Restaurant Review                                Published on 10/22/99 
 
Old-fashioned pizza is served with a smile at Fleur de Lis

By CHERE COEN
Restaurant reviewer 

It's been a long time since I set foot into Fleur de Lis for pizza. It was a hot spot during my LSU days after taking in a movie at the Cortana Mall theaters, if that gives you a clue.

So it was refreshing to find that nothing much has changed since those days. The jukebox still sits by the door offering a variety of tunes from rock to country, the bar remains with its colorful, eclectic decor and the homemade pizza still arrives piping hot and served with a smile.

Old-fashioned pizza is the name of the game here. No goat cheese. No sun-dried tomatoes. There are pickled eggs on the menu, but we didn't go there.

You can choose a combination, a single ingredient pizza or your own creation. We did a little of all three.

The Round the World pizza ($6.95 small, $9.95 large) hails to the meatlovers of the world. Anchovies, Italian sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, salami and onions top this tasteful smorgasbord. It's choked full of fresh meats, hot and juicy the way meat pizzas should be.

On the other side of the world is the vegetarian pizza ($6.95 small, $9.95 large), a combination of bell peppers, black olives, mushrooms, onions and hot peppers. The vegetables arrive fresh and blended well with the melted cheeses. The peppers were a tad on the sweet side, which jolted the senses a bit, but overall the pizza was a winner.

We had to try the shrimp pizza ($6.95 small, $8.95 large), if for nothing else than to satisfy our curiosity. The pizza could have been a cheese pizza, for the shrimp were tiny and hardly noticeable. But that could be a good thing. For a cheese pizza, it was excellent.

For our own creation, we picked Canadian bacon, black olives and onions ($4.95 small plus 50 cents per ingredient or $7.95 large plus 75 cents per ingredient). The Canadian bacon was superb, the finest ingredient we sampled. The black olives and onions were fresh and were neither heavy nor non-existent, making the pizza a nice blend.

All of Fleur de Lis's pizzas offer a homemade, chewy crust in a 9-inch-round pie shape as small or an 8-inch by 12-inch rectangle shape as large. Prices are very reasonable, but larges can leave two hungry adults wanting more. Slices are small so even children can gobble up these pizzas quickly. Better to order a lot and be on the safe side.

Children are welcome at Fleur de Lis, even though part of the restaurant is a bar and the dark atmosphere lends itself to a lounge-like establishment. Equally good as eating in is taking out.

Fleur de Lis does not accept credit cards, out-of-town checks and separate checks, other important things to note. But you can order ahead by calling 924-2904.

Our service on the night we visited (with several noisy children) was excellent. We couldn't have asked for a better waitress, a woman who arrived at our table regularly with drink refills and a smile.

Fleur de Lis is not a place where the pizza is delivered within five minutes, so expect a wait. Because we had to wait with several impatient children, we appreciated the wonderful service that much more.