El Tapatio

After my doctor's appointment and buying some new crutches, it was bordering on 3 PM. I did not want to go home and fix something because I have been doing that for about 2 weeks now. Most of the plate lunch places are closed by then but a few independents stay open through the afternoon. Pho Tien is one but I did not want to go across town. Another is El Tapatio just around the corner from me. I did not want the usual stuff. Too hot for carnitas and I was spiced out from Donald Links rice dishes so did not feel like Coctel de Camerone. I did want shrimp but not the fried Chimichanga. I finally decided. I first went with a favorite of mine Chile Rellenos. Looking at it you would think it is stuffed with beef or chicken, not. Here it is about the pepper with a cheese accent. A stick of cheese not too much stuffed in the pepper and then fried with an egg white batter served with El Tapatio sauce. Perfection. The pepper today had a little spice just enough to excite the taste buds

I decided on a Shrimp Quesdilla. Marinated shrimp griddled with green bell pepper and onions then put in a flour tortilla with cheese and griddled again served with sour cream, tomato and lettuce.

A peak inside after I slathered it with sour cream. The shrimp were tender, juicy, and flavorful. This made for a lovely light repast. I left quite sated and happy

I consider this the best Mexican restaurant in town and they are busy busy even without an alcohol license even though they are trying again.

Eggplant Rice Dressing (Donald Link)

Ingredients line up
Mise en place

Skillet shots are tough for me. Most of these went south on me for this recipe. I will just have to talk through it. First you brown the ground beef. Below is the seasonings added.

Next you add the spices and then the rice. Below is the blanched eggplant. Blanching takes out the bitterness and leaves it semi cooked. That is added next along with some green onions and bay leaves and water. I put all of the ingredients in my rice cooker and it came out quite nice

Below is the final product from the rice cooker

The way my mother made this was to make an eggplant base cooking down eggplant with seasoning and ground beef. Cooked rice was add to this. The above way works perfectly fine also. It has a nice eggplant flavor which I love and pretty hefty spice kick due to cayenne pepper. The eggplant disappears leaving the skin which just melts in your mouth with an additional eggplant flavor. Again a very simple and easy recipe although it does contain a couple of steps.

Rice and Lake Charles Dirty Rice (Donald Link)

Here is the ingredients in the rice pot. Rice, water, bay leaves and very little salt. I was skeptical but I went with anyway.


Here is the finished product. In many restaurants today the people are trying to cut back on salt by not putting any in rice. This results in bland rice. Although I only put about an 1/16 (pinch) in this one it was delicious. I would have had some with butter if I had not needed all of it for the Dirty Rice. I will be making my rice with bay leaves from now on. It was sorta of an herbal backnote that I found pleasant.
Ingredient line up for Dirty Rice.

Mise en place

The ground pork and pureed chicken livers browning

Spices and seasoning into the skillet and cooked a bit

The cooked rice was added to that along with chicken stock and green onions and parsley. Finished product below. Nice spice level due to some jalapeno in the seasonings.

When I was growing up dirty rice was made with ground beef not only because my paternal grandfather ran cattle but because my mother had high blood pressure. Back in those days the common wisdom was that pork exacerbated the condition. So I rarely got to eat pork except when I went to my maternal aunt's and uncle's houses. Maybe that is why I like pork so much. Because it was such a treat for me. The procedure for this recipe gave a deep roasty toasty flavor to the final product. Since the liver was pureed it just added a richness in the background without being to livery. Good recipe with good directions.

Hannah's and Pig Out BBQ

OUT AND ABOUT
Hannah’s Seafood
393 North Hwy 171
Moss Bluff, LA
337-855-5097
Wednesday - Saturday 3:00 PM to 8:30 PM $1-$17
Sunday 12:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Located in the Bronco Stop this establishment seems to have broken the curse on this site. They tried out different times until settling down to their current venue. One thing they eliminated was lunch. I had a particularly fine shrimp stew before they switch to dinner hours only. This is a family owned and run restaurant and boil house. Some menu items are family recipes. Service is casual and homey with no frills i.e. Styrofoam. With the new tables it exudes a camp on the bayou feel.
Their Corn, Crab, and Shrimp Bisque is more like good macque choux. Thick with no cream or roux it contains loads of corn, tomato and seafood with great flavor and a spicy kick. The Seafood File Gumbo also contains no roux and has lots of crab and shrimp. It seemed to me that the file had been cooked into the broth. It gave it a weird appearance although the flavor was good.
One time I ordered some raw oysters and marinated ones. For the raw I received shucked oyster in a Styrofoam bowl. A bit unusual but it tasted fine. The marinated ones consisted of raw oysters in Italian dressing with sliced raw onions, bell pepper, and jalapenos. They could have benefited by a longer soak. However the marinade had picked up some lovely oyster flavor. I crumbled crackers into it after eating the oysters, delicious. I ate their Seafood Platter next. It had shrimp, oysters and catfish on it. The coating were appropriate to the seafood i.e. shrimp -flour coating, oysters and catfish -corn meal. The catfish was especially good. They do seem to have a slight problem with some of the pre-made products they use. The hush puppies were undercooked and the onion rings slightly overcooked. I am sure they have that down pat by now.
Last run was through the drive thru for boiled crawfish. The seasoning had a strong lemon pepper component in addition to the normal spicy flavor. I liked it a lot. The only problem was that it was early in the season and they had used unsorted field grade that day. The size varied widely and the small ones were overcooked
All the minor problems are just that, minor. I am sure they have been adjusted. For a family not familiar with running restaurant they are not doing half bad. Their home style cooking is a refreshing change from standard restaurant recipes


http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/21419645


Pig Out Barbecue
1680 Sam Houston Jones Parkway
Moss Bluff, LA
337-905-4000
Monday - Friday 11:00 AM to 5:30 PM $1-$15
Not much to look at. It seems to be an abandoned rickety trailer on the side of the road. However they are open and doing some decent food. It is a take away joint only and plentiful. I got a three-meat combo, as is my wont at places like this. There was so much food that it had to go into two large Styrofoam clamshells. One was for the half chicken and the other contained ribs, sausage, potato salad, beans, roll and a piece of pineapple cake. The meat had been slow cooked, tender, and juicy with little smoky flavor. An old fashion BBQ flavor using a Jack Miller or Pig Stand type of sauce predominated. The beans were right out of the can and the salad a decent “mashed style”. For a filling if not spectacular meal step right up

http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/21419661

Sausage & Peppers (Donarld Link) sorta of

Ok I probably made more substitution on this recipe than any before and have add a twist. Calls for amber beer but I could not get a single bottle of amber so I went with regular beer. Called for red wine vinegar but I used Steen's cane vinegar. Since the amber comes from roasting the malted barley and adds an undernote of sweet, I felt the Steen's would do that. It calls for grain mustard and I thought I had some. Turned out not but I had some chipotle mustard. Since I was using Mowata Store (Bubba Frey) sausage which a nice smoke on it and jalapenos was in the recipe, I thought it would dovetail nicely. By the way it did.

Below is the ingredients

My mise en place with all the ingredients prepped and measured

Sausage in the skillet getting brown

The rest of the ingredient into the pool. Brought to a boil and then simmered

At the end of the cooking period ready for my twist

My twist. I cracked raw eggs into the spaces and then steamed them in the liquid

Served over pita bread (only bread I had in the house). It would have been perfect but I cooked the eggs to soft yolk when I wanted a liquid one. It was still pretty good

The sausages were wonderfully tender and tasty with the vegetables having great flavor and spice with a tangy undertone. Would have gone fine with rice. Again simple straightforward directions for a marvelous variation on smothering meat.

The Chuckwagon

Back in their old digs on Sam Houston Jones Parkway they are still turning out the best BBQ in the area. Even when I am on a hamburger kick like the last couple of day they have a product for me. It is the Smoked Hamburger. Simple as a burger can get. Plain slightly sweet bun, chopped burg, sliced onions and tomatoes. The difference is the patty. Hand formed with chopped onions inside and smoked to perfection. I got smoked Provolone to enhance it. Highly satisfying. Nuff said

Nina P's

When I reviewed this place ages ago I came away not that impressed. Recently I have been passing it on a regular basis. The parking lot is always full. Must have improved or there would not be so many customers at this place. Finally the other day I was in the vicinity at the tail end of lunch and there were spaces so I pulled in. All I got to say is WOW

Below is a small chicken and sausage gumbo. It has a dark flavorful roux and medium viscosity. The piece of chicken breast was huge and sausage good with no odd flavors. A medium spice on the broth and great rice. This is the kinda rice I could eat just plain except it had no salt. This would have been enough to be a meal for my sister

Wonderful onion rings. Medium cut with a flour coating and not greasy. Believe it or not this is an half order. I would hate to see what a full order would be like. It could probable feed 6 people.

I got the San Francisco Burger. Half pound patty with Swiss cheese, grilled mushrooms and onions, tomato, lettuce, jalapeno mayo on a Sheila Partin whole wheat sweet sourdough bun. I added some bacon. It was huge and tasty and I ate every last bit. It was sweet, spicy, earthy, beefy, etc

The bread pudding was just ok. It was made with po boy bread but either did not have enough custard or did not sit long enough to soak it in. It also contained nuts which I do not care for in bread pudding and sweet spices which are fine to me. The caramel like sauce I also liked

Bottom line there is a reason for that full parking lot and it is not just the lovely servers but the rock solid food that they put out