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29 October, 2011

A New Eatery On the Horizon?

Well, well, well. What have we here? For the past few months, we've been watching every day (during our early morning dog walkies) as glimpses of remodeling and such appear to have taken place at the former Club Malibu on 7th Avenue (Northern Highway) here in Corozal.

Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and filet gumbo
'Cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma cher amio.
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gayo,
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou.
- Hank Williams

The building had lain vacant and in a sad state of repair for at least a couple of years. The first we noticed that there was perhaps something going on was one morning part of the old thatch roof was gone. It seemed strange to us that someone would only patch part of the roof when it was in such disrepair, but what do we know, having come from the land of hot tar, asphalt shingle, and cedar shake roofs?

It seemed to be fine (to the casual observer) until we entered the rainy (read hurricane) season, when all of a sudden, gray tarps appeared on the roof of the place after one of our relatively heavy downpours. I thought they were just temporary until whoever had patched the roof could be called in to effect proper repairs.

The tarps have been up there for some months now and appear to have become a permanent fixture of the roof. I thought it kind of odd that someone would pay to have a roof repaired and then cover, what ostensibly was a new roof, with tarps. I mean, I have a thatch roof on my parking palapa. It doesn't leak. Eventually, when it does require repair or replacement, if it leaks such that tarps are necessary to keep the wet stuff out, you can bet I'll be harping at someone to come back and fix the roof job so that the tarps can be put to other uses. Anyway, be that as it may, that's not the focus of this posting.

What is the focus is, in part, the newly painted sign over the doorway that we noticed on this morning's walkies.
The New La Louisianne Restaurant
In bright red letters over the doorway, it reads 'La Louisianne Restaurant' - complete with little gold fleurs-de-lis giving that French-Cajun feel. Wow! That immediately conjurs up visions of filet gumbo, catfish stew, crawfish, boudin, Zydeco music, alligator, boiled crab, crawfish etouffee... The list goes on and on.

However, with this being Belize, and the fact that we haven't heard nary a rumor, hint or anything about a new restaurant, what it might conjur up is Cajun rice and beans, Cajun fry-jacks, that sort of thing. One can only hope that that vision is entirely wrong. Some good, spicy Cajun fair would really be a nice addition to the gastronomy of Corozal. We'll just have to let you know what we find out.

I'd mentioned the tarp roofing, the shot below shows a bit of the tarp work on the roof of the place.
La Louisianne Showing The Tarpped Roof
Even with the absence of rumors or anything like that (after all, this is a small town and secrets should be hard to keep closely held) we were excited about the possibilities the name brings to mind.

Stay tuned. There could be some dining adventures ahead... And without seeming too snide, the money they've saved on the roof work, could translate into affordable prices at the dinner table. We'll see.

FLASH! Update... Corozal - the following morning:

No real news, just an update on the signage.
The Rest of the Sign
Still no rumorology on what kind of fare the place is going to offer. What the sign does tell us is there'll be a restaurant, a bar, some karaoke, and gaming. And that's all I know.

1 comment:

JRinSC said...

That tarp sure does look rather permanent, don't it? Maybe they could paint it a brown to better match what thatch is left...lol.

Oh well, this is another example of how Belize goes it's own way -- and many people walk to a different drum that many can't hear. I hope you're right and you can enjoy some cajun cusine sometime soon.

Maybe you could catch one of your gators in the creek behind your house and see what they could do with it?


Take care,

Julian