The days of explaining exotic species of Hawaiian finfish to puzzled locals have passed at Grand Isle restaurant. After struggling through months when the oyster bar would sit idle for weeks on end, supplies from Terrebonne Parish and Galveston Bay are now readily available. Grouper may still be more difficult to come by than usual, but at least it's not Chilean.
Still, David Pearson, a partner in Grand Isle, a Warehouse District seafood restaurant, is not resting easy. Not yet.
"We haven't exhaled at all," he said. "This is going to go on for another year."
Future historians may well describe the state of the New Orleans restaurant business at the close of 2010 as the post-traumatic stress stage following the oily summer of discontent.
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