I spent the last couple of days in Biloxi, Mississippi, visiting my mother and checking out the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Mary Mahoney’s Old French House restaurant is one of the few restaurants that has reopened in the downtown section of town close to the waterfront. Last Saturday night my mother and I ate an excellent meal there. I had the grilled shrimp with lump crabmeat on angel hair pasta and she had the whole grilled flounder.
In this photo you can see how much higher the water reached inside the restaurant during Katrina than in Camille. The line that you can just barely see at the top of the image is the level to which water rose inside Mahoney’s during Katrina. Based on those lines, I would estimate that the water was about five feet deeper inside the restaurant (actually, the bar) during Katrina.
I think the dish you describe having was the Shrimp and Lump Crabmeat Melba. The menu notes that it was the creation of a “local patron.” That was my father and of course, it’s named after my mother, Melba. Daddy’s original recipe was over rice (everything he ate involved rice in one way or another) and, I think, also involved peas. Mahoney’s modified it by adding the angel hair.
That was indeed what I ordered. I forgot the full name for the dish. That’s so cool that Mahoney’s recipe is based on your father’s recipe and was named after your mother.
is u dead
I just had the shrimp and crabmeat Melba. It was one of the best dishes I have ever had! Does Mary Mahoney’s have a cookbook? I would love the recipe. We are from New Orleans, and I can see myself driving here just to have that dish again!
I found a book about Mary Mahoney on Amazon. I also found a link on about.com to the same book. The person who linked to the book claimed it contains some recipes. I don’t know if the shrimp and crabmeat Melba is one of them, though.
Just ate there a few days ago. They have a gift shop and it has a book that has several recipes in the back of it. Next trip there, try the Shrimp and Crabmeat Au Graten. One of the best dishes I have ever had.