Restaurant review: Mardi Gras is just around the corner

By L’Oreal Battistelli
Daily Forty-Niner

If you have been lucky enough to travel to the Big Easy, Bayou St. John’s will make you feel right at home. If you have not, you are guaranteed to want to go once you have dined at Bayou St. John’s.

Bayou is nestled in between various commercial enterprises on Main Street in Seal Beach, no more than a ten minute drive from the Cal State Long Beach campus. Limited parking is available so be sure to provide yourself with plenty of time to locate a good spot on a nearby side street.

My first impression of the restaurant was that it was intimate, warm, friendly, and sumptuous.

There is a wide selection of wine as well as New Orleans Café Du Monde Coffee, $2, and an assortment of sodas, $2, for children. If you enjoy a bottled New Orleans beer, they offer Dixie, Crimson Voodoo Ale, Blackened Voodoo Lager, Abita Springs Purple Haze Raspberry Malt and Dixie Jazz Light at $4 each, and non-alcoholic beers for $3.

The appetizer menu is so inviting you may just decide to drop in for a bite on a crisp, spring evening when you have time to relax and enjoy the atmosphere.

Oysters on the half shell, $7.95, Rockefeller, $8.95, or Zoilo-baked with bacon, Creole and veloute sauces and imported parmesan cheese, $8.95, are available, as are similar items such as Bayou St. John’s Creole Chaurice Sausage, $5.95, and soft shell crab, $9.95. Or try the frog legs for $7.95. I dare you!

If you enjoy vegetables before your entrée, try Bayou St. John’s Baked Stuffed Fresh Artichoke, stuffed with fresh bread crumbs, roasted garlic, parmesan cheese andextra virgin olive oil and served with garlic cream sauce $9.95.

There are many more fish and Cajun-inspired tidbits on the menu so be adventurous. Try something new each visit.

Home Style Specialties and Pasta A La Carte offers everything from red beans and rice, $9.95, to Chicken Mardi Gras Pasta-grilled boneless breast, Creole spices, portabella mushrooms and cream over penne pasta $13.95 to gulf shrimp tossed in a creamy etouffee sauce over spaghetti. There is quite a variety to choose from. Even the most discriminating patrons are sure to find something they enjoy.

The Bayou Sampler is the Bayou’s signature dish, and of course, the most popular because it has a little bit of everything. The meal features gumbo, jambalaya, cajun shrimp and blackened redfish $24.95. The perfect seafood meal to share on a late spring evening when you are too tired from the week’s exams to cook, drop by and enjoy.

To my knowledge, the most unusual menu item is alligator. Served as an appetizer and as a main course, Caroline Fagot, owner and restaurateur, informed me that tail meat is typically used, and as one expects, local diners indicate “it tastes like chicken, but it really doesn’t.” Alligators are water creatures so the meat tends to be tender, similar to seafood, but also plump, like chicken. The fleshy meat of the tail is used and she thinks the best way to serve it is the way Bayou serves it.

After dining at Bayou, everyone who lives on the coastline has an opportunity to say they have wrestled with an alligator and it did not fight back.

The evening’s special featured an appetizer of fresh boiled and seasoned Louisiana crawfish, $9.95, which is a delectable dish to whet any appetite. It is followed by an entrée of Poule D’Antoine-boneless breast cut in strips and sautéed with fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, basil, shallots and Creole spices served with herb steamed rice, fresh vegetables, a dinner salad and hot French bread, $16.95.

Somewhat similar to the sampler as it offers four fabulous fares, The Big Easy is something quite special. This meal seems to me to be the most succulent soft shell crab, pan sautÈed with egg and seasoned flour, and frog legs fast fried in a fresh breadcrumb crust. You can also order shrimp, sautéed in a lemon butter sauce, and to cap it all off, Crawfish Etouffee, $28.95. This is a meal from the Bayou you will never forget.

To top off the evening with a touch of southern comfort, why not try Bayou’s famous Creole Bread Pudding with apples and raisins served warm with a rum sauce topping, $4, or their Bananas St. John sautéed and served with rum sauce over French vanilla ice cream $4.75. Both sure to delight your palate, and after a meal of this caliber, how can anyone top that?

Bayou St. John’s is located at 320 Main Street, Seal Beach, CA, (562) 431-2298. Open for dinner 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily.