One of the best things about living in the south is the food. Oh how I love southern food. Where else would macaroni and cheese be considered a vegetable? When Ben and I first got down here it was late winter/early spring which is the perfect time of year for crawfish. Now I know we are not living back in Louisiana, but we are so close that we figured it would be easy to find fresh crawfish or a good poboy. How naive we were. For starters, even though Orlando is located in the American south geographically, it is not especially southern in the way Atlanta is southern or Memphis is southern. Of course Louisiana is a different creature too, but not like Florida. Anyway, I digress.
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| The real deal |
After scouring the internet we found a place pretty close to the house. Of course there was one catch. It was in Chinatown. This is not the first time I have seen crawfish offered in Chinatown, but one of the online reviews said the owners, though Asian, were indeed from Louisiana. Ben has dubbed this "Casian Food" (Cajun + Asian). This was reassuring and when Ben called they promised that the crawfish were fresh. Apparently their idea of fresh and ours are two different things. In Louisiana fresh crawfish are alive and kicking moments before you make your order. This restaurant defined fresh as heated up. We also ordered a shrimp poboy that was served on doughy bread (it should be light and crusty) like you would buy on the bread aisle at the grocery store and made with frozen breaded shrimp. If I wanted a half-assed poboy I would have made it myself. But really we only have ourselves to blame.
So the lesson of the day is this: if you are looking for good cajun food and fried rice is on the menu (as opposed to dirty rice) just walk away.
Another Cajun place has just opened up downtown and I can't wait to try it. Hoping this new restaurant will be the real thing. If not I will just have to wait a month until our trip to Baton Rouge.
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