THE COUNTRY CLUB

Mario Pacetti Thursday, November 5, 2015 Comments Off on THE COUNTRY CLUB
THE COUNTRY CLUB

mario5 2550 Golden Nugget Blvd. • 337-508-4103

Everyone knows that I truly am all about supporting local businesses, and I rarely write about any large mega-funded locations as I feel they don’t need any help from me to make money. And even if I wrote a negative piece about them, they would be unfazed by it.

I’ve written about restaurants in L’Auberge (Ember, Asia), but my experiences in these place always felt more intimate than what you normally get from these larger establishments. I have so much respect for Kerry Andersen, who is the director of media relations for Pinnacle, and chef Lyle Broussard, who happens to be one of this area’s fastest-growing chefs, that they will always get my business.

Well, it seems I have a new place that I enjoy eating at after only one meal there. The experience was very impressive.

I had heard about The Country Club at the Golden Nugget strictly in a conversation about good burgers, and I was told I needed to check them out; so Chelsea and I decided to have date night there.

First off, the view is amazing; you get the bridge in the background at sunset while you look across the beautiful golf course.

mario1The interior design of the golf course club house is simple and classy at the same time. You have a cozy bar with plenty of TVs to watch while you relax after a round of golf. It’s also ideal for someone who just wants to get away from the business of the main casino.

The restaurant is set back to the right; it’s separated from the bar by a very nice fireplace/pit set-up. All the tables have a great view, as the diners look out over the balcony at the course.

OK let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this article, and that would be the food. Now, the only thing we really came for was the burger. But we sure jumped into some other very pleasing menu items.

I asked the waitress to go in the back and ask the chef what burger he would recommend. I was told that the “Panhandler” was the route to go; the burger had cheddar, crispy onions, bacon, jalapenos and barbecue sauce on an amazing bun.

We ended up ordering the burger, but we started with the Artichoke, Spinach, and Crab dip and got a Wedge Salad to split. While we were waiting, the chef sent out a complementary appetizer to us — a house-made pimento cheese with house-made crackers. Chelsea has never been a pimento cheese fan, but we both agreed that this was #thebombdotcom.

The Spinach and Crab dip came out next in a nice little cast iron pot. The cheese was perfectly browned on top. (I find the taste of cooked cheese to be one of my favorite things.) You could see the crab meat, but you could also taste all the individual parts in every bite. I would put this in the Top 3 spinach artichoke dips in this area.

mario3Now a wedge salad is almost impossible to mess up. I’ve been unfortunate enough in all my travels to have had bad ones, but this wasn’t one of them. As crazy as this may sound, the entire salad was brought together by some pickled red onions that were sitting right on top and the house vinaigrette. The vinegar on the onions combined with the vinaigrette and the blue cheese dressing made this salad truly pop with flavor in my mouth.

Now for the reason that brought us here — the burger. When it arrived, we noticed the presentation was great. Chelsea even mentioned that it was the most visually appealing burger we’d had together, and I had to agree.

Now, you may have noticed a pattern with my burger selections lately, and that is that I tend to get burgers with cheddar, bacon and jalapenos. This burger had fresh jalapenos, not pickled ones, which is the most common way to get them.

The burger was beyond juicy. I liked the fact the cooks used a slaw instead of lettuce. It seemed to create a better bed for the crispy onions to sit on. The chef wasn’t recreating the wheel here, but he sure did the wheel justice.

The bun had a very buttery taste to it, and was a perfect addition to an already “beast mode” burger.

mario2The burger came with an onion ring-fry combination. The cooks used fresh potatoes that were clearly double-blanched so that they retained the fresh taste while not requiring a long cook time. As they had not been cooked so long, they stayed crisp. It’s the small things like that that bring a dish together. It also shows that the staff are willing to put in the extra work to make a great dish.

I had a chance to speak with the executive chef, Charles Reed. I got a feel for his love of food just in the time we were discussing the menu items. He was more than friendly, and even though he was busy with a catering project, he never once made me feel that I was taking him away from something that was clearly more important than my simple questions.

Chef Reed is from Colorado, and he really seems to enjoy being here in SWLA, and that means something coming from a chef who’s traveled the world gaining cooking experience.

He told us that we need to come in to try their Sunday brunch as well as some of the more involved menu items. I promise you this: Chelsea and I will work our way through this menu. If my readers have ever taken a suggestion of mine as to where to get some great food, then they should go grab a meal here. You don’t have to play golf to eat here, nor do you have to be a guest.

The staff — from our hostess (Kelly) to our great waitress (Lashira), whom I will request from now on — is more than friendly.

mario4 In closing, I want to say goodbye to the man who made me want to become a chef; that is the late and great chef Paul Prudhomme. Chef Paul started as a kid from Opelousas, La., who wanted to make good food. He started with a simple burger joint in his home town that only lasted nine months. But eventually, the chef put Commander’s Palace on the map. He worked there as a true culinary genius. He took the flavors of Louisiana and shared them with the world like nobody else could have. Countless chefs were influenced by his work. He was one of this state’s greatest cultural diplomats, and he will forever be missed. Thanks, Chef Paul, for instilling in me a true passion for food that I will pass on to my son as well.

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