wants it heated or not. (I think heating ruins a muffuletta.)

FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD
Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter.

SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES

This review was updated with new information on 12/7/2009.

A list of all 275 full, current reviews is here.