Le Bon Ton Roule Does Shrimp Po'boys Right, Spells "Temps" Wrong

A magnfiied view of shrimp shit, which when eaten leaves your breath shrimpy-fresh!

​I wish someone had run a spell-check when they were going to name Le Bon Ton Roule, because the proprietors spelled "temps" wrong. "Bon Ton" sounds like it should be the name of a French/Chinese fusion restaurant. "What's better than won ton soup? BON ton soup!" I'm full of brilliant ideas like this. If any nascent restaurateurs would like to hire me, my consulting fee is one million dollars per second.

Le Bon Ton (should be Temps) Roule is on Leary Way. Before giving way to the well-respected Treehouse Bar & Grill, there was a restaurant in the same buidling called Bourbon and Barbeque, which totally sucked. Like Le Bon Ton Roule, Bourbon and Barbeque served po'boys, but unlike Le Bon Ton Roule they didn't know what the fuck they were doing. It was at Bourbon and Barbeque that I encountered the now-infamous fried shrimp po'boy with green leaf lettuce, sunflower seeds, and, most heinous of all, ONLY TWO MOTHERFUCKING SHRIMP ON IT. I had so much vengeful wrath towards Bourbon and Barbeque's crimes against shrimp-manity, I was overjoyed when they went out of business. Then I invented a time machine so I could go back in time and make fun of the guy's great-great-great grandfather for eventually having a grandson whose restaurant sucked so bad. Needless to say, that caveman didn't understand what I was talking about.

Tuesday was Mardi Gras, and Le Bon Ton Roule, which sells New Orleans cuisine, was hosting a party. I went because I wanted to check out the live band and the alleged shrimp po'boys this place was selling. The place was packed; I had no idea Mardi Gras was so popular in Seattle! Ever since that dude got killed in Pioneer Square I assumed Seattleites had soured on Fat Tuesday festivities. Obviously I was as wrong as the cops who stood stupidly by while lethal beatdowns were occurring back then.

Service moved at the pace of a snail riding a turtle, since it was so crowded; management obviously hadn't planned for the crush. Tables weren't bussed, drink orders were as slow as Sarah Palin's kids, and in fact they were so short-handed that a few employees who weren't working but were just there to enjoy the music were pressed into service anyway.

While we waited a long time for our po'boys, I tried the "Purple Drank" ($8). This nefarious concoction, commonly drunk throughout the South and by former Oakland Raider quarterback JaMarcus Russell, is normally made of cheap grape soda, rotgut vodka, and cough syrup. In some ways it's good for you, because you can get drunk AND cough up sickening wads of infected phlegm. So naturally I was curious to try Le Bon Ton Roule's version of your mom's favorite drink. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Le Bon Ton Roule's purple drank was made from vodka, Grand Marnier, lemons, and Parfait d'Amour. I'm no purple drank expert, but if you're hanging out with people drinking real purple drank, just saying the word "Parfait d'Amour" will probably get you defenestrated.

Eventually our po'boys came, and they did an OK job. The andouille sausage po'boy ($9.95) was acceptable. A huge schlong of spicy andouille, split in half lengthwise and grilled, came on a soft, hoagie-style roll with shredded iceberg lettuce, some pickles, sautéed green bell peppers and onions, and a brief smear of mayonnaise. The sausage was flavorful but had been sadly overcooked until the meat had the consistency of sandy gravel. If they hadn't split it in half before cooking, it probably wouldn't have become so dry. But the peppers and onions were lightly grilled, still a bit crisp, and were a nice touch. All of Le Bon Ton Roule's po'boys come with a big pile of hand-cut French fries, which were burnished a pleasing bronze on the outside, soft and floppy like Dick's French fries, with creamy potato flesh inside.

The shrimp po'boy was marginally competent. Luckily for Le Bon Ton Roule, I grade on a curve. Since most of the po'boys in Seattle are utter shit, "marginally competent" actually means "pretty good." For the princely sum of $10.95, we got a medium-sized hoagie roll, probably about the size of an infant's leg, with a light blond crust and pillowy white interior. It was stacked with an acceptable amount of shredded iceberg lettuce, a couple waffle-cut discs of dill pickle, and a little mayonnaise.

There was what I'd consider a satisfactory amount of shrimp in the po'boy, dusted in cornmeal and fried to a comforting golden brown. There were just enough shrimp on this po'boy; every bite had some shrimp in it, which is the benchmark of a good po'boy. But the benchmark of an awesome po'boy is that there are so many shrimp, a whole bunch of them fall off the bun while you eat it. Le Bon Ton Roule didn't quite reach that lofty goal, but it was good enough.

My only problem with these shrimp was that they were deveined. That's always a risky move; butterflied shrimp can overcook in a nanosecond. Yes, I'm aware that the "vein" in the shrimp is actually its intestine, so when you leave the vein in you end up eating shrimp shit. But what's shrimp shit? They eat plankton; it's not like they feast on rotting flesh or Hot Pockets. It's not as if you scooped up a steaming mound of hyena turds, or vulture poop, and chowed down. A large portion of a shrimp's diet is diatoms, which are tiny, single-celled plants with hard, mineral shells. In fact, diatoms are used as the abrasive in toothpaste, so eating shrimp with the vein still intact actually cleans your teeth! Wash it down with some real purple drank, and you'll have no cavities and your cold will go away.

Despite being deveined and butterflied, the shrimp weren't overcooked, which was great; they retained plenty of their sweet, briny shrimp flavor. Le Bon Ton Roule makes a serviceable po'boy. I'm not going to gush about it, but if I'm in a pinch and Where Ya At Matt is closed, I'd make the pilgrimage. Maybe.

Rating: 6 hyena turds out of 10.

Le Bon Ton Roule is located at 4332 Leary Way N.W. For inquiries (reservations are for parties of six or more only) call 297-8888.

Follow Voracious on Twitter and Facebook.