The Cajun Foodie

We went to the first ever Louisiana Roadfood Festival in New Orleans and had a good time meeting people, talking about all the great food at the festival and throughout Louisiana, and tasting everything we could get our hands on.

The Quarter was buzzing with foodies from all over the United States, hungry locals, and even the occasional (okay, more than occasional due to a convention being in town) pirate and his wench.

We asked people what their favorite dish in Louisiana was (a tough question indeed) and received a wide ranging variety of answers. Oysters as whole garnered the most votes, with the charbroiled version leading the charge, followed by fried oyster po boys and then raw.

Other dishes receiving several votes were gumbo, etouffee, and softshell crabs, while dishes ranging from jambalaya, and red beans to grits and grillades were offered up as selections.

We also asked people what their favorite restaurant was in Louisiana. G.W. Fins was the (somewhat) surprising winner of the poll, with Mulate’s, D&D (Larose), Drago’s, Smitty’s (Kenner), Cannon’s, Acme Oyster, Irene’s, Brigtsen’s Keith Young Steakhouse, K-Paul’s, Tony Moran’s, Restaurant August and Gautrieu’s rounding out the votes.

The festival kicked off when the Oyster Jubilee Festival built the World’s Longest poboy. Unfortunately, me missed grabbing a shot of the construction of the beast, but we caught the aftermath. The first shot is approximately 3 minutes after the organizers unleashed the crowd on the po boy.  The second is 3 seconds later…

By that time, we’d built up  a serious hunger and were ready to try some food.  We were lucky enough to have been sent a sampling of items from Mossy Bayou, including their Swamp Scum hot sauce, cajun chow chow and Cajun fried pecans.

We cracked everything open and gave it all a taste, then passed them out to any of the festival attendees wanting to give them a try.   Everyone really enjoyed all the items, with my favorite being the hot sauce, a smoky dark green sauce that was very flavorful.

It was time for some “entrees” after these snacks, and our first stop was to pick up a cochon de lait po boy and some fresh cut fries from the Que Crawl truck.

The po boy was very tasty, splashed with bit of hot sauce and a little of the vinegar BBQ sauce they provided.  The fries however might have out shown the po boy.  Freshly cut and fried to order, they were outstanding.  It is rare you come across a place doing freshly cut fries, but even more rare for them to do thin cut.

The guys next to us from Nicholas Catering were cooking up a whole lot of turkey legs and their smoker kept wafting clouds of delicious aromas over our tent. We finally broke down and ordered ourselves one of these beauties, a massive hunk of dark meat poultry that brought out the Flintstone in all of us.

Vaucresson was on the other side with their delicious sausage po boys, and it was not long before we headed over there as well, ordering one of their regular links, a spicy little pork sausage on crusty french bread. Good stuff!

Lasyone’s from Natchitoches was at the festival and had the fryers going full blast. I was really excited about them being there; Natchitoches is center of the universe when it comes to meat pies and Lasyone’s is the (hotly disputed) king. These meat pies looked like humongous fried cheese wontons, with curled up edges and distinctive markings bearing the evidence of being homemade. The fillings were equally impressive, with both the crawfish and ground meat versions being some of the best meat pies I’ve ever had.

Chad’s Bistro was serving Alligator etouffee over grits, an interesting use of alligator but not one that really exemplified the deliciousness of the meat. However, the fried artichoke hearts were delicious and people were raving about their shrimp balls.

Lastly we did a “people’s choice” poll for food at the festival. The results were:
1. Duck gumbo (Deli at the Cellars)
2 (tie). Seafood gumbo (Dave’s Cajun Kitchen)
2 (tie). Fried green tomato and shrimp remoulade po boy (Saltwater Grill)
3. Crawfish pie- Lasyone’s

All in all, we had a great time at the festival. Unfortunately, we could not make it both days as previously planned, but we’re hoping they come back next year and make this an annual event.  Looking forward to round 2!