Of Chain Restaurants...

Carrabba's Italian Grill
7275 Corporate Blvd.
Baton Rouge, LA 70809
225-925-9999
225-925-9943 FAX
Mon-Thurs 4:00pm-10:00pm
Fri-Sat 11:30am-11:00pm
Sun 11:30am-9:00pm
www.carrabbas.com


A popular criticism (and an unfair one, at that) of many is that Baton Rouge is a lame and chain-restaurant infested culinary wasteland... boring food made for boring people. While you could strain to find some grains of truth to support that, natives know that BR and its environs hold many delectable treats if only one knows where to look. I'll be the first to admit that I prefer to patronize local places over national chains... not only because it's the right thing to do, but because the locals tend to yield better chow. Still, one of life's lessons that has taught me the most is not to have 'contempt prior to investigation'... something that sounds simple, but can be hard to apply to the things I am most passionate about... food, music, LSU football. Generally speaking these subjects are no place for moderation. Besides, there are some chains that provide a consistently good product, and what's wrong with that? To sacrifice a bit of originality for consistency is a deal I will take sometimes. Bonefish Grill, for example, has never disappointed me.

So, with this spirit of open mindedness we set out for a trip to Carrabba's in Towne Center- a locale, despite being open quite some time now, I hadn't made to yet. It's an impressive looking building in a shwanky (for Baton Rouge, anyway) part of town. I dug the stands of fresh herbs that surround the entrance... it's nice to smell the rosemary as you are walking in the door.
Fresh from playing in a tennis tournament and famished, we were seated after a short wait in one of Carrabba's spacious booths. As my ever-expanding waistline will attest, I'm a bread guy- and this is one area Carrabba's gets right... a moist, doughy, sliced loaf appears promptly along with a dish of dried Italian herbs to be mixed with olive oil from a bottle on our table. It makes a delicious dip for the bread, and it is devoured quickly.

Craving calamari (small $6/regular $8) we opted for the larger one to split between us. It arrived piping hot and crisp, with none of the greasiness or rubbery-ness that one sometimes encounters with lesser calamari. It came flanked with lemon wedges and a bowl of marinara. The calamari were scrumptious and like the bread before it, disappeared in record time. Next came a pair of salads, a small Caesar ($4.50) for my wife and a Mediterranean , included with my entree', for me. The Caesar was, well, a Caesar- decent, average, uninspiring. The Mediterranean was a cut above... moist, leafy, dark mixed greens with some interesting garnishes including artichoke and pepperoncini tossed in a pesto vinaigrette.

For main courses, we opted for the luxurious-sounding lobster ravioli ($16.50), stuffed with Maine lobster in a white wine cream sauce with diced tomatoes. Joining the ravioli, I selected the veal marsala (political correctness be damned! I like veal. It's delicious, and the Italians perhaps above all others, know what to do with it.) The Marsala ($16.50) consisted of three small scallopine of veal, sauteed and topped with mushrooms, prosciutto and a Lombardo marsala sauce. This dish is also available as a piccata, topped instead with a lemon butter sauce.
The ravioli arrived, looking a bit puny on the big white plate, with minimal sauce and topped with freshly-grated parmesan. The sauce was a bit bland and would have done well do have had a bit more wine it. We'd also like to have had more of it to sop up. The round ravioli were filled with little chunks of lobster meat, a pleasant surprise as we expected a more homogenous filling with shredded lobster and a filler like cheese or breadcrumbs. Served in chunks and nothing else, the lobster meat showed off its delectable sweetness.
The veal, however, is where an otherwise promising meal landed with a dull thud. Despite looking great on the plate, the veal was disappointing... chewy, gristly texture in a sauce that was the opposite of everything you'd expect in Marsala sauce... bland, unseasoned, unflavorful. A properly made Marsala is a velvety smooth, sweet, winy, wonderfully flavored accompaniment to luxurious veal and melt-in-your-mouth mushrooms. Not even doctoring up with the imported Italian sea salt and Tellicherry pepper on the table to could save this effort. Disappointing as well was the side dish, cavatappi amatriciana, spiral macaroni in an insipid light tomato sauce topped with flavorless cheese. The pasta was overcooked and mushy which completed making this dish a real zero. So off-putting, in fact, that we elected to forgo our usual dessert course and try our luck elsewhere. It was Olive Garden-bad. (There is perhaps no greater scourge on the Earth than Olive Garden to a lover of Italian food.)
This colossal failure aside, Carrabba's may warrant a second visit, if for no other reason than to confirm suspicions. The pizzas, to their credit, looked appetizing- as did the offerings emanating from Carrabba's wood-burning grill. Perhaps the lesson here is that if you are visiting Carrabba's, one is best served keeping it simple and leave the fancier treatments to the Gino's of the world.