Earthy, Authentic Taste of New Orleans

When I was 18, I moved to New Orleans. At a funky pool hall bar near the Tulane campus, I’d buy a plate of beans and rice encircled by a smoky, garlicky sausage for $1.60; hold the sausage and the price went down to 85 cents. My big indulgence was not dinner at Galatoire’s but an oyster loaf on Magazine Street: six deep-fried, battered oysters with mayo, lemon and Tabasco on a length of crusty French bread.

While I’ve since learned to appreciate the more elegant, butter-rich, Frenchified side of Louisiana cooking, I realized on a recent visit to Gagnier’s of New Orleans in Baldwin Park that nothing hits the spot like a good, earthy jambalaya, or provides the same deep-fried pleasure of an oyster po boy.

There is no Gagnier’s in New Orleans, I’m told, but the Gagniers themselves hail from there. A few mouthfuls of their food prove that fact: It’s the same unmistakably earthy, authentic cooking with which I was initiated. Only the ambience--and the prices--are substantially different.

The restaurant, in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Shopping Plaza, looks like a spruced-up coffee shop--ivory walls and ivory lace curtains, mauve booths, brass-and-etched glass details. On a weekday night, we share the room with a handful of tired shoppers. We can hear a game on the TV in the bar. Most reminiscent of Louisiana are the many incessantly whirling fans overhead; in combination with a bowl of Gagnier’s file gumbo, one can be lulled into the relaxed sense of well-being that ordinarily only arises after a huge meal on a muggy day in the French Quarter. While Gagnier’s gumbo may not be my favorite version, it is still well within the range of good, honest, no-nonsense file gumbo.

I found I liked just about everything I tried on the left side of the menu under the title Creole Favorites. The “gumbo z’herbs”--a dark, spicy, iron-rich gumbo--is made with various peppery greens and smoked sausage, the kind of sausage that makes up for its lowly status among cuts of meat with a wallop of flavor. The red beans and rice are hot! , as satisfying and plentiful as I remember them, only here, 20 years later and 2,000 miles away, a small portion is $5.95, a large $9.95. The jambalaya, like the gumbo, is one more acceptable version of the real thing. And the oyster loaf? Packed with lettuce, tomatoes and onions, it wasn’t the austere po boy I was trained on; nevertheless, it has lots of flavor and lots of crunch and ended up being my favorite item at Gagnier’s.

The right side of the menu offers what the restaurant calls Southern Specialties, and I must admit that not much here won my admiration. The best of these dishes was the Gagnier’s Special Seafood Platter, a spectacular heap of deep-fried fish in a very crunchy, enticingly spicy batter that is about as good as that sort of fried seafood gets, which isn’t very. The catfish was delectably, delicately muddy; the oysters were so well-cloaked that they passed muster with an avowed oyster hater.

The biggest disappointments were the shrimp Gagnier, (a house version of shrimp stew), and the crawfish etouff’ee. The shrimp stew came with a sizable amount of little, overcooked watery bay shrimp in a rather watery red sauce on a pile of rice. Tabasco helped, but not much. The only discernible flavor in the crawfish dish, besides a slightly murky spiciness, was a mild and not altogether compelling fishiness. Barbecued baby back ribs, which came in a good, not-too-sweet, not-too-hot sauce, were meaty but much too fatty.

On a Sunday afternoon, we found a three-piece combo playing everything from a jazz version of “Careless Whispers” to what sounded like the soundtrack to an action-packed cop show. Above them the TV broadcast a football game. Families and couples occupied about half the booths. The service was prompt and cheerful; the food came from the kitchen with dizzying speed. Gagnier’s might not be the best Louisiana-style cooking I’ve ever eaten, but it’s unmistakably the real thing.

Gagnier’s of New Orleans, 3650 Martin Luther King Blvd., Baldwin Hills, (213) 292-8187. Open seven days for lunch and dinner. Full bar. American Express, MasterCard, Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $23 to $61.