Kitchen Nightmares: Oceana Grill in New Orleans

After I wrote about the crab cakes at Oceana Grill in New Orleans, I got a somewhat cryptic email from a reader who told me I should check out a blog web site called EatMeCalifornia.

Hmmmm. Provocative name for a blog site. Maybe a porno site? Or just an angry guy who hates California? Actually, it’s neither. Instead, it’s a poorly-named foodie blog site that, mostly, writes about food joints in California. It’s penned by Brian and Mikey (here’s a free tip, Mikey: Once you become old enough to drink, you need to stop calling yourself Mikey). Here’s how they describe themselves on their blog: “Brian is a snarky SOB. His heros are Chuck Norris, Jesus and John Wayne (in that order) and he would choose invisibility if he had the choice of any superpower.”

A free tip for Brian: Use a spellchecker.

About Mikey: “The 70’s brought us many wonderful things: Star Wars, shag carpet, the Bee Gee’s, the Brady Bunch, and most important his royal largeness Mikey.”

Another free tip for Mikey: Use the grammar check.

Anyway, when they’re not reviewing various brewhouses and burger joints in SoCal, they like to talk about their favorite food show, Kitchen Nightmares. “I love this show and EMC (EatMeCalifornia) are huge fans of Gordon Ramsey,” writes Mikey.

I bring all this up because one of the Kitchen Nightmares restaurants EMC blogs about is Oceana Grill in New Orleans. If I happened to love exclamation points the way most TripAdvisor reviewers do, I’d use several of them right now.

Some of the highlights from Mikey’s blog post:

Oceana, he tells us, is owned by two brothers named Moe and Rami who spend “wonderful New Orleans afternoons yelling at each other, the staff, the tourists, the dogs, the Levies, the street lamps, and the food. I seriously can’t understand how they have a staff. There has got to be a better job than this place. I’d rather be a Wall mart greeter. I’d rather be in a Nicolas Cage movie. Hell, I’d rather be the guy who hoses down the streets after Mardi Gras than work for these guys.”

Grammar and spelling aside (Wall mart?), this is pretty funny stuff.

More: Gordon tastes the food and says “it’s disgusting, it tastes old, and is an embarrassment. Moe actually says he think (sic) Chef Ramsey is clueless and dazzles us further with his insight saying that he doesn’t think the British can cook period. Gordon is Scottish Moe read a book!”

I don’t know who’s funnier here, Moe or Mikey advising Moe to read a book because he’s such a dope.

One more: “These brothers are a complete crack up. One they keep calling Gordon British, two after being called a busy idiot these guys analyze what the meaning could be. Rami lets Moe know that being called a busy idiot is a compliment. This conversation they have could be in a Tarentino movie its that awesome. Moe finishes the conversation by saying he needs to get a British dictionary. This guys gonna give me a stroke.”

Okay, yes, Mikey writes English as if it were his second or maybe third language, but he’s still funny. If you want to read the entire bit, check out EatMeCalifornia here.

As for me, I think it’s time to go back to California. I’ll see you again after the holidays.