There were two quintessential New Orleans dishes that I missed out on last time I was here: boiled crawfish plus red beans and rice. The latter would be easy enough to get this time around, but the former was fraught with challenges given that it was December, which meant that yet again it was not the peak season for them. Fortunately, I found this place (121 Chartres Street, 522-2233), which not only had them in stock, but was also open 24 hours of all things. So what else would a guy like me do? Get them for breakfast, of course!
A little side cup of red beans and rice came first, and it was everything that I wanted and more: it was salty, spicy, and fatty with cuts of sausage, all on beans and rice that were stewed to a pulp. I didn't even really need that hot sauce on the side, and liked it so much that I wish I had gotten an entire plate of this stuff. It's too bad that Popeye's in Singapore doesn't carry this stuff; apparently even fast food chains out here do a decent job of red beans and rice.
Then I got around to decimating those crawfish, which were naturally a bit small given that it was not the right season. But that didn't really matter, since the best part of these things was not the tail meat, but rather the juices that one sucks out of the head. It sounds kinda nasty, but it was delightfully savory...almost like finding some lobster bisque inside (or maybe even the soup from Keisuke's ebi ramen). Rock on. This totally made my day, and it's not even 8 AM yet! It was much better than that Gumbo Jumbo place back home.
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