Chez Delisay's Cajun Cuisine - Rogers Park

Chez Delisay's Cajun Cuisine


Less than a week after its opening, I finally found the chance to stop by this curious Cajun addition to the North side. (The only other option is Dixie?) I left extremely underwhelmed about the food. While I understand that it's the first week, I won't be the one giving them a second try.

The exterior looks quite nice, and I found the contrast between the large glass panels and the neighborhood's more conservative panaderia's and paleteria's interesting. Simple, neat, and clean interior, with a condensed menu. So far so good.

From what I gathered, the chef used to cook for one of the fraternities at Northwestern as well as catering on the side. The fraternity got shut down, and she decided to start her own restaurant. Grew up on the South Side, but family always cooked Cajun.

I decided to go with the day's special, a half rack of Cajun Ribs. It came with 2 sides, and the owner was kind enough to let me substitute the Chicken Gumbo for 1 of the sides. "Cabbage" was my other side. The sweet potato pie was on my radar.

I wanted them to be good so bad, so I held out after trying the cabbage, which was lukewarm, seemingly only seasoned with black pepper, and was literally just cabbage and carrots (and this costs $4.5 as a standalone side!).


The ribs were dry on the inside (though it was served "wet"), extremely salty (could have been tolerated if it were spicier or served at a higher temp), and quite difficult to eat (it was served uncut, but the meat was not fall-apart in any way and cutting it was near impossible). The sauce was quite sweet and had nothing 'Cajun' about it as far as I could see. The rub, though, after I scraped off the sauce, did have some interesting hints of spices. I guess on a slow day, ribs might not have been the best order.


That excuse doesn't fly for the disappointing gumbo though. It was:
-filled with tomatoes, which after some educatin', shouldn't have been there
-watery, like canned soup
-lacking any discernible flavor


Insistent on finding something redeemable, I got the sweet potato pie after finding out that it was indeed housemade. Despite being "warmed up," it was cold in the inside. The crust had a strong burnt smell. Filling was passable I guess, but I haven't had that many sweet potato pies in my life.

There were some service hiccups - I was dining alone but 4 sets of tableware remained on the table; the plate with the pie was burning hot but given with no warning; no spoon was given for the gumbo; the server went for a grocery run and I ended up seating a party of 2 at a table; the atmosphere was a bit uncomfortable because the 2 sisters (FOH and BOH) communicated by shouting in a formal and tense manner. I'm willing to overlook all of that - they're new and they're a family business - if their food didn't taste like cafetaria food (the fact that the plates/silverware were exactly like those used at Northwestern didn't help).

Chez Delisay's Cajun Cuisine
6621 N. Clark St.
Chicago, Illinois 60626
(872) 806-0986
http://chezdelisays.wix.com/food

bernard wrote:That excuse doesn't fly for the disappointing gumbo though. It was:
-filled with tomatoes, which after some educatin', shouldn't have been there
-watery, like canned soup
-lacking any discernible flavor

While some of those sins (watery and lacking flavor) are inexcusable, in my experience gumbo is susceptible of different treatments with respect to ingredients. Creole gumbo (as opposed to Cajun) more commonly has tomatoes, although with "Cajun" in the name of the restaurant, would expect you might get more of a country-style (non-tomato) gumbo.