Meet Bergeron's City Market, Your New Lunch Spot

by Sydney Blanchard

 

With its crisp white exterior and sleek black and white signage, it's impossible to miss Bergeron's City Market on Jefferson Highway.

Chef Don Bergeron's latest venture took over where Pat's Seafood used to be. Not only is the City Market the hub for Chef Bergeron's catering and retail operations, it also serves up a rotating menu of hot lunches and dinners.

Bottles of wine abound in Bergeron's City Market retail space

Most notable is the market's decor. Chef Bergeron's team did a bang up job renovating the building and turning it into a clean, white, airy space with tons of natural lighting.

Local products and a selection of wines gleam in the retail space, and freezers filled with take-and-bake dishes and desserts line the walls.

Another view of the wine and frozen goods at Bergeron's

According to Chef Bergeron, his most popular take-and-bake item is his lasagne, but his crawfish bisque also flies off the shelves.

Get in line here to grab a hot lunch or dinner

Beyond the retail space lies a beautifully decorated seating area and cafeteria-style lunch line. The menu changes daily and weekly and serves up dishes like red beans and rice, white chicken lasagne, tomato basil soup, and an array of salads.

Hamburger steak, burritos, and fish were a few of the options that day

Fridays, or "fry-days" as they're known at the market, typically feature fried catfish and shrimp. Weekly and daily menus are available on Chef Don Bergeron's website and on Facebook. 

White chicken lasagne at Bergeron's

One of the day's offerings: the savory and creamy white chicken lasagna with flavorful greens and succotash.

Fish with green beans and field peas

Another: fish and cream sauce, with green beans (some of the best I've had) and field peas.

"Heart healthy" chicken burrito at Bergeron's

Last, the "heart healthy" chicken and black bean burrito option.

Beyond weekday lunches and dinners, Bergeron's City Market also does a Saturday brunch with tummy ticklers like crawfish and grits and chicken and waffles. During brunch, each entree comes with a mimosa.

I was super impressed with Bergeron's City market: the atmosphere, the hot lunch and the take home offerings. I can totally see myself grabbing a frozen lasagna, a bottle of wine and some dessert and being the hero at dinner.

Have y'all been to Bergeron's City Market yet?

Dining at DeAngelo's with Fantastic Friends

Another day, another lunch!  This time I met Hannah, Robert, Kevin, and Shawn at Louis DeAngelo's Casual Italian Dining on Jefferson Highway.  DeAngelo's is a Baton Rouge original with multiple locations around town.  They offer a pretty traditional Italian menu with various pastas and pizzas.

DeAngelo's on Jefferson

We met for lunch as a follow up from the previous dinner at the Romero's house and the lunch at the Roux House.  It was certainly great to see Robert again before he heads off to New Zealand, and it is always a pleasure to hang out with Hannah Lane, artist extraordinaire.  Kevin and Shawn were still in from Chicago, so we had quite a fantastic group.  I ordered the Nona's Lasagna because I had been craving some of the layered Italian dish and wanted to compare DeAngelo's variety to others around town. 

Nona's Lasagna at DeAngelo's

The lasagna was layered with plenty of cheeses from mozzarella to ricotta in addition to the meaty Bolognese sauce and the marinara.  The overall flavor was a mixture of sweet tomatoes and lots of basil.  It was good lasagna, but certainly not my favorite.  I felt like it lacked something in the texture and thought that it almost needed to be eaten with a spoon rather than a fork.  While it was good, I certainly did not think it was spectacular.  I was also able to sample a couple shrimp from Hannah's salad.  They were delightful little grilled crustaceans but the quantity did not meet the price in my opinion and they were rather small for a typical grilled shrimp in Louisiana. 

Banquet Room with Paintings by Hannah Lane

One of my favorite parts about DeAngelo's was the fact that the decorations around the restaurant largely consisted of paintings by Hannah.  Walking around the banquet room felt like taking a tour of Italy as Hannah's collection of paintings from her trip to the European boot were hung around the dining space.  Her artistic style is refreshing, colorful, and just the right amount of abstract to know that it requires a great amount of creativity and imagination.  I left DeAngelo's very happy after getting my fill of lasagna and an art show!

Cheesecakes and Assorted Sweets from L'auberge Du Lac in Lake Charles

My day of delivering delightful dishes to my neverending belly was not over after DeAngelo's.  When I got back to the office I found a box of cheesecakes on sticks and other assorted mini-cakes from the bakery at the L'auberge Du Lac casino in Lake Charles.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened the box lid to find such amazing treats staring back at me as if they wanted to be eaten.  Since cheesecake is one of my all-time favorite desserts, I picked out a good one and plunged it into my mouth.  Wow!  First, what a great idea!  Whoever thought of putting a cheesecake on a stick is brilliant!  Secondly, these were really good cheesecakes with a beautiful mixture of cream cheese and sugar.  I couldn't resist and had another.  And the next day, since nobody else in the office was eating anything, I had the carrot cake too.  It was pretty good, but not as amazing as the cheesecakes on a stick!

The Little Village

Today we had a going-away lunch for the Executive Director at work and we ordered some take out from The Little Village.  The Little Village is a Baton Rouge original Italian-style restaurant with a lot to offer to casual and business diners alike.  Their downtown location is a block off the Mississippi River and very close to the state governmental buildings and corporate office buildings that make up the city's skyline.

We ordered the food to go and I walked over to the Little Village to pick it up and bring it back to the office.  The restaurant itself has a good ambiance to it.  The atmosphere is relaxed but still retains the feel of a nicer place where upscale business lunches can take place.  One of the highlights of any trip to The Little Village is their Village Bread.  The dough is woven before baked to create a loaf of bread that is easy to pull apart.  It comes out of the oven extra soft and is then topped with parmesan cheese and enough olive oil to make Popeye blush.  It is served with even more olive oil and an olive spread that you can add to the bread after you pull it apart or just sprinkle right on top of the entire loaf.  The Village Bread is without a doubt one of the best stand-alone bread dishes I have ever found at any restaurant.

The Village Bread (the half that was leftover, anyway)

In addition to the bread, we also enjoyed a Caesar Salad, Vegetable Lasagna, and Shrimp Diavlo with Penne Pasta.  It was a quite a feast for a lunch at the office!  The whole meal was pretty excellent.  The highlight of the salad was the homemade croutons that gave just the right crunch to the bed of romaine lettuce, cheese, and dressing.  The vegetable lasagna stood tall with multiple thin layers of noodles and sliced vegetables and was then topped with a thick marinara sauce.  I was about as impressed as I've ever been with a vegetable lasagna, being the meat eater that I am.  The best part of the meal for me (other than the bread) was the Shrimp Diavlo with Penne Pasta, even though it was a little light on the shrimp.  The creamy sauce was delicious and the pasta was nicely boiled into a soft, yet firm, noodle.

Shrimp Diavlo with Penne Pasta (after we ate almost half of it)

The Little Village provided us with a nice meal for our going away lunch, although I will warn that it is a little on the pricy side for just a casual lunch.  I've never been to their Airline Highway location, but I'm sure it is just as good!  I would bet that I'll be back at some point in the future, even if it is just for the bread!