by Ian S. on I recently just had my birthday party here and the place looks nice and very modern. Our host Crystal was very nice and sweet. Me and my friends had blast at this place. Thanks Crystal for hooking it up!!
by Jewell Mcaferty on So my friends and I just returned from Parish Foods and Goods, a restaurant that has received accolades from critics and even was nominated one of the top 15 restaurants to eat now in August, 2008. This caused me to reach back and find that review and found a statement in there that described the experience perfectly - "well seasoned décor." To call this place a New Orleans influenced establishment or to say that it offers "legit Cajun and Creole dinners" is like saying a decapitated rooster moves gracefully - it just doesn't. A miasma of mediocrity looms over this restaurant and it does not appear to be lifting anytime soon. Everything from appetizers to desserts lacked flavor. Chicken livers, oysters Rockefeller, codfish, catfish, bread pudding and butterscotch pudding completely missed the mark. To say it bluntly, the flavors were about as riveting as a ransom note. How one can take the flavors out of chicken livers is the most startling revelation of all since chicken livers generally have a very strong and distinct taste. For those who want to know, bread them with a thick coating of breadcrumbs and deep fry them until they are devoid of any flavor. In addition to the cooked dishes lacking taste, Parish managed to fail in the salad category as well. I ordered a very simple spinach and tomato salad (referred on the bill as heirloom tomatoes, but to anyone but Helen Keller were clearly grape tomatoes) which failed on all levels. Based upon the size of the dish, Parish charged about a dollar a spinach leaf. Outside of its' clearly Tums size portion, the ingredients completely lacked freshness, except the cranberries and blueberries, which were as out of place on this plate as Yitzhak Rabin at a Lebanese nightclub. To paraphrase one of my friends - if the ingredients in this salad were all trains, we would have had a major train wreck on our hands. There were a few bright spots though that prevented the meal from completely failing. The julienne vegetables served with the catfish were perfectly tender and seasoned wonderfully with ginger and rosemary. The beet salad accompanied by fried goat cheese had a nice flavor profile and good seasoning. And the catfish itself, although bland, was heightened only by the andouille sausage breading which gave it a hint of the flavors that this dish could have had. I will not say the restaurant was bad, but it was far from all of our expectations. As my friend put it, this is a good place to come for a hot meal. I think that says it all.
