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/