So many thanks to the dozen or so of you who sent email recommendations of restaurants in the Lafayette, Louisiana area. I’m headed home tomorrow. But here’s a quick rundown of the places I managed to visit:

The Blue Dog Cafe

Disappointing. The George Rodrigue gallery is fun. And the history is interesting. But the place is touristy, and the food tastes like it. Cuisine is clearly the second priority, here. I had the Sherwood Forest Brie Bisque and the Chicken Bayou Teche. Both looked great on the menu, but were pretty mediocre.

Prejean’s

This place, on the other hand, was wonderful. Still a little touristy, but in an authentic way. The place feels like a big banquet hall, with long tables topped with red-checkered tablecloths, stuffed alligators on the walls, and a zydeco band. It was a bit pricey, so I ordered three appetizers instead of an entree: a creamy crab-corn bisque, crawfish enchiladas, and something called “shrimp sassafras,” which was shrimp stuffed with crab, cheese, and tasso, wrapped in bacon, fried, then put on a bed of crawfish cream and rice. Good, good eats. If you want to splurge in Cajun country, go here.

Mulate’s

Another disappointment, here. This place is really known more for its music and dancing than its food. Which is probably good, because it’s food was pretty bad. After a so-so main course and some terrible stuffed mushroom appetizers, I ordered a desert called “Praline Supreme.” Strangely, I’m not all that fond of plain pecans, but I love pralines. In any case, this desert was a scoop of store-bought vanilla ice cream in a Styrofoam bowl, some canned whipped cream sprayed around the edges, and a few plain pecans sprinkled over the top. Shenanigans!

Olde Tyme Grocery

Lots of people said this was the place to get an authentic Po’ Boy. They were right. I’m a huge fan of “do one thing and do it right” places. Get the half-and-half so you can get your oyster and your shrimp on. Perfectly breaded. Excellent bread-to-fillin’s ratio. Delicious.

Don’s Country Meats

This, actually, is the place where one of the sources for my story works. It’s also where I first sampled the regional staple known as boudin (pronounced “boo-dan,” or if you think you can pull off the accent, “boo-deh”). For the uninitiated, boudin is a mix of sausage, rice, pork liver, spices, and sometimes finely diced vegetables stuffed into natural casings and cooked. Some people cut the stuff up and eat it. Others hold it in one hand and gnaw it off bite by bite. Still others squeeze the filling out of the casings like a toothpaste tube. I was a little weirded out by the casings, so I went with the third option. The filling was delicious. The casings? Um, still a little off-putting. Looked a little like a used condom by the time I was done with it.

I also had some deep fried alligator. It was pretty good, though not terribly memorable. Tasted like chicken. Which is how many things seem to taste after a good breading and frying.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 11:17 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.