A celebrity came into downtown Baton Rouge at the newly build Town Square the other day. It was Andrew Zimmern, you may know him from the show on the Travel Channel "Bizarre Foods," but he was in Baton Rouge for another purpose. He was filming a webisode for his show called Appetite For Life Southern Hospitality that challenged two former jambalaya world champions to compete against each other to see who made it better. United Way were selling tickets for you to try some and all proceeds went to help their relief program.
I got there straight from work and I was hungrier than ever. Before the jambalaya was ready, a Food Truck Wround Up took place. It's where all the local Baton Rouge food trucks gather around and a slew of people come. I went ahead and took a spot in the shortest line at the Fresh truck. They sell salads and wraps.
I looked at their menu and decided to go with the Brickhouse wrap with chicken. It came with Romaine, mixed greens, grilled asparagus, edamame, red bell peppers, carrot sticks, grape tomatoes, parmesan and their Brickhouse dressing. I started munching down on it like a man possessed. At first I thought to myself, "Hey, not bad." but then when I began to pay attention to details, there were a few things I didn't like. The chicken had an OK flavor but was really dry. The grilled asparagus came in really small pieces so you couldn't really taste it, I guess I just assume asparagus comes in large spears. I love tomatoes, so I couldn't complain about the girl adding a couple slices of Roma tomato in there. But, the main thing that got to me was the abundance of Parmesan cheese. Parmesan is pretty strong in flavor and smell, so it masked virtually everything but the chicken and tomato. Overall I guess it suited my need for food, but for $8.75 ... not so much. I wouldn't dog the thing completely because it was only ONE girl was running the truck, so she was rushing her tail off. Poor thing, had to knock out a line of about twenty people as fast as possible.
Now the jambalaya. There were two guys competing, both from Gonzales, LA. The one I tried was from the reigning Jambalaya World Champion, Tee Wayne Abshire. It was absolutely delicious. I could go ahead and say it was the best jambalaya I have ever had. And I've had a ton in my lifetime. It was packed with flavor. What I picked up the most was peppers, and the spice was really good as well. Not too spicy so you could eat a ton at a time. The rice was also cooked perfectly. In a jambalaya, the rice has to be prepared very well or it will throw everything off from the texture. It can't be too dry or you're close to munching on granola, and it's a pain in the ass to eat because no grains adhere to anything. It can't be too wet either because it'll turn to mush when you mix it and you'll have a big jambalaya mashed potato bowl. What I think you should aim for is a little drier than sushi rice so that it bonds together but you have no trouble in breaking it apart.
The spice and rice were excellent, but the best parts had to be the meats that were in it. He paired andouille sausage and chunks of pork shoulder. The meat in there were so good that I would've been satisfied eating them by themselves. The pieces of pork were so tender that I could break it apart with a plastic spoon. It was THAT good.
From what I could tell, Andrew Zimmern is a very nice guy. He was actually taller than what I expected and way funnier. When he ventured off into the crowd to speak to people at the food trucks, he was cracking jokes non stop. He also loves the people of Louisiana because we're friendly and we can all cook (generally). Super cool, I hope more things like this happens in Baton Rouge in the near future.Andrew Zimmern - http://appetiteforlife.msn.com/videos
Fresh Salads + Wraps - 501 Main Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (inside the Main Street Market)
freshjunkie.com
2011 World Champion Jambalaya Cook - http://teewaynescajuncooking.com/
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