Metairie is to New Orleans as the Valley is to Los Angeles, only a 15 minute drive, but a drive into suburbia, malls and chain restaurants. But I may have found a reason to envy the good citizens of Metairie and an excuse to visit there more often – Dorignac’s Food Center.
Dorignac’s is a grocery store so why all the fuss? Because it’s a grocery store specializing in local cuisine with an entire aisle of olives stuffed with almonds or garlic or pearl onions. The bakery has a variety of fresh baked yummies including a sugar-free King Cake. The extensive and eclectic wine section takes up 20% of the store. But my favorite parts were the pre-prepared foods.
There was so much good home cooking to choose from, it was tough to make a selection. We finally settled on deviled eggs, shrimp stuffed mirliton and mixed cooked greens. The tuna salad stuffed tomatoes (or chicken salad or ham salad) were as hard to leave behind as the stuffed crabs and stuffed eggplant. These people know how to stuff stuff.
There’s also something called Jezz’s Kitchen, where comfort food is cooked fresh daily. Today’s menu is baked or fried catfish, fried shrimp, crab cakes, baked macaroni, potato salad, seafood gumbo with chicken and sausage, steamed rice and fried mini crawfish pies. Yum.
Dorignac’s opened in 1947 in the Lower Garden District and I wish they still had a location there. With a skeleton crew, 23 days after Katrina hit, they were the second store on the area to open and with food so scarce, they became a destination in the year following the storm. They apparently gave away free sandwiches during the first 90 days after the storm.
I still see Metairie through the same lens I saw the Valley, but I found plenty of reasons to visit the Valley in L.A. and I just found one more reason to make the 15 minute jaunt to Metairie.
L.A. to N.O.LA 
Dorignac’s first store was in Gentilly… the one on Jackson Avenue — much more Irish channel than LGD I think — came later…
That is amazing! I’m loving it!