Greetings from Maine foodie on the road. Afraid I'm not going to get to New Orleans tomorrow, so we'll just have to do it another time. Wanted to share the following email I had from Erik Desjarlais, the chef / owner at ladle and Bandol. From his description of the fare, I can't wait to check out ladle. He read a post I made on Chowhound about the price of soup and now I don't think its so bad judging from his response. I might try and sample ladle on my way back from points south.

"greetings, seth. I'm Erik, one of the other partners in Ladle...the resident cook, and owner of Bandol....saw your posts. Sorry we were closed when you tried to stop in. It's really tough to judge when people want soup. We've been open Mon thru fri from 11 to 4. After Memorial day we'll be open on saturdays as well. I have a feeling that come autumn, more folks will want soup, so we'll be open during the dinner. When I say soup, I mean anything that can be scooped with a ladle. I'm thinking about Cassoulet, Coq au Vin, braised duck legs...even baked macaroni and cheese....the possibilities are endless, and I'm psyched about it. Hope to see you in soon. Tell Zahra who you are when you visit. She's our other partner. Oh, btw....the 7 bucks is for 12 oz of extremely heavy and delicious beef stew......plus a quarter pound of my sourdough bread....and it includes tax as well. I know the ingredients that go into everything, and really, our mark up is almost nothing. Everything is hand made by me, and it all has character. My sourdough starter was built 22 years ago in Arcata California by my friend's mother..I only use spring water from NH for the bread...soon to be from Maine Maple Trees .the meat products come from happy animals, and the produce is grown in strict accordance with nature. You could pay a dollar less for soup from a bag made by some random guy at the corporate headquarters from food service ingredients.....(pre-chopped mirepoix) who doesn't know how to use salt."

Enjoy,
Seth