Brisbane restaurants: Review of American restaurant NOLA Portside, Hamilton
IT HAD to happen. The cuisine of the Deep South is infiltrating the Deep North.
A restaurant named NOLA has opened at Portside in Hamilton, in Brisbane’s inner northeast, joining the likes of Fortitude Valley’s Papa Jack’s and Mighty Mighty, and South Bank’s Bourbon Street, peddling the southern fare.
NOLA, for the uninitiated, is short for New Orleans Louisiana, an acronym the locals have created for themselves, as in, “I’m from NOLA.”
It says a lot. Someone from NOLA may be part French, Spanish, African, German, Caribbean, Choctaw Native American or Portuguese.
More recent arrivals include Hondurans and Vietnamese, bringing their distinctive cuisine and enriching the extraordinary cultural mix.
The food is a riot of flavours at NOLA, with cajun and creole clashing head on.
Many will find these robust dishes too heavy. I did.
We began our journey with some fairly bog-standard crab cakes, with not too much crab, followed by a cup of gumbo ($12) that blew my head off. It was served in an enamel mug and, frankly, looked like something you might scrape off your shoe after treading in a Louisiana swamp.
If there was flavour there, it was buried under mouth-numbing fire.
However, I do not blame the restaurant for this. I reckon it was my own fault for not taste-testing the green chillies scattered on the top. And I really do not blame the kitchen for the appearance of the food on the plate. Dishes from America’s Deep South can be unpretty creations.
Fish or fowl are sometimes bathed in a dark roux containing up to 14 spices that deliver rich, smoky flavours.
The real taste of Louisiana is exemplified in a traditional “swamp platter” replete
with swamp critters such as mudbugs (also known as crawfish or crayfish), fried gator, frog legs, and turtle soup.
NOLA offers some safer options, and a lovely selection of craft beers and whiskey.
In my haste to douse the volcano in my head, I foolishly ordered an Abita Purple Haze, a beer that happened to taste like a raspberry cordial.
Fruity beer? The sheer yuck of it.
I recovered in time to share a Plantation Jambalaya ($26), a creole dish of French and Spanish origins that usually includes chicken and andouille sausage.
This version contained spicy tomatoes and has the consistency of a gluggy risotto. Verdict: Tasty, but not terribly endearing.
Next we shared a plate of sliced braised brisket ($24) slow-cooked in red wine and the “Holy Trinity”, which in creole cuisine refers to onions, celery and bell peppers.
It was a dry, lamentable offering, which didn’t taste like very much at all.
We pushed it aside and headed for the dessert menu, which offered pecan pie or bread-and-butter pudding (both $9).
Our waitress was lovely and accommodating. “Good choice,” she said when we ordered the latter pud to share.
I suspect it came straight from the microwave. The temperature was uneven and my partner burnt her mouth.
I tasted it and almost burnt mine.
It was time to flee.
NOLA PORTSIDE
Address 7/39 Hercules Street, Hamilton
Phone 3216 4999
Owner EDBM Group
Chef Terry Uhlmann
VERDICT
Food 5
Ambience 5
Service 7
Value 5
Source: The Courier Mail, Des Houghton, 18th August 2015
Originally published as: Can’t stand the heat from the kitchen
