ACME

I loved Acme. I don't know about sitting at a table and all that jazz, but if you grab a seat at the oyster bar (not the regular bar), order some Dixie beer, and just let the shuckers keep on shucking, you'll never want to leave. The oysters are so fresh, plump, and juicy, and with some extra horseradish thrown on, they're so slurpable. Also, I dug their jambalaya more than any other I tried - it was good and spicy. Sitting at the bar gets you a seat much more quickly than waiting on line for a table, and the shuckers carry on so much with each other that it's like watching a show.

The Acme is my office when I'm in New Orleans. I check in there every day. Sitting at the Oyster Bar is great. Sitting at the "regular" bar is great (the bartenders put the "tender" in bartender. And sitting at the tables is almost as much fun.

the Acme is my secret weapon to staying alive in N.O. Try to have lunch there. Along with a full dinner, stops for beignets and snacks, I avoid total total oversaturation.

Hey, and don't forget Felix across the street--he's pretty damn good, too.

As long as you also pay proper obeisance to Casamento's up on Magazine Street, which is the true god of oyster cookery in N.O.

Is there any other city in the U.S. where we could be having this go-round about oysters? More than twenty-five years ago, when I made my first trip to New Orleans, I went to Felix's, Acme, and Casamento's, and read about and listened to debates about their relative merits.

Ummmm--Manhattan? As extensively noted on these boards, the fried-oyster sandwich at Pearl Oyster Bar needn't apologize to any of its New Orleans peers. And I seem to remember reading about some place that served oysters beneath Grand Central Station . . .

We seem to be having a problem communicating here on the New Orleans board. My point wasn't that good oysters are only available in New Orleans.

It's that folks were arguing about the relative merits of Felix's, Acme, and Casamento's more than 25 years ago. Folks were arguing about whether Mothers was going downhill 25 years ago. People were complaining that Brennan's and Court of the Three Sisters were a ripoff 25 years. All of these places would be easily recognizable to the folks who ate there then, and serve the same purposes in the food community.

This is not a knock. I think it's cool.

I was very influenced by Robert & Rima Collins' food guide to New Orleans, in which they rated not only almost every restaurant in the Crescent City, but every significant dish at every restaurant in New Orleans. Of course, there has been turnover in three decades, but it's amazing how many of thier tips about particular dishes in particular restaurants are still true today.

In the peacemaking spirit, and just in time for Mardi Gras, the brand-new http://www.acmeoyster.com . This has to be the single best restaurant site in the world!

How can you beat oystercam?