The Alpine
620 Chartres Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Tel: 504 523 3005
Link

We dived in here for lunch, attracted primarily by the décor which includes murals of street scenes, individually painted tabletops (ours showed a Louisiana riverbank scene) model aeroplanes suspended from the ceiling and other random ornamentation.
It was too warm to be really hungry but from the starters section of the well illustrated menu, I chose BBQ shrimps and Nick a bowl of corn and crab chowder washed down with his by now customary pint of Akita Amber. I tried their version of a Hurricane which was not up to the standard of that served at Le Richelieu, but most acceptable.
Nick enjoyed his soup, but to my taste it was rather bland, although maybe my palate was overstimulated by my extremely tasty shrimps. These were king prawns baked in a spicy barbeque sauce in their shells, so that once the extremely messy business of peeling them was done the flavour was nicely balanced and extra sauce could be mopped up with the accompanying French bread.
We were both quite full but felt the need of something to round off the meal so we shared a crème brulee, which was just right- rather denser than a European brulee but nicely vanilla flavoured with a crunchy topping, although it was necessary to scrape off the squirt of whipped cream decoration.
Good value at $41, and not seriously overpriced like many tourist traps in the Upper French Quarter
June 2009