Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen

Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen sells itself "Big Easy restaurant." If you're expecting typical Cajun, creole, or New Orleans/Southern Louisiana type food, you might be a little disappointed. Besides the Bananas fosters and beignets, and a few choice ingredients like grits, Gulf shrimp and crawfish (which being from Florida, naturally sound good... then I remember I'm in California, and it seems a long way for shrimp and crawfish to travel...), there's not much of the traditional New Orleans faire you would expect. In fact, the flavor doesn't even taste like creole or Cajun cooking. None of the onion/pepper/celery flavors, not even a hint of paprika or spiciness. But hey, California is a long way from Louisiana.

That being said, (if you can get past the fact that it doesn't taste like food coming out of New Orleans should), the food was excellent. We had the "stuffed potato," with chicken and a creamy sauce. My husband had the torneados of filet mignon with garlic mashed potatoes, which he states was "the best steak he has ever had." It was so tender he could cut it with just a fork. I'm not normally a beef eater, especially steak, but I tried a piece and regretted not getting it myself. I had the parmesean crusted chicken Bercy, topped with artichoke hearts and a portabello mushroom sauce, served with andouille grits. The chicken was awesome, and the grits were incredibly cooked: thick and gritty, like I do myself at home, and very rarely find at restaurants. My only complaint was that the 'andouille' in the grits tasted more like Bac'n Bits, but the grits were cooked so well that it didn't make much of a difference.

For desert, we had beignets and coffee. The beignets were excellent, but they were a little stingy with the coffee (like, more than an thimble-full wold have been nice...).

Expect to pay about $20-$40 per person for dinner. Lunch is a little bit less. Portions are not tiny, but entrees are not sharing-sized and if you're hungry, appetizers aren't either.

I would definitely recommend this restaurant to any friend, just as long as they don't go in expecting "Cajun" food.

All I can say is this place was so good that I ate there 3 times that week.

The oyster shooters, the salads, the garlic bread, the wine selection, jambalaya (over rice or pasta), shrimp scampi, salmon topped with crab, the catch of the day, banana fosters, chocolate cupcake w/ a mini root beer float...it was all really good.

The banana fosters was really good...we got it 2 nights in a row. They flambe it right there in front of you. It's very impressive.