Mr. B’s Bistro

I have been going to Mr. B’s for decades. And still it has the ambience of a neighborhood restaurant – at least for me – perhaps because I lived in the 300 block of Chartres Street in the early ’90’s and this was a place I went to often, sometimes multiple times in a week. Back then, I had a favorite waiter: “Caesar,” who called himself, “Caesar the Woman Pleaser,” and told me his other job was as an exotic dancer. After I moved away from the French Quarter, I continued to frequent Mr. B’s with my husband FBW. But after he passed away, I didn’t go back for a long, long time. Recently, I have been there twice for lunch when I was in the FQ for meetings. Yesterday, I had the absolute best piece of fish there that I have ever tasted. It was a wood grilled puppy drum with a meunière sauce accompanied by popcorn rice with pecans on the side. The waiter told me that he thought the lemon butter sauce should go on the rice and the meuniere sauce should go on the fish. “But it’s your plate,” he said. Sometimes the most simple dishes are the best. I was truly blown away by how good this dish was. The fish was perfectly cooked, the rice was delicious and the sauces were heavenly. Every local should have this dish because this is what a simple grilled fish should be. This is the gold standard. Now, if you don’t have to go back to work, you can also have the bar-b-qued shrimp but just be prepared because you will have that buttery sauce all over you. It’s worth it. Finally, I will add that venturing into the French Quarter these days requires a bit of courage: I found a parking space but when I got out of my vehicle I noticed a very large rat wedged beneath my back tire. Well, it is the French Quarter, old, dirty and decadent, so what can I say, other than, “Sidney Torres, where are you?”