Classic Creole Fare at Harold and Belle’s

The Cajun craze may have fizzled, but why should Creole restaurants suffer? Harold and Belle’s, a 20-year old restaurant in the Crenshaw district, features Louisiana-bred food to eat-in or take-out . . . and no blackened you-know-what.

Partners Harold LeGaux and Al Honore are both descended from that scrumptious part of the world where French, Spanish, Portuguese and African recipes combined with indigenous ingredients (oysters, catfish, clams, shrimp) to form a New World cuisine, i.e. jambalaya, Po-boy sandwiches and gumbo.

There are probably as many varieties of gumbo as there are cooks. Harold and Belle’s version ($6.95 for a small portion, $11.95 for a large) uses file powder, with its earthy flavor from ground sassafras leaves, as a thickener and heaps of shrimp, crab, chicken, andouille and ham. The broth is complex and beautiful and meant to be lavishly spooned over the accompanying rice, or dunked with the huge slab of crisp French bread. The nubby sausage is particularly pleasing; only the woody chicken is a let-down.

Po-boy sandwiches may have been created as a cheap way to feed hungry working men, but anyone eating Harold and Belle’s catfish Po-boy ($7.75 including potato salad or steak fries) is one lucky guy. What a sandwich: a sweet white-fleshed catfish filet perfectly fried and mounded on a crusty foundation of French bread. It’s all crunchy, juicy succulence. The soft-shell crab Po-boy’s another contender for the sandwich hall of fame. It’s dipped in a thin slip of cornmeal batter, fried up just right and then bathed in a fine ooze of mayonnaise. (Served only in season and market-priced, it’s now $8.25.)

I had several classic jambalayas earlier this year in New Orleans and found Harold and Belle’s one-dish rice/chicken/sausage/ham/shrimp specialty plentiful, yet less distinctive than jambalaya from the source. Here, it’s just too mild, just too well-blended. Order jambalaya as a dinner though ($11.95) and you get unusually sweet corn on the cob and a choice of a large fresh green salad or ultra-thick clam chowder which tightropes between deliciously peppery and too-floury.

Fried seafood is central on the menu and the kitchen has a fine subtle hand. Louisiana oysters ($6.95 for an appetizer, $18.95 for a main course) are creamy within and crusty on the outside. All fried food tasted was crisp and fresh, not in the least greasy.

Shrimp Creole ($20.95) probably the best known Creole dish, is tender jumbo shrimp in a so-called “richly seasoned” onion, green-pepper and tomato based sauce that I found extremely mild.

For more assertive flavoring, Harold and Belle’s serves “Home Style Favorites,” distinctively Southern dishes like red beans and rice and pork chops, Southern fried chicken and country-style ribs. I was sure that I’d had my best barbecue of the year back in New Orleans (courtesy the Second True Love Baptist Church) but Harold and Belle’s no-knife-needed (and maybe no teeth) beefy ribs, with an elixir of a sauce, proved that addiction to Harold and Belle’s could start with this dish. The enormous portion, at $16.95, would easily serve two.

Fried chicken ($12.95) is also lusty and generous enough for two. Accompanying steak fries drooped on the way home but were easily revived to proper crispness in the oven. Red beans and rice served with three flavorful centercut pork chops ($14.95) would make a delicious introduction to this classic, slow-cooked meal.

For dessert, a sweet potato cheesecake with a graham cracker crust and a dousing of pralines on top was compelling; the too-sweet canned peach cobbler was not. I went back to those ribs.

Harold and Belle’s, 2920 W. Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 735-9023 or (213) 735-9918. Open Monday through Thursday noon to 10 p.m.; Friday noon to midnight; Saturday 1 p.m. to midnight; Sunday 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. Parking lot. Valet parking at dinner. Visa and MasterCard. Call for take-out menu .