Esplanade Ridge

Grab some chips and dig into the superb and offbeat salsa (it has a slightly smoky flavor). It's good enough that you will go for a second ration, for which you will have to pay extra--but probably without complaint. Margaritas and guacamole are excellent in their turns. After that, pretend you're in a gourmet bistro. Time for mussels, calamari, steaks, racks of lamb, big flanks of fish, and no small number of other specialties that might not remind you of anything Mexican. But so what? We let Italian and French restaurants get away with that. So why not Creole-Mexican?

CBD

What would be your first thought a restaurant in a big hotel, connected with a seafood house in Destin called Stinky's Fish Camp? That was my reaction, too. Another: a scan of the menu revealed prices higher than I expected to find. Finally, the place seemed to be pushing the Cajun-Creole thing a little too hard. (That name is an obscure reference to life in the marshlands.) With all that mental baggage, I tried the place a few months ago. The evening was astonishing, getting off to a great start with some dozen different ways of serving oysters. I was also incredulous about the presence of four or finfish species. The few missteps involved the service, and they weren't bad enough to put a sour taste in my mouth. I was looking forward to the next time before I called for the check.

New Orleans East

Walker's appeared on Hayne Boulevard so quickly after Katrina that it was a godsend to the people in its neighborhood. Almost everything in New Orleans East was destroyed, but Walker's building is right up on the lakefront and free of major flooding. And the supply of customers was infinite, what with all those people in the extended neighborhood with lots of work and few sources of food and drink.