When a generic Irish sports bar falls in this city, does it make a sound? The ubiquity of the tricolor-flying, flat-screen-blaring, jalapeño-popper-slinging, Gaelic-font-fronting, leprechaun-buggering, all-purpose faux-Irish public house is such that it renders most of them invisible to me. That’s why I’m sure I never even noticed West Town’s Division Ale House prior to hearing that it’d been shuttered by its owner only to rise up, completely reconcepted, as a Cajun-creole concern called Fifolet, bedecked with sparkly Mardi Gras masks and soundtracked by blaring brass bands for those unfamiliar with the most prominent cliches of the Crescent City. Don’t look too close, though—the New Orleans-themed volumes on the lower levels of the dining room bookcase support shelves of leathery-looking law books heavy enough to crack the fragile veneer of authenticity.
There are some silly gimmicks and poorly rendered snacky bits, their flaws perhaps partially explained by the furious pace at which nearly everything seems to come out of the kitchen. This tendency is embodied in the boudin balls, the beloved Cajun rice sausage, encased here in puff pastry rather than pig guts. Bland, soggy crawfish-tail fritters seem almost electrified next to a dish of “Sunday dumplings.” That plate of dull, stomach-busting pan-seared gnocchi nestled amid underseasoned brussels sprouts and canned baby corn coblets, all showered with rapidly softening matchstick potatoes, is a sorry offering for the vegetarians in your company.
1942 W. Division 773-384-6886fifoletcajun.com
