From the Bloody Depths of Mudbug Soup…

We had dinner this evening at the upscale (read: $29 bonus charge) restaurant… actually, they call it a cafe… and for an extra 58 smackers on toppa our cruise fare, a cafe?  Still, it was an incentive for booking, so we didn’t actually pay for it.

The Bayou Cafe.  For all who know me, and are aware of my philosophy that ketchup is a spice, Cajun food is a stretch.  Still, free, pre-booked, and promise of a nice steak, what the hell, I’m in.

Our waiter was very nice but I only understood every third word or so he said.  My French sucks and my Creole is worse but I was pretty sure I didn’t want “mudbug soup”.   Whatever that is.

Beloved ordered it, along with the alligator ribs appetizer (who knew they have ribs?  Don’t they have kind of an exo-skeleton thingy going on?) and fried catfish.  I went with sausage Frenchy-something appetizer I did not understand at all through the waiter’s authentic Creole/Tagalog accent.  Beloved later explained he said the sausage was butterflied.

They spatchcock the cocktail sausages?  Why?

Whatever.

And the filet mignon.  The waiter was quite unhappy I wasn’t having soup or salad, so I folded and ordered salad.

Alligator does not taste like chicken.  It tastes like old boots and when consuming it, one must periodically spit out cartilage boomerangs which I suppose are crocodilian ribs.  Very weird.

This, however, was nothing compared to the soup.  Served with a spoon, Beloved muttered, “I’m not sure about this okra.”  YEEECH.  Which, in turn, was nothing compared to what emerged next from the depths of this bowl-y Little Shop of Horrors.

FUUUUUUUC….

I can’t say I’ve ever seen a crawfish up close and personal.  Dear god.  It emerged from the bloody depths of the bowl with beady little black eyes staring accusingly at me.

For those who don’t know the story of me, Beloved and the pub dinner of fish… well… let’s just say it was the first time she went to England, we were lost, ordered fish at a pub, got not a filet-o-fish but instead a gutted jobbie with head, fins, tail etc attached.  I was so horrified I closed my eyes while she beheaded it and hid the offending object in the bread basket.

She kinda ruined her gallant act by remarking “dang, that’s a lot easier to do when it’s dead.”

Back to the crawfish.  She refused, without being asked, to do a repeat performance, 23 odd years later.  Partly because she only had a soup spoon.   To which we both wondered…how exactly was she supposed to eat this soggy miniature lobster?  (And, I asked silently, why would she want to?)

We got through the rest of dinner without incident.