A Little Bit of Everything: Stanley’s Pepperoni Pizza Caesar Salad Poor Boy

There are some restaurant dishes that make you wonder what the chef was doing, thinking, or smoking when the thing was created. Much of the food from Chef Scott Boswell’s culinary soul inspires such wondering. Stanley, Scott’s more casual eatery (Stella! is his elegant fine dining spot), set on the upper right corner of Jackson Square, feels like the love-child of history and glam diner with white-washed walls, marble-topped tables, stainless steel and wood – clean and comfy.  The menu is loaded with familiar, lovable foods like juicy burgers, fat omelets, deli sandwiches piled high with meat, crispy, just-right salty onion rings; rich, decadent ice cream sundaes, floats and shakes, and some of the best coffee-dark Gumbo in the city. Typifying Scott’s culinary style, there are also some fun twists on classics – po-boys filled with Korean Barbecue Beef or Eggs Benedict, and the sandwich that inspired this post – the Pepperoni Pizza Caesar Salad Poor Boy.

Scott and I were talking one evening, as food geeks do, about food.  The subject turned to how much we loved eating salad on a wide slice of pizza – folded and devoured like a New York slice –  the creamy, cheesy, greasy combining deliciously with the cool, crunchy, sometimes sharp-tasting greens and a garlicky or lemony dressing. Yes, we needed a sandwich like that. Not long thereafter, Scott added his rendition to the Stanley menu.  Fabulous, thin-crusted, fluffy New Orleans French Bread is layered with Boar’s Head Pepperoni, Provolone and Mozzarella Cheeses, Basil Pesto, and crunchy Romaine lettuce tossed in a good quantity of homemade Spicy Chipotle Caesar dressing.

This sandwich hits all the right spots, and takes things up a tick with that herby, bright pesto and the smokey kick of chipotle pepper in the dressing. I’d tell you that this sandwich requires no accompaniment, it’s that crazy-good, but then you might miss the onion rings, or gumbo, or peanut-butter chocolate chip ice cream, and I wouldn’t want that to happen. Just make sure you get that pepperoni pizza Caesar Salad Poor Boy.

Lorin Gaudin is the author of the GoNOLA food column, “A Little Bit of Everything” and the creator of the culinary site, FiveOhFork.

Tagged as: A Little Bit of Everything, Caesar Salad Poor Boy, Jackson Square, Lorin Gaudin, New Orleans Food, New Orleans po-boys, Scott Boswell, Stanley New Orleans