Alfie’s, the popular Thai restaurant from Alex McCoy that’s closing at the end of the month and moving downtown, will be replaced by Tchoup’s Market in early August.
It will be a New Orleans restaurant featuring po’boys (sandwiches) and blue plate specials of lesser known New Orleans cuisine — not just jambalaya and gumbo but other dishes popular in the diverse city.
The City Paper has the story with some more details:
“There’s a massive Vietnamese community and Italian community,” McCoy says. “We want to show people not just the classics, but we’ll have blue-plate specials every day that could be anything from Mandina’s-style trout Almandine to a Vietnamese Creole dish called ya-ka-mein.” The latter is a beef noodle soup that originated with Chinese railway workers, according to McCoy.
They’ll also have traditional New Orleans cocktails like the sazerac, as well as buckets of beer. The po’boys will have traditional Cajun or Creole ingredients like fried oysters and fried catfish as well as others: McCoy says po’boy shops in New Orleans often have all kinds of ingredients like pastrami or even burgers.
They’re actually going to fly in Leidenheimer bread from New Orleans. (Let’s hope they actually do this, unlike Taylor Gourmet, which claimed they shipped in bread from Philly but actually didn’t.)
The name Tchoup’s comes from Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans, where McCoy’s family lives. It’s pronounced “Chops”. The chef will be Ramin Coles, who previously worked at Black Market Bistro in Montgomery County.
Glad something is opening soon, and I look forward to trying it. Will still miss Alfie’s though, great food and great drinks.
