So many choices...GW Fins (808 Bienville, New Orleans, LA) is the sort of place where every dish described on the menu makes my mouth water.

From wood grilled shrimp, skate wing, scallops, swordfish, butterfish, lionfish, oysters, crab dumplings, tuna, and pompano to Scottish salmon and fried lobster tail,  the only hard part of a GW Fins meal is choosing what to order.  It’s a menu to make a seafood-lover’s heart sing (not just the first verse, either:  all three plus the chorus!)

Each and every dish (with two exceptions of grilled chicken and steak) places seafood front and center, often in multiple components of the dish.

On my last visit, I mananged, only after lengthy consideration, to choose the wood-grilled shrimp, followed by parmesan-crusted flounder topped with crabmeat and fried capers, served over asparagus.

(Oh, fried caper, you are my latest favorite.)

Another GW Fins bonus:  for curmudgeons like me, who generally avoid the French Quarter, the restaurant offers validated parking in a nearby garage.

So brave the olfactory assault of the French Quarter in August and give Fins a whirl; it’s worth wading through blocks of the drunken, clueless, and badly dressed to arrive at an oasis of everything edible from the sea.