Saturday, March 24, 2012

New Orleans Roadfood Festival



New Orleans
After going to the Oak Street Po Boy Festival last November in New Orleans, I made a personal goal for myself. And, that was to go to as many food festivals as I can. The first came today and it was the New Orleans Roadfood Festival.

Exactly what is Roadfood? Roadfood means great regional meals along highways, in small towns and in city neighborhoods. It's non-franchised food made by cooks who are America's culinary folk artists and almost always informal and inexpensive. So, basically think of the hot spots that the locals always love.


I came prepared this time, more money and more friends for the journey. After making our way down Frenchman Street, we finally get to the French Market. Ironically, the first tent we ran into just happened to be the one thing I was anticipating to eat ever since I heard of this event. Johnson's Boucaniere's (Lafayette, LA) Grilled Cheese Sandwich stuffed with a Fried Boudin Ball.


In all honesty I was pretty disappointed at the first sight... I mean look at it! Wouldn't anyone?! It looked about a hop, skip, and a jump away from a McDonald's cheeseburger. I couldn't get my hopes up on it too quickly though, so I cut the thing down the middle... and confetti fell from the heavens. You really can't go wrong with boudin on anything. The taste was exactly what I had expected... which was exactly the sandwich was called. It was still delicious on all counts, I would've been happier had the cheese been more melted but I'm pretty sure the guys were making these sandwiches by the masses for the crowd.



On to the next one. What I love more than anything is a little innovation with cooking. So we move next door to the Hot Tamale Mama...and More tent. They were serving a Beef Tamale with a side of Cheese Grits. Mexican mixed with Southern cuisine? This I had to taste/see. My friend and I unwrap the corn husk and find this tamale lathered with all kinds of spiced chili sauce, over some fluffy cheesy grits. This tamale actually tasted a whole lot like a beef chili one's dad would make, very comforting. And the grits were also delicious. Definitely worth way more than the three bucks they charged.


Lasyone's Meat Pie Restaurant (Nachitoches, LA) was also in working in full effect, pumping out Meat and Crawfish Pies like crazy. We wanted to try both, and that's exactly what we did. They basically looked like gigantic empanadas instead of the actual pie shape form that I'm used to seeing. Both were pretty good, but I'd have to say the crawfish pie took the cake on this one. The only thing I was slightly peeved on was the lack of filling in the crawfish pie, there was far more fried dough than anything else.


The next stop was my favorite of the festival. Chad's Bistro (Metarie, LA). They offered a few things but it's never good to put all your eggs into one basket. So we went for two things, the Shrimp Balls and the Alligator Etouffee over Grits.

The name Shrimp Balls, didn't really give you much information as to what was in them (except for shrimp of course). Just from looking at them, I thought, "Well, it looks like a boudin ball, smells like a boudin ball... so it must be a boudin ball." I tried my first one without the remoulade sauce, and was pleasantly surprised. This was no boudin ball, or anything like it. This was a play on shrimp and grits, absolutely genius. They balled the shrimp and grits together, tossed it in seasoned breading and deep fried it. And, who doesn't like remoulade sauce? The sauce was a good wing man.

The Alligator Etouffee was the first I've ever had. Just judging by it's color I knew it was going to be pretty good. If you've ever had alligator blackened or fried to where you can actually taste it, you get a mix of chicken and fish in one. Surprisingly, it wasn't very spicy so we added some Crystal hot sauce in it, that made for a quick fix. They also gave you a ton of gator in the serving so that made us very happy. Couldn't complain at all with the grits either. Soft and creamy as it should be.

Eating all of this food in the blazing sun takes a bit of a toll on your body, so what's a better way to cool off than to sip on one of The Tennessee Williams Festival's (New Orleans, LA) Mint Juleps? This thing did have a bit of a kick to it too... check out the tolling effects!
Bourbon, mint leaves, and granulated sugar can do this I suppose.


Well, what goes up, must come down. This is exactly how my feelings went when I strolled up to my next stop. Vaucresson Sausage (New Orleans, LA) was offering a Creole hot sausage po boy and a Crawfish Sausage Po Boy. It's crawfish season, so my choice was pretty obvious. I get my Crawfish Sausage Po Poy and grab it with both hands. And, in that single instant, it nearly killed my experience. The crust of the bread nearly disintegrated in between my fingers while handling it. *Sigh* You can't win them all. On a bright note, the sausage was incredible, bits of crawfish with the taste of the spicy boil explode in your mouth with every bite. Maybe I should have just opted for the sausage on a stick.


Even though I was disappointed with the po boy, I wasn't going to let that keep me down. So I searched for the most appetizing thing that I haven't tried yet. Then I stumbled upon Royal House (New Orleans, LA) and ordered up their Crawfish Cakes with Crawfish Cream Sauce. Why this came with a side of rice, I don't really know. But, the cakes were unbelievable. It was full with crawfish flavor. If you could imagine a crawfish etouffee in a fritter/cake form then this would be it. The cream sauce accentuated the cake very well. The creaminess from the sauce helped bind it all together when the cake broke apart and soothed the palate from the initial punch from the spice. It was very delicious but also very heavy and rich. My stomach definitely felt like a ton of lead after this for sure.





When I thought I couldn't take anymore, this little beauty showed up. Cafe Reconcile (New Orleans, LA) constructed an awesome Bananas Foster Bread Pudding. Not overly sweet and would drive any banana lover, crazy. This was certainly a great ending to a fun festival. Next festival on my list is the French Quarter Festival on April 14th. See all of you there!



New Orleans Roadfood Festival 
http://www.neworleansroadfoodfestival.com/

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Parrain's



Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Breaking someone into eating oysters can be one of the hardest things to do. The exterior is far less attractive from a clam or mussel, and the interior can be described something as bad as looking at snot or some kind of alien extremity. Fortunately, my friends and I have been broken into them at a young age, so either slurping them or topping them on top of a cracker with your own cocktail sauce gives us no trouble at all.

At Parrain's, they have a glorious special on Tuesdays where raw oysters are half off their menu price. It brings them to be about roughly 37 cents a piece. It used to be cheaper, but thanks to the oil spill in 2010, the price of seafood from our Gulf has increased.

Tonight, I decided to tackle Parrain's oysters from all angles. I ordered half a dozen raw, half a dozen chargrilled, and an oyster po-boy. My waiter found it to be pretty amusing too and said he's never had anyone order all of that before. Later on he labeled me as the oyster king.

I cleared my raw half dozen first. When I eat oysters at a restaurant, as opposed to shucking them myself, I taste one on its own to see if they're any good. I do this because your oyster's flavor generally gets masked by the cocktail sauce you make. Everyone does theirs differently, and mine usually packs enough punch from horseradish that it burns your nose a little.


Cocktail sauce is basically a condiment when eating some sort of seafood. The standard ingredients are ketchup, prepared horseradish, lemon juice, hot sauce (I only use Tabasco) and worcestershire sauce.

I've been eating these things since I was about 10 years old and I've had my fair share for really bad ones and really good ones. What you're generally trying to find in taste is, the taste of where it came from. So, in this case you're basically trying to find the taste of Gulf of Mexico sea water. As unappetizing as it sounds, they were actually pretty good. I tend to think that shucking iced down oysters on your own taste the best, but you can't really complain with decent flavored ones with no grit on them. Shucking oysters for a crowd is
                                                                                        never fun.

My favorite part of my meal is next. Their chargrilled oysters are the best I've ever eaten. They're so good that I literally don't get them from anywhere else. They're doused with some sort of buttery garlic and parsely mixture then slapped with some parmesan cheese on the grill. It also comes with grilled buttered bread for you to sop up the rest of the left-over juice that remains in the half shell. I would've definitely ordered another six of these bad boys had I not had a po-boy coming on the way. These things are unbelievable.







Well, here is my oyster po-boy with fries, and the one decently lit picture. It came dressed with lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayo on the top piece of bread and ketchup on the lower. Ketchup usually doesn't come on po-boys to my knowledge. According to Anthony Bourdain I think ketchup put on anything aside from fries is a no-no. But, I love ketchup so I didn't mind it at all. The bread was really big, and soft as well. I think it took up a lot of room in my stomach which was why I wasn't able to eat it all. The fried oysters were about average. Decent in size for sure, but I think they could have been fried a little longer or battered more. They were a little bit on the softer side, as opposed to the crispiness I like to go for in fried seafood. Other than that the flavor was great. Each half had about half a dozen oysters on it so I tackled two dozen on the night.

Success!

If you're ever in the mood for oysters at a decent price, hit up either Parrain's or The Chimes on a Tuesday night. (same owners) My overall total was 22.51 without gratuity.

Parrain's Seafood Restaurant - 3225 Perkins Road, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
http://www.parrains.com/
Parrain's Seafood on Urbanspoon