Popeye's is a fast food foray into the Big Easy

Culinary purists may well turn up their noses and sniff that Popeye's has no right to promote itself as New Orleans cuisine.

Which it doesn't do explicitly, anyway, stating modestly instead that it is home to chicken and seafood. But with dishes like red beans and rice and its Cajun combos, the New Orleans connection is always there.

The very same persnickety gastronomes may grudgingly concede that it does indeed hail from the Big Easy, but snipe that it bears scant resemblance to traditional Cajun fare found in such hotsy-totsy restaurants of gourmand Paul Prudhomme's K-Paul's and Begue in the French Quarter, or the stately Commander's Palace a tram ride uptown.

All true, perhaps, and there is no denying that Popeye's is just one more name on that spiraling list of fast food chains, great and small, from around the globe. But anyone who has ever lived in New Orleans has undoubtedly sampled Popeye's at least once, and probably many times.

It may all be drowning in grease, there is hardly a pure, unadulterated complex carbohydrate to be found and diners may wince at the almost palpable feeling of an artery or two hardening up. Points well taken, but this is gratifying grease and stodge nonetheless which beats any regulation burger and fries.

For Epicurus and family, a regular monthly repast was made at the Popeye's at the lower end of St. Charles Avenue, a take-out outlet sandwiched between an upstart Wendy's and an office building. On oppressively hot, humid New Orleans days when slaving over an even hotter stove was out of the question, Popeye's fit the bill winningly.

Which was the very reason Epicurus and companion found themselves negotiating the maze of Blok M gangs and alleys in pursuit of Jakarta's very own Popeye's.

After weathering mangled directions from helpful but misinformed parking attendants, we finally found ourselves on Jl. Melawai IV in front of an imposing, glass-fronted two-story palace, jazzier than any of its namesakes back in Louisiana.

The question for Epicurus and companion, enamored by Popeye's during a seven-year sojourn in Alabama, was how would the Jakarta restaurant's meals measure up against expectations undoubtedly biased by the hazy filter of nostalgia.

After ascertaining that staple fillers of ham hocks and pork lard had been done away with for the Jakarta restaurant, we scanned the menu board for a rendezvous with all our old favorites.

We decided to go whole hog (no pun intended) by ordering nearly everything available, including the shrimp and fish platter; a couple of pieces of Popeye's special spicy fried chicken; potatoes and gravy; french fries; Cajun rice; red beans and rice; and coleslaw. The meal would not have been complete without that Southern mainstay of melt-in-the-mouth biscuits crowned with a dab of butter.

Of course, there was no chance that Popeye's would fulfill all our wistful and great expectations. The red beans and rice, the dish we both hungered for, fared relatively well on our taste barometers. A large order was filling and satisfying, although it seemed oilier than we remembered it and top-heavy with rice, the latter perhaps in deference to local tastes.

The shrimp and fish platter was also very good. Butterfly shrimp, dipped in a light batter and deep fried, were tasty eaten alone or with tartar sauce. Popeye's french fries were just as delicious, spicy and crisp to the bite.

The chicken, a hulking slab of breast, was also good, but not as highly spiced as memory served. The mashed potatoes were the standard fast food take on this dish, almost indistinguishable in taste from that served up at other restaurants.

The only two complete disappointments were the Cajun rice and the biscuits. The former most resembled what is known as "dirty" rice in New Orleans, in which the discarded or leftover cuts of meat are shredded and mixed with white rice. It should not be confused with Popeye's jambalaya, one of the highlights of the menu back in the States but curiously missing over here.

Popeye's Cajun rice had bland minced beef and some shards of nebulous green herbs. Dry to the point of tasting stale and lacking any discernible flavor, the rice was woefully unappetizing. And while the biscuits were edible, they, too, were dry and too doughy.

All in all, though, we were buoyed by our culinary trip down memory lane. The food, although undeniably heavy, greasy and not something to wolf down everyday if cholesterol counts are a concern, hit the satisfaction mark. At a cost of just over Rp 33,000 (US$12.71) for enough food to serve at least four hearty eaters, Popeye's was worth every penny.

-- Epicurus