Our anonymous dining correspondent walked into R & R Seafood on the Causeway in the spring of 2008 expecting very little. He had been told by what he described as a reliable source that the place was a mediocre seafood restaurant that probably would not last long.
He left, he confessed, impressed. “With all due respect to my source,” he wrote, “you missed this one.”
From market to restaurant
R & R had been on the Causeway for a while, but only as a seafood market. It emerged as a restaurant after Hurricane Katrina — one of the small transformations that reshaped the food economy along Mobile Bay in the years after the storm, as businesses that had sold raw product to other people’s kitchens began cooking it themselves.
The company’s website promised that “from the moment you walk through the door, your senses will be delighted,” and our critic, who normally treats such lines with the skepticism they deserve, found the claim accurate. What greeted him at the door was the smell of boiling crawfish and frying seafood.
The gumbo, again
He was in the middle of a long-running survey of the region’s gumbos, and R & R’s went into the ledger as average — not bad, but not distinctly good. He rated it below Bluegill’s and well above the versions he had endured at Ed’s, the Captain’s Table and Oysterella. Felix’s, he promised, would get its own verdict later.
The poorboy
He ordered the half shrimp po-boy, dressed, which came with the cup of gumbo. At R & R it is advertised and sold as a poorboy — a spelling variation our critic noted without objecting to.
Whatever the sandwich was called, it was good. The bread had the qualities that matter most: a crunchy crust and a soft interior. The server did not know the brand but volunteered a fact that explained a good deal: “We get our bread and our crawfish from New Orleans.”
There was an abundance of shrimp on the sandwich. They were not seasoned quite the way our critic prefers, and they were slightly over-fried — he likes fried shrimp to come out of the grease golden rather than brown — but they were good nonetheless, and he said plainly that he would order the sandwich again.
The crawfish
Then came what he called the coup de grâce, and what had drawn him in from the parking lot in the first place. He ordered a few boiled crawfish.
They were very, very good. Cooked exactly right, which made them easy to peel — the truest test, since overcooked crawfish weld themselves to their shells. And seasoned exactly right: enough of a bite to register, not so much heat as to bury the taste of the meat underneath.
As he ate, he watched a steady stream of walk-in customers buying crawfish to go, which he judged a good decision on their part. The market and the restaurant, in other words, were still doing business with each other.
The verdict
The food was good, the staff friendly and helpful, and the restaurant clean and comfortable. Our critic had arrived with low expectations and revised them upward, which is not something he does often, and did so in public, which is rarer still.
“In the words of Gen. MacArthur,” he concluded, “‘I shall return.’” And this time, he added, he probably would not wait two years to do it.
High and dry on the Causeway
R & R sits high off the ground on pilings across from Felix’s Fish Camp, built tall enough, it would seem, to ride out the next hundred-year flood. A run of wooden steps leads up to the dining room, with a ramp alongside for anyone who would rather not climb. The front porch holds a row of tables with an unobstructed view of Mobile Bay, while a screened porch just off it holds the boiling pots, where oversized baskets of live crawfish wait their turn before a cook works to keep pace with the crowd.
Inside, the room is brightly lit, with wooden fixtures and simple tables and booths that call back to the fried-seafood-in-a-red-plastic-basket joints that once lined the coast in greater numbers than they do now. A long counter near the entrance sells crab boil, cocktail sauce and boxes of Zatarain’s fry mix, and the servers move fast, quick with a refill or a fresh cup of tartar sauce.
What’s on the menu
The menu covers most anything that can be fried or steamed and pulled from Gulf waters, plus snow crab brought in from farther afield. Baskets come with two sides and are priced by the catch: fish, shrimp or crawfish run $9.99, oysters $10.99 and a combination basket $12.99, with a kids’ menu of chicken or fish tenders at $4.99 and popcorn shrimp at $5.99. Po-boys of shrimp, oyster, crawfish or fish run $6.99 to $9.99 but come with the sandwich alone, while steamed royal red shrimp ($12.99), white shrimp ($10.99) and snow crabs ($13.99) arrive with corn and potatoes on the side. Sides sold on their own include hushpuppies, coleslaw, french fries, corn, cheese grits and red beans and rice, the last of which servers describe as a house specialty. Crawfish, boiled and scooped onto a cafeteria tray, are sold at market price and draw a steady stream of regulars who order them to go or eat them on the spot.
Fried dill pickles and a fish of the day
Among the appetizers, alongside a shrimp and corn bisque, the fried dill pickles ($4.99) have developed a following of their own: thick-cut chips battered and fried hot and crispy, served with ranch dressing, good enough that diners keep picking at them well after the rest of the meal has arrived. On a visit during the Lenten season, the fish of the day was grouper, served in a basket with french fries, cheese grits described as mellow and garlicky, and a side of hushpuppies fried dark and crunchy rather than doughy in the middle. A soft-shell crab po-boy on French bread and a basket of popcorn shrimp rounded out the table, both judged excellent, with enough shrimp left over to take home. The restaurant does not appear to serve beer or liquor.
Our restaurant critic dined at his own expense, remained anonymous to the staff, and reviewed only restaurants he visits in the ordinary course of life.