The Bayou

I realized that my last 4 posts on this blog have not been about food or drinks.  That may be some kind of a record.  Records are made to be broken, so I'm back at.  Subject:  food and drinks at The Bayou.

The Bayou is a New Orleans style cajun restaurant just off the capitol square in downtown Madison.  Scott and I happened on it by accident as we were driving around looking for a parking spot.  We decided to go in and ended up having dinner there.

It's an interesting place on the  inside.  I've never been to New Orleans, nor ever had any real desire to go (even before Katrina), but I'm guessing the decor and set up in The Bayou is fashioned after traditional New Orleans establishments.  There are murals painted all over the walls and it's two-stories, with an open balcony looking from the upper level to the lower level.   Scott and I had an early dinner that day, so The Bayou wasn't busy when we were there.  We were seated on the second floor, which looked like this.

The pictures below are the view we had from our seats looking over the railing down to the main level.

As we were leaving, we walked by the pool table that is shown in the picture above.  This sign was on the railing of the pool table.

Alrighty then!  Shoot, if I put my big ass on that table, I'd bring it down.

This jester statue was in the middle of the restaurant.  It was huge and painted in beautiful colors, but quite frankly I found it really creepy.  The kind of thing small children would see and then have nightmares about.

People who know me well know that I love a good rum runner.  You can't get a good rum runner just anywhere though, so I rarely order them.  The absolute best rum runners I've ever had were in Deerfield Beach, Florida.  When I used to go visit my friend Stefanie there, we would hang out on the beach for a while but then eventually end up at a bar right on the beach drinking rum runners.  They were so good.  Sitting by the beach, in the warm sun, looking at and listening to the ocean, and drinking a rum runner is just about heaven.  I just sighed and smiled thinking about it.

Rum runners were a featured drink on the menu at The Bayou.  A New Orleans style restaurant-- OK.  I'll do it.  I'll try a rum runner, even though this is Madison, Wisconsin. 

Not bad.  Not as good as the ones in Deerfield Beach, but good enough that I drank two of them.  I ordered some kind of traditional cajun New Orleans/Louisiana dish, jambalaya something or other.  It was really good.  In the picture below, you can see the two rum runners I had working at the same time.  One glass in the upper left of the picture and one in the upper right.  Some people would be embarrassed to admit that.  Not me, of course.  This isn't a very good picture of the food.  I'm not sure why that green thing (garnish) looks so slimy in the picture.  It didn't look like that "live".

True to New Orleans, this banner was hanging up in The Bayou.

We took this shot of the first floor of the restaurant as we were leaving.

It's really a pretty cool looking place.  Except for the creepy jester.  And some of the murals creeped me out a little, too, because they looked so life-like, such as the police officer you can see in the front right of the picture above.  Over all though, the plants, the balcony, the wrought iron all made for a seemingly authentic New Orleans environment.  Would I go back?  Yeah, I think I would.  I noticed on their website that The Bayou is the home of Voodoo juice.  I might go back just for that.