Cajun Food: Acadiana

It was my brother's job to book our meals for the weekend.  I think he felt the weight of this job knowing that Mr. J and I are pretty critical when it comes to our food.  Really though, I was just happy I didn't have to make the decisions.  I was never really worried though.  Friday, after saying by to my friends we headed to Acadiana.  The story is that one day while reading the paper my brother noted that Jay-Z and Beyonce were in town and had dinner at Acadiana.  Not too long after, my brother and his wife just happened to stroll by.  After glancing at the menu, they decided they wanted to try it too. The meal turned out to be wonderful and so it was top on the list for us.

I must thank Jay-Z and Beyonce for enlightening us because it was amazing.  Again, we decided to do the sharing method of ordering. We ended up with 6 appetizers that were passed around the table and 5 entrees.  The above picture was my appetizer, Charbroiled oysters.  The oysters were topped with Parmesan cheese and butter, then broiled. They were ab-so-lute-ly delicious!  It also came with a hunk of bread to sop up all of the melted butter at the bottom of the pan.

My entree was the seafood gumbo.  There was so much seafood, jumbo lump crab, shrimp, crawfish, oysters, redfish, and mahatma rice.  Of course okra was in the mix as well.  The flavor was so good and spicy I had trouble trying the other dishes because I didn't want to ruin the taste in my mouth.

Some of the other entrees included fried catfish and blackened beef tenderloin.  Have you ever seen such a pretty plate of fried fish? Two people ended up getting the tenderloin because it was served with parmesan gnocchi, spring onions, english peas, honey mushrooms, and charred onion relish.  The gnocchi won them over.

We finished the meal off with french market beignets.  They were great, truly melt in your mouth fried dough. 

I could go on and on about how great this meal and total evening was.   They was also an abundance of fancy cocktails and drinks.  This would be a great place for a unique happy hour.