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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:

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Among the best locally.

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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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Praline Connection

Creole. Neighborhood Cafe.
Marigny: 542 Frenchmen. 504-943-3934. Map.
Lunch and dinner continuously seven days. Sunday brunch.
Casual
AE DC DS MC V
Website

WHY IT'S ESSENTIAL
The divide between soul food and Creole food is as faint as a fault line running through our flatlands. But the Praline Connection is unambiguously on the African-American side, and cooks many dishes that aren't often enough found in the mainstream Creole places. And they do indeed make their own excellent pralines.

WHY IT'S GOOD
No fussiness or pretension: here is good, solid, fresh, well-seasoned home cooking, with an unmistakable New Orleans flavor, served generously and hot. If you like gumbo, beans, green, fried chicken, the hard-to-find stewed chicken with brown gravy, and the likes of all that, this is a good place to find it. This may be the only restaurant in New Orleans where shrimp Creole is actually good.

BACKSTORY
Curtis Moore and Cecil Kaigler, lifelong friends and co-workers in the oil industry, opened this corner cafe in the Marigny in 1990. It was a phenomenon from the outset, a restaurant we heard about constantly. A second Praline Connection opened in the Warehouse Distict, but that went with Katrina.

DINING ROOM
It's a neighborhood cafe, the environment usually defined by the fullness of the dining room. It's usually bustling. The waiters and waitresses wear black fedoras, white shirts and ties, and look as if they'll run out to their music gigs as soon as their shifts end.

ESSENTIAL DISHES
Fried chicken livers with pepper jelly.
Fried catfish fingers.
Fried soft-shell crawfish.
Crawfish etouffee.
Chicken file gumbo.
Red beans and rice.
Crowder peas.
Greens.
Fried, baked, or stewed chicken.
Stuffed crab.
Stuffed bell pepper (with beef and shrimp).
Fried seafood platters.
Bread pudding with praline sauce.
Pralines.

FOR BEST RESULTS
Don't come in a hurry. Chicken is cooked to order, and that takes awhile.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The food is a bit inconsistent, and when it's off, it's as far off as it is brilliant when it's good.

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 10/3/2009.