Feeding body and soul, all in one trip around Montclair (Robin’s Nest)

Cap’t Loui Louisiana-style seafood restaurant caught my consideration from its title and place in the Louis Harris developing on South Park Road. Louis and Louisiana, a popular denominator. 

It’s component of a franchise organization designed in 2016 in Stoneham, Massachusetts. Bryce Han and his company partner, Sean Kim, opened their restaurant in Montclair in November 2021. 

Bryce, who lives in Palisades Park, reported, “We fell in appreciate with Montclair and resolved that it was a terrific place for us to provide our authentic crab boil with crab, lobster, crawfish, sausage, potatoes and corn on the cob.”

Bryce and Sean share the tasks of jogging the enterprise 7 times a 7 days, from cooking and kitchen area staffing to controlling the back close, buying provides and accomplishing regardless of what it usually takes to get the career finished. 

Bryce arrived to Florida from his native Korea when he was 14 and realized to prepare dinner for himself when his one mom used lengthy hrs at operate. He mentioned, “I have no culinary arts instruction, but have cherished to prepare dinner considering that I was younger. I researched small business and like to travel all more than and locate distinctive dining activities.”

The décor is intriguing and colourful, from the significant crab logo on the entry wall to the coloured lights hanging from the ceiling. It’s an eclectic rainbow mixture of avenue honest, birthday social gathering and Mardi Gras in New Orleans themes.

Seafood is marketed by the pound, and lunch specials appear in smaller portions of shrimp, clams, crawfish and mussels, or fried fish, rooster wings and tenders. There is a magic formula Cap’t Loui sauce with ingredients that neither Bryce nor Sean would share with me, or a very simple lemon pepper sauce, manufactured gentle to added-scorching. Clam chowder and jambalaya convey you straight to Cajun place.

Total disclosure: You know me, with my several allergies and vegetarian diet, so I’m not undertaking a whole food items review right here. I was hungry, and I experienced to taste the Cajun fries, which had been added-crispy and tremendous-spicy on the outside the house, creamy on the within. I believe that they are double-fried. 

My trusty photographer and food items taster with a refined palate, Neil Grabowsky, ordered the shrimp basket with lemon pepper fries, which he relished, mentioning that the cocktail sauce, which arrived with it, had clean horseradish, a pleasurable shock.

Bryce and Sean are superior friends, introduced jointly by their wives. Sean came to the U.S. from Korea in 2007. Yet another self-experienced amateur chef, he taught martial arts in N.Y.C. and also life in Palisades Park. 

An additional detail I discovered about Cap’t Loui is that it didn’t scent at all like seafood in there when I took off my mask. Sean claimed, “Fresh fish should not smell much too fishy at all, but just style fresh new.”

Sean introduced Neil and me a crab boil to use for our picture op,  to look at how it’s served. It arrived at our desk in a significant metal bucket, with all cooked components within a plastic bag. The tables are absolutely lined with white paper. 

Select what you want to try to eat soon after pouring it all out in entrance of you, from crab legs to lobster, and crack open the shells with the particular cutlery equipment involved. Oysters on the half-shell are also accessible on the menu, but I’m also squeamish to even believe about consuming them. 

The heads-on crawfish freaked me out a minimal bit till I made the decision to think of them as new Muppets people.

***

No for a longer time crabby, and experience sated? Time for us to get inventive at 1 River Faculty on Seymour Plaza, appropriate across from the Wellmont Theater sign. The latest department and 14th of the chain started in 2012 held its grand opening in Montclair in January 2022.

Throughout a mobile phone job interview with A person River Faculty director Erin Foley, I requested her how it differs from other artwork and electronic lessons made available all over city. The identify of the faculty comes from currently being “one river west” of New York City. 

Erin grew up in Verona and has been an arts educator for much more than 20 yrs, together with working at Montclair Large School. She retains a license to train grades K-12 in New York and New Jersey. 

The pandemic adjusted every thing, and she taught classes by using Zoom instead of in individual.

She reported, “We had to pivot and turn into virtual academics. Dad and mom are attempting for very well-rounded little ones … No matter what age, there is a course for you as you go on your imaginative journey. We are evolving and switching, and hear what the local community needs and wants for artwork enrichment.”

Students as youthful as 3 several years old, up to grown ups of any age, can start off courses at any time, alternatively than wait around for a established session and variety of classes of fascination. You can make your personal one of a kind plan and keep for as very long as you desire, in human being or on the net. One River Faculty operates on a subscription-based mostly design, normally compensated monthly. 

Pre-K small Picassos are fingers-on with products as they check out many techniques to be inventive and have pleasurable at the same time. The K-2 program provides Children Artwork Shuffle in drawing, portray, sculpture, printmaking and blended media. 

As they get more mature, young ones can concentration on cartooning, drawing and electronic art, as they are demonstrated the resources and software to carry inspiration to lifetime. 

It is time to get ready for summer time courses, which can be acquired by the 7 days in various time slots, for a several several hours a day or all day. You can deliver a bag lunch with you to eat in between the morning and afternoon sessions, or get a bite from one of the various foodstuff institutions in the central enterprise district.

Adults might want to acquire courses in style and design basic principles and photoshop, which can be employed for small business and do the job assignments as well. Studio art and painting can assistance you to loosen up and have exciting while understanding.

I questioned Erin about what she does with her absolutely free time even though not instructing or being with her two youthful kids, and she said, “My innovative outlet is in ceramics, which is my forte and region of know-how, along with acrylic painting. I simply cannot hold out to travel once more, hit the artwork scene in man or woman, relax and have enjoyable.”

Feed your human body and your soul. Try to eat and take a look at far more all around town as we emerge from hibernation to socializing and inventive creations.

In this report:

• Cap’t Loui
  10 Park St., 973-337-5227
• One River School
  6 Seymour Plaza
  973-447-1770

Robin Woods is a area lady-about-town, producing about functions, retailers, restaurants and interesting men and women that catch her eye. She’s composed memoirs and individual essays, as perfectly as music and vogue columns for numerous New York Metropolis newspapers. Her crafting awards consist of the Shirley Chisholm Award for Journalism and the Director’s Award of the Essex County Legacies Essay contest.