Nora Lee’s

Ok so I had been telling my husband for 2 years how much I wanted to visit because I love New Orleans cuisine… and Ummmmmm yeah… I wish I was still waiting to visit…
The décor is fun but the table set up doesn’t allow for a lot of room. But I was ok with that
We ordered the blackened scallops to start… The scallops were cooked well but lacked proper seasoning.
My husband ordered Seafood Jambalaya and I ordered the Shrimp Fra Diablo
First… The Shrimp Fra Diablo… So spicy it was inedible. My husband who loves spicy food said he would trade meals with me and after one bite he found it inedible. After bringing this up to the waitress she said she would take it back and then she laughed and told us a story about how a previous customer ate the same meal and called the next day because he was on the toilet all night due to the heavy spice (isn’t this something you should share BEFORE I order).
Well, I proceed to eat the Jambalaya and immediately I’m disgusted at the cheapness of the flavors and sloppiness of the presentation. This did NOT reflect the authentic flavors of New Orleans. In front of me was NOT a bowl of Jambalaya, but instead some tomatoe sauce with onions and peppers with some seafood thrown in mixed up with rice. It lacked the flavor, finesse and character of New Orleans. My husband looked at me and said «your home made Jambalaya is better than this»…
I guess If I want the real thing… I gotta go home or go to New Orleans… Nora Lee’s ain’t it!!!

I loved it here! I was on a random road trip and stopped in New Castle. I’m so glad I came in here. Awesome atmosphere, nice menu and beer selection. I got the crawfish jambalaya and it was really good! The staff was friendly and attentive

Wow! I’ll be back again. Everything was fantastic! The service was a bit slow, but well worth the wait.

TGFG– thank god for groupon. If i had to pay $ 67 of my own money for this cuisine, I would’ve had to speak to a manager and explain my issues.
The décor/​theme is awesome. Very nice, clean.
The food/​execution was very very poor. Jarred salsa on the nachos ($ 10) ?? Very obvious. We saw other tables eating bread? We weren’t given any.
Chicken jambalaya– $ 16.99-tasted like chicken cattiatore over rice. It was spiced marinara with chicken and peppers poured over rice. We actually overheard other tables complaining with the same issues.
The icing on the cake was when the waitress cleared our table and didn’t ask why we barely ate our food and refused togo boxes. Made us feel like she was used to negative comments.
Its a shame theres only a couple places to eat around here, you’d hope the ones that are fortunate to be allowed to serve would take it seriously.
Get it together or move out, let someone who takes food seriously come in.

I heard about this place before and found them on Groupon too so I decided to try them out. My husband and parents decided to visit here (my parents had already been and really like it).
The crawfish bisque was really good, that’s probably the only thing I would come back for. I ordered the shrimp and seafood jambalaya. First let me say I love spice and flavor, I even want to plan a foodie trip to New Orleans just to get some authentic Cajun food. I thought this place would be a temporary substitute… it wasn’t! My jambalaya had a strong tomato paste base to it. It reminded me of Campbell’s tomato soup mixed with rice and seafood. The scallops had no taste but a watery ocean water flavor. yuck…I picked them out, and the shrimp were overdone and had no flavor either. I really was not impressed at all… the Cheesecake Factory has a similar chicken and shrimp gumbo that is way better! For dessert I hoped to see the one thing that New Orleans is popular for… beignets! They did not have this on their menu at all for a place that is supposed to serve this type of cuisine. We got dessert anyway. .it was ok… not anything special.

I gave it four stars because our waitress was amazing. Very nice and tentative. The food was just meh… the coconut shrimp were amazing but the crawfish app was a little odd and chewy drowning in sauce. The walnut crusted crabcake was ginormous and full of filler… Ill try it again and order something else… also went at 450 and had to wait ten mintutes to order from the dinner menu which was a little odd.

I should have read the reviews more carefully, but this was a convenient location to meet a friend and Cajun/​Creole is always enticing. I figured: how bad can it be?
Disappointing.
The menu situation was a bad sign: an oversized laminated menu had lunch and dinner printed front and back. An extensive (and significantly more expensive) printed list of appetizer and entrée specials was presented in a classic restaurant menu sleeve – it looked like a complete menu for a small BYOB. There was a beer list. A separate wine list. And upon request a cocktail list. I’d been hoping for something like a Sazerac or an Absinthe, but with the exception of a Hurricane the cocktail list reminded me of a fraternity happy hour. I needed a drink to deal with the menu overload.
As to the food: Other than the crawfish bisque (which was good, but slung diner-​style onto the table and sloshed all over the wide rims of the shallow bowls), everything we had was over-​seasoned and/​or overly sweet.
Maybe the entrees were better; we shared a bunch of appetizers.
The crawfish and jalapeño appetizer was a generous pile of deep fry (couldn’t identify the crawfish) with what I swear was off-​the-​shelf Chinese sweet-​and sour sauce. And nearly inedibly hot. But I’m a chili head – I enjoyed it, red faced and sweating. The heat overwhelmed the sweet sauce.
The bourbon crawfish appetizer was an sticky sweet mass of what I guess were crawfish tails – maybe chopped up, because they weren’t recognizable by shape – and onions, over rice.
Alligator sausage over rice featured an innocuous sausage (tastes like chicken!) over overcooked rice. In yet another sticky sweet spicy sauce. Again with lots of onion.
The two kids both ordered the bisque and pierogies. They forgot the pierogies. 20 minutes later they delivered one order of pierogies. Which was just fine because they were covered is so much Cajun (or Creole) seasoning the kids had to scrape it off with a spoon. And again, a pile of cooked onion.
My friend ordered a Caesar salad with the dressing on the side. It arrived: a couple handfuls of bagged romaine with a few boxed croutons and tiny dices of nearly white tomato. With a side of commercial Caesar dressing. She politely said that it wasn’t what she’d expected for the price and asked to send it back. The waitress was apologetic and took it back to the kitchen – but then returned it to the table with the message that the manager said «that’s the way we make it». Wow.
The atmosphere was nice and the live band was great – but if you’re looking for good Cajun/​Creole food… make the drive down to the St George’s Country store for the real thing.

This was the worst dining experience we have ever had! The waitress was rude and not at all attentive. She never brought bread to our table at the outset. Even though we asked about an entrée before we ordered it (if the fish was separate or mixed with the food) it arrived exactly opposite of what we were told. The waitress did not care and just said «well it’s on the menu». She had the nerve to tack on a 20% gratuity stating that it was their policy for a party of four. I complained to management and found out that she lied. Don’t eat there!

I had to try this place after reading some of the mediocre reviews. I’m glad I did! I have been to happy twice in a 5 day span! The happy hour menu is is small, but the items are great! The chicken nachos are a step above, and the wings have a sauce that is thick like molasses! You can not leave without having dessert; the banana’s foster bread pudding is incredible! The serving of the actual pudding is very small; like two small letter blocks!
The one waitress that’s a school teacher is very attentive; the other ones have not mastered the art of multitasking. But, they’re all pleasant.

Food excellent… Customer service is the worst I’ve ever experienced! What a shame. Rude servers rude hostess…
No real reason to return.

Oh the irony. All these places in Delaware claiming to have the best burger, when THE BEST burger in De is served at this Cajun place and is understated on the menu. Seriously. Fresh ground meat, perfectly made medium rare how I like it. Tastiest in the area. The food is good and the ambiance is wonderful. The service is friendly. I wouldn’t go here every day, the menu is pretty static, and would get tiresome but if you live or work in the area this place should be in your rotation for sure.

I saw a lot of bad reviews about the service, so I was hesitant to try this place. We had been outside for the better part of the day, a hot hot summer day. So I was too tired and hungry to put much effort into finding a restaurant. Although it was 5 PM on a Saturday, the restaurant was eerily vacant. Service was extremely efficient. The waitress took all the orders… appetizers and entrees, for 5 people, without having to write it down. I was impressed. She didn’t seem happy to see us, though. I don’t recall any of the staff smiling.
So how was the food? As far as taste, I really don’t know. The cajun seasoning was overpowering. For an appetizer, I had the pierogies. They were about 80% dough and 20% filling, very flat, almost nothing to them. The onions, like everything else, were blackened. So all you could taste were burnt onions and the spice.
My entrée was the blackened scallops. Again, there was just a hint of scallop taste here, unless you scraped off the crust of seasoning (yes, it was actually a crust). But they were cooked perfectly. I didn’t care much for the accompanying mashed potatoes, there was something in them (not the garlic) that my taste buds did not favor.
One of us had ordered an appetizer of nachos. If you are going to do this, you may as well forget dinner for everybody. The plate was HUGE, and i mean, *HUGE*. It could have satisfied the hunger of 4 adults.
There is a basket of bread that is served, that is incredibly delicious. And the accompanying butter is seasoned with something as well. It’s not cajun, thankfully, but kinda sweet, like a honey butter. Upon asking for another basket, we were informed that only the first basket is complimentary, additional basket is 1.50 each. Ummmmm… what? We didn’t hesitate to agree to that, since it was so good and we were hungry, waiting for our entrees. But c’mon, you’re not a 4 star restaurant, dinner and gratuity was 190 bucks (no drinks, btw… that’s just food and standard beverages), and you charge us for another basket of bread? This is a first for me, too. I’ve never been charged for bread before. Maybe that’s what they don in New Orleans? I dunno.
Décor is funky and interesting. At 5 PM on Saturday, it was very quiet. Sitting in the back room in summer wasn’t a great idea. The AC wasn’t quite pumping all the way back there, so it was a bit stuffy.
Overall: I probably wouldn’t go back. Prices were on the high end of moderate, and I shouldn’t have to pay for bread. I just think that for what we spent, we should have had better.

The crab cake is horrible! When asked for something else, both the waitress and owner refused. I have never been to an establishment that didn’t want to satisfy the customer. Worse experience of going here, the red hair waitress literally told my friend to shut the F up when he was asking for a different dish and no one working there cared that she did that and didn’t try to assist. I will never go back and will continue to tell others not to go!

Arrived at 7:10pm on a Sunday.
Ordered drinks and appetizers at the bar. When the waitress’s went to ring them in, the owner yelled we did last call at 7:15 we are not taking orders for anything, not even a drink. When we reference free 7:10 time on her clock and 7:11 times on our iPhones, she got frustrated and returned to the kitchen. Felt so sorry for the poor server as she took up the bat napkins she had minutes earlier set down for us. Far too many restaurants in Delaware for me to subject myself to poor service and horrible customer service skills.

Great food very nice décor reminds me of New Orleans. Very nice staff. The last time I went the scallops didn’t seem all the way done. But overall everything was good. Oh yeah I love the bread they bread out with then Cajun butter!!!

I didn’t care for my dish. I dared to question it and the owner says, «This isn’t a taste test!» She starts yelling obnoxiously and storms to the back. I paid the bill in full and left. You could pay me to dine there and I still would refuse. The owner is a bully that obviously runs her business by intimidation, instead of hospitality.

Just okay, the chicken nachos tasted like the alligator appetizer (which is gator sausage) not tail meat, that tasted like the chicken jambalaya which tasted like the seafood feast, which had rubbery scallops, shrimp, and mushy tilapia all way to heavily spiced. The rice in the jambalaya was mushy and over cooked.
First time there tonight 1−3−15, sat at the bar because the table they wanted to seat us at was jammed between two established tables. It would have been way to cramped. Our two bartenders were very polite and attentive.
Good beer selection both in bottles and draft and yes they have hurricanes and other NOLA represented cocktails.
Heard good things about the place so we tried, won’t be back, if I get an itch for Cajun food I’ll just drink from a hot sauce bottle and chase it with a spoon of Black Magic Cajun spice… Sorry to say that but that’s all I tasted when dining there. Better luck to others.

Just a update. The food continues to shine. I mix it up and try different things every time and have not really been disappointed yet. The blackened dishes are all very good, and try the specialty salads. They are huge and will def fill you up.
They have a decent beer selection, good cocktail menu and delish desserts as well.
If you’re looking for Cajun, you really can’t go wrong.
Oh, and they have really good Happy Hour food deals in the bar area. I think the happy hour runs between 4−6pm TUE to FRI.

For once in a Unilocal review, I have nothing negative to say. This place is great.
We initially came here, like many reviewers, to use a Groupon. And I confess the prices shocked us that first visit. We’ve returned at least a dozen times, though, and we gladly pay for their consistently delicious food.
As others have explained, this restaurant is in an old house in historic downtown New Castle. It’s a beautiful, calm, scenic neighborhood. The place is decorated with a fun NOLA slant, but it’s never loud or obnoxious. Bathrooms (always worth reviewing) are spacious and clean. The bar is cozy yet well stocked and doesn’t interfere with the regular dining area, which has enough room despite what other reviewers claim. We feel confident bringing friends and older relatives alike here without worrying if anyone will feel out of place or crowded.
We aren’t big drinkers, so I can’t review the mixed drinks; but the beer selection is healthy. As for appetizers, I can’t comment on most of them because we almost always get the crawfish nachos – a huge oval platter overflowing with spicy, chunky deliciousness (although we did try the hot crab and artichoke dip this afternoon, which was okay but nothing special). Even if dinners weren’t great I’d still want to come here for those nachos.
But the dinners ARE great. Every time. No matter what we get, we love it. All the different jambalayas, the chicken jimbo, the shrimp bourbon, the Cajun pasta… all excellent every time. Make sure to look at their specials for the evening – most of them won’t be on the regular menu and change nightly. Last week I had a cashew chicken jumbo that was even better leftover the next day. Portions are ample enough – not outrageous but not skimpy, either. Dinnertime orders come with warm, fresh bread and an outstanding Cajun butter. We tend to end up ordering extras because everyone gobbles that up quickly.
Reviews on the staff seem varied, but we’ve never had any issues. We prefer wait staff to stay unobtrusive and this group fits the bill. Our glasses never go empty, our orders come out in a timely fashion, and empty plates get cleared quickly. We never get shallow chit-​chat from them, and though others may see that as disinterest, I appreciate it. Let us eat in peace until we need you. :)
Nora Lee’s is a couple blocks away from the Delaware River’s shore at Battery Park. It’s a nice pre– or post-​dinner area to walk and take in the scenery.
Just remember two things: if you go on a weekend night, make reservations. The place fills up quickly with regulars who already called ahead. And note that every Saturday night they have live music in the back of the dining area. If you are into that, great; but if you are wanting to have a conversation during dinner, come another time or request to sit way up front near the doors.

Really great service. Great food. Not cheap but reasonable Considering the taste and freshness of the food.
Love the bread and Cajun butter. Fried oysters were mediocre. Fried captain crunch chicken was very tasty and fried well. The dipping sauce was too sweet for me though.
Love their lobster ravioli with scallops and shrimp. The scallops were one of the best i have ever had. Their crab cake was good but full of fillers. Their pistachio crusted tilapia was perfect with their mashed potatoes, but I could have done without their corn that reminded me too much of beans.
Skipped dessert because was too full but will Definitely try next visit.