rt's restaurant

don't let the exterior fool you! it's nice inside and the food is good. the crayfish étouffée and she crab soup were excellent! had the shrimp po boy on the second visit but it tasted rubbery (frozen not fresh). so i would suggest sticking to thesaucebased entrees as that seems to be their forte. i plan to come back and taste their other dishes. so glad there is a bit of new orleans up here.

such a little hole in the wall but absolutely delicious. i had stuffed haddock (which was the special). it had the creamiest, most decadentsaucethat was perfect with my rice or for sopping up with bread. the fish was cooked well and really moist. my boyfriend had the crawfish etouffete and hissaucewas equally amazing. we also had sweet scallops wrapped with salty bacon (how can that not be a winner?) you can't go wrong with flavorful, rich sauces and perfectly cooked seafood. surprisingly, they had some great wines as well.

gone downhill. grade: c-

we have visited rt's many times over the years, and we used to love some of the dishes. today, though, we either hit them on a bad day or they’ve gone downhill. i doubt the former, as we were the second table to be seated after opening. in any case, especially since returning from new orleans a week ago, we were very disappointed.

first the good news. their crawfish & shrimp beignets are wonderful. wrapped in angel hair pasta and deep fried, they are addictive with the garlic mayonnaise. a half-dozen unspecified oysters on the half shell were decent as well.

now the bad news. the trout orleans was unsavory. atop the fish was a combination of shrimp and lump crab that was seasoned with something that browned the combination and made it bitter. thought i saw part of a mushroom in there but i’m not certain. blanketing the whole was an alleged hollandaise sauce, which was too thick and heavy and didn’t taste like hollandaise. thissaucesuffocated the shellfish topping and i tried to remove as much as i could with only limited success. in any case, i could not taste the trout at all and could not finish the dish.

equally clumsy in preparation was the cajun veal oscar. a tough piece of veal was covered with what appeared to be the same shellfish topping as the trout. the béarnaisesaucedrowning it looked the same as the hollandaise, but at least there was some difference in taste. also like the trout, it was too heavy and impossible to finish.

the side dishes weren’t that great either. a soup of thinned cream made the pale white corn mix taste like a bad canned dish. cajun onion straws were in fact a plate of floured, deep-fried onion slivers and rings that did nothing memorable.

after tax & tip, this was a c note down the drain. and the unpleasantness lingered.

i actually wanted to e-mail this to the proprietors but could not, after 15 minutes of searching, find any address whatsoever, and the contact section on rt’s website listed driving directions, a phone number, and a fax number. guess they can read it here instead. sadly, i don't know if we'll be back...just maybe for the beignets.

great experience!. we were looking for something unique to try and found rt's online. wasn't totally sure what to expect, but the menu looked good, so we gave it a try. have to say that i was really impressed. i had flounder stuffed with lump crab and an amazing creamsauce- which was done just perfectly. the ambience of the restuarant was excellent, as well - though we went on a monday, so i'm sure they weren't as busy as on the weekend. the only complaint i had was that i was eager to try their cajun martini which was with a pepper vodka - but, honestly, the vodka had almost no bite at all. so, the cocktail was a little disappointing, overall though a great find!

jambalaya was incredible, great spicy sauce, served with penne instead of rice was a good change up from traditional. jack daniel's appetizer had a yummysaucetoo. t-bone was on special and very tender throughout. friendly staff, cozy quaint place. glad i picked this instead of just a seafood place.