Liuzza’s Lounge & Grill owner Billy Gruber ought to try to trademark his barbecue shrimp po-boy.

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WHERE: 1518 N. Lopez St., 943-8667
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I wasn’t expecting Liuzza’s Lounge & Grill – known affectionately by everyone as "Liuzza’s by the Track" – to change my life. I did gather that Faubourg St. John’s favorite drinking corner might enrich my New Orleans existence with variations on seafood, another round of gumbo and frosty beers in bulbous mugs (like those found at the other Liuzza’s in Mid-City, although there’s no relation). But revolutionize my expectations for everyday po-boy bread and French fries? No.

  Let’s do the bad-news-first routine, so as not to discredit the positives down the line. Because the eating area at Liuzza’s is the same space as the drinking area at Liuzza’s, and because in Louisiana the drinking area is also the smoking area, Liuzza’s eating area is smoky – sometimes desperately smoky. During dinner with a pregnant companion, I wished she could hold her breath indefinitely. And once during lunch, I longed to hurtle out the door with a stranger’s sleeping baby for some decent air.

  Also, I never got the toilet in the scantly cleaned women’s bathroom to flush, many of the chairs are leaking stuffing, the exterior really needs a paint job, and Friday’s crabcake with lemon-butter sauce, fries and grilled tomato isn’t nearly as good as it sounds. Ask any one of the four people at my table who ordered it.

  Now for the goods.

  A friend I consult regularly for sound restaurant advice never mentioned Liuzza’s now-permanent special. Not, that is, until we already had ordered. Then he tells me that the barbecue shrimp po-boy he ordered is going to change my life. A woman with several rum and Cokes and a smothered burger leaned around me from her barstool to nod at my friend in agreement. There was no way to anticipate what came next.

  Through an open doorway to the kitchen, you can watch owner Billy Gruber poke through a pistolet until only a crusty shell remains. He tosses it into the oven and then steps aside as his kitchenmate, Burnetta McMillan, heads for the pot of red beans on the stove. When he moves back into view, Gruber yanks the bread from the oven and fills the toasty tube from a steaming pan next to the beans, finally propping it on a plate against two slices of bread. The sandwich is obscenely delicious – an amorphous lump crammed with small, butter-wet shrimp. When bitten, it oozes a sweet lemony sauce that’s dirty with black pepper and thickens as it seeps into the crusty sheath. The shrimp seem endless and, amazingly, the bread never gives.

  I don’t know whether Gruber and his partner, Jimmy Lemarie, can trademark the ingenious po-boy like they have the piquant Honey Peppa salad dressing, but somebody should try. It and bread pudding might be the only reasons for continued production of the brittle, mostly hollow bread that plagues so many New Orleans sandwiches.

  My friend likes to drown Liuzza’s French fries in that lemon gravy, which leads to the next wonder. I’m usually a stickler for homemade fries. Achieving crispiness without burning them requires a certain finesse I treasure, like a baseball buff who never forgets a no-hitter. Liuzza’s fries are not the work of an over-achiever. The lifeless, tanned batons fall limp without any structure of crunch. But the insides are fluffy, and the outsides have a golden fried patina. These fries ignore technique in respect for the potato, and it works. We even ate them cold.

  Liuzza’s Reuben defied another of my prejudices. What is a Reuben, I thought, if it’s not too many layers of sliced corned beef, Swiss and sauerkraut to bite into comfortably, on dark rye soggy with Thousand Island? It turns out that a darned-good Reuben also is a moderate layering of sauerkraut and cheese with shreds of delicate, house-boiled corned beef – all between slices of crunchy light rye, smooshed thin as a grilled cheese, with just a film of homemade dressing.

  As if that weren’t enough, Liuzza’s forever altered my satisfaction with a cold bottle of Barq’s. There’s no preparation for the sensuality in a frosted mug pulled from the freezer. As it hits the bar, odorless smoke like dry ice at a glam-rock concert swirls against the black Formica. When soda splashes to the bottom of the chilly glass, foam explodes and crackles into frozen trails of auburn down the sides. The first sips are root beer slush. They weren’t the first to do it, but they don’t have many peers these days.

  Lastly, it will be awhile before I can enjoy a simply decent bowl of gumbo. Gruber’s mother, a Boudreaux from Chacahoula, is responsible for his recipe. A pronounced bite and the orangey stain that remains around the rim of the bowl allude to spices like cumin or chili powder. Cooked to order, shrimp float about the gumbo’s surface, and oysters still squirt their own juices. Gruber says he couldn’t walk down the street otherwise.