May 2008 Archives
Of course I had to buy it with a streetcar on the front!
Lafitte's Cafe
6325 Elysian Fields Ave
New Orleans, LA 70122
(504) 284-7878
(Not to be confused with Cafe Lafitte in Exile on Bourbon Street)
The location has some fond memories for me. In the 1970s, the place was Luigi's Pizza Parlor. In the 1990s, it was a Bud's Broiler. The Bud's closed just before the storm, sign on the door said they lost the lease. Lafitte's opened in this location last year.
This was my second visit to Lafitte's. We went for dinner after one of my kid's band concerts about a month ago. I had one of their combo deli sandwiches with ham, pastrami, and roast beef. It was good, but way overkill in terms of mixing the meats. Kept it simple this trip, with the hot sausage po-boy you see above.
If a place uses Patton's hot sausage patties for their po-boys, I'm all over it. There's just nothing better for a hot sausage po-boy. Next trip, though, I'll tell them to leave off the fries. They were good, and I don't need those calories.
Service was excellent. I bought my computer in, so I could do some writing while I ate. The waiter saw my HP tx1419 boot Ubuntu, and we immediately got into a discussion about Gutsy and Hardy. He had some trouble upgrading to HH, and we compared notes. It's the sort of thing one encounters at a restaurant near a college campus.
Lafittes is open early for breakfast, and closes at 10pm nightly. They have an espresso machine, so they're a coffee house as well as a sandwich place. They also do the breakfast menu all day on Saturday and Sunday, for those who want a weekend brunch. Give 'em a try if you're out near UNO.
6325 Elysian Fields Ave
New Orleans, LA 70122
(504) 284-7878
(Not to be confused with Cafe Lafitte in Exile on Bourbon Street)
The location has some fond memories for me. In the 1970s, the place was Luigi's Pizza Parlor. In the 1990s, it was a Bud's Broiler. The Bud's closed just before the storm, sign on the door said they lost the lease. Lafitte's opened in this location last year.
This was my second visit to Lafitte's. We went for dinner after one of my kid's band concerts about a month ago. I had one of their combo deli sandwiches with ham, pastrami, and roast beef. It was good, but way overkill in terms of mixing the meats. Kept it simple this trip, with the hot sausage po-boy you see above.
If a place uses Patton's hot sausage patties for their po-boys, I'm all over it. There's just nothing better for a hot sausage po-boy. Next trip, though, I'll tell them to leave off the fries. They were good, and I don't need those calories.
Service was excellent. I bought my computer in, so I could do some writing while I ate. The waiter saw my HP tx1419 boot Ubuntu, and we immediately got into a discussion about Gutsy and Hardy. He had some trouble upgrading to HH, and we compared notes. It's the sort of thing one encounters at a restaurant near a college campus.
Lafittes is open early for breakfast, and closes at 10pm nightly. They have an espresso machine, so they're a coffee house as well as a sandwich place. They also do the breakfast menu all day on Saturday and Sunday, for those who want a weekend brunch. Give 'em a try if you're out near UNO.
My friends on twitter loved this photo when I made it an avatar, so it's now going to rep this blog. :-)
It's that time of year, when the weather in Southeast Louisiana is nice (when it's not raining, of course), and crawfish are cheap and plentiful. Those are the perfect ingredients in making a crawfish boil.
The Raw Materials
We start with live crawfish. You can buy them by the sack from most seafood stores in New Orleans. Some seafood places "purge" the mudbugs for you, by hosing them down with cold water before they're sold. If yours weren't purged of the mud from which they get their name, then best to soak them in a pot of cold salt water for a while.
One of the weirdest things you'll ever hear a New Orleanian say is "don't eat the dead ones!" What they're admonishing you not to do is eat crawfish that were dead before they hit the boiling water. You can tell the difference because the "dead ones" tails don't curl up in the boiling water.
Next we prepare the water in which the bugs will be dropped. Everyone has their own family or secret recipe for crab/crawfish boiling, but many are based on a prepared seasoning mix.
This is Zatarain's Liquid Crab Boil. It's a highly concentrated seasoning mix that is so strong, it's not a good idea to let it come into contact with your bare skin for an extended period of time. The directions on the label suggest using one tablespoon for 5 gallons of water. The basket in the photo above is for a 40-gallon pot.
Some folks opt for the dry seasoning packages, which you can just drop into the water. Along with crab boil, toss in some ears of yellow corn, cut in half, a few pounds of red creamer potatoes, along with a few onions, some celery, and lots of raw garlic. Fill up the pot with water (careful to factor in the crawfish in their basket), and bring to a boil.
When the water's boiling, lower in the crawfish:
Let them cook for 8-10 minutes, then turn off the flame to the pot.
Allow them to soak for another 10-20 minutes, then raised the basket to drain:
The easiest way to serve crawfish is to cover a table with newspaper, dump them out, and let everyone have at it!
We're not done with spices, however, because you need some cocktail sauce to dip your berled bugs in:
Combine Ketchup, Worcestershire Sauce, Horseradish, and Hot Sauce:
And now you're ready to dip your crawfish as you peel them. Enjoy the corn, potatoes, and garlic as well.
Such is spring in New Orleans, and yet another reason why we get a bit upset with people from less-civilized parts of the world when they wonder why this city must be saved.
