When Mike Anderson brought his seafood restaurant operation down from Baton Rouge to New Orleans in the 80’s, a number of New Orleanians looked at the newcomer restaurant with a leery eye for many years. “What’s a football player know about running a seafood restaurant,” many snarled. I have to say I was in that number too, although not with the same skeptical outspokenness. Influenced as I was during those early years away from the restaurant, 30 years later I finally tried something from Mike Anderson’s Seafood. Did I stay away too long? Did I “get my money’s worth,” which Mike Anderson’s Seafood touts itself as making sure?
Which seafood joint? Oh! Let’s try Mike Anderson’s
Choosing between the two seafood stations located in the int Bon Fete Food Court in New Orleans Riverwalk Marketplace came down to comparing prices between them. Mike Anderson’s was giving the slightly better deal, by including fries with a shrimp po-boy, while the other seafood place wasn’t. Otherwise, both were offering food at the same price. We ordered a shrimp po-boy and boiled shrimp, collected our food and sat down at a table with a great view, overlooking the Mississippi River.
Did I mention the view was great?
Let me repeat that the view was great, because that’s all that was worth something. Not only was the food not good, so that I didn’t “get my money’s worth,” but also even if the food had tasted good, the small amount of shrimp on the po-boy made it so that I didn’t “get my money’s worth.”
The boiled shrimp were ridiculously too salty. This was either a result of boiling them with too much salt, or after preparing them letting the shrimp sit in the salted water. I’m not talking a little too salty, either. We didn’t finish them, and I’m a shrimp lover, especially boiled shrimp.
I’m ole’ school too, when it comes to shrimp po-boys. Shrimp po-boys in New Orleans should always come overflowing with shrimp, and they almost always do. The shrimp po-boy that came from Mike Anderson’s Seafood was fit for a tourist that doesn’t know any better…and this even after I talked with the women behind the counter for a while, including telling them we were back down in our hometown for a vacation.
When leaving the food court, I let the women working at Mike Anderson’s Seafood know the shrimp were far too salty, and asked why. They didn’t seem to have an answer, not knowing if it was the pre-packaged boil seasoning, or if the shrimp had been left in the salted water. My guess is the shrimp were left in the water. They didn’t offer a refund or something else as a do-over, which is too bad for Mike Anderson’s Seafood. But hey, the view was great.
Sources:
Our Story–Mike Anderson’s Seafood
Riverwalk Marketplace