Cajun food? In Illinois?

You don't see much of this up North, so when we found this restaurant, I was thrilled! It's a cute little restaurant in downtown Naperville. As soon as I walked in, I instantly felt at home!

During one of the snail mail swaps, I was paired with Caitlin from Fierce, Fabulous, and Fit and she graciously sent me a gift certificate for this restaurant, we were thrilled!

The decor was lovely, all sorts of hot sauces on the walls, and the artwork on the opposite wall was amazing! I loved seeing folky paintings of my home state.

Then, the gumbo came. Ok, so I'm a Cajun, and I've eaten gumbo practically since birth, so I know that my pallet is going to be picky. And you ask any Cajun for their gumbo recipe, it's going to be pretty much the same. But they will all taste different. It's a phenomenon I can't explain, but it happens. Anyway, their gumbo was a bit... congealed? Is the word I'm looking for. I think there was too much flour in it, but it wasn't bad. The Mr. thought it was just okay also. Now, I'm sure, if you haven't been eating gumbo for ahem number of years, you would love it. And I'm sure this restaurant has other things that are delicious, but for this Cajun girl, I'd rather spend 4 hours making my own gumbo. Can I get an Amen?!





So, being that it was my only connection to home, we tried it again a couple of months later. This time, things were better. I had the shrimp enchiladas and the Mr. had the shrimp etoufee.  Now, again, I'm picky but I did try his, and it was the same thing! Too much flour or something to make it look congealed again. It was good, don't get me wrong, but I don't know. Maybe my Mama's recipes spoiled me, but it just wasn't the same.

I think it's a fabulous restaurant, but I also think I was too excited to have "real Cajun food" that I didn't have to cook, and got my hopes up too high. Ah well, such is life, right?