Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [124]
Mosca’s
4137 US 90 W
504–436–9942
Avondale, LA
D | $$$
Mosca’s reopened in the summer after Hurricane Katrina, but when you drive out here to dine, you’d never even know there had been any damage. All the great things about the place are just as they were, including oysters Mosca—a festival of garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and bread crumbs—and the deliriously refreshing crabmeat and olive salad. Old-time air conditioners in the window still groan. The parking lot remains a gravel wreck, and the wait to get in at dinner is frequently an hour or longer.
It’s quite a drive out to the swamp that is Mosca’s location, but serious eaters from New Orleans have been doing it since 1946. If it’s your first time, we guarantee you will think you are lost. And even when you find it, you will wonder: can this two-room joint with the blaring jukebox really be the most famous Creole roadhouse in America? Once oil and butter from the spaghetti bordelaise begin dripping down your chin and you inhale the fragrant bouquet of chicken à la grandee, you will know you are having a culinary epiphany. Rude as it is, roadside food gets no better, or more garlicky, or heartier, than this. Go to Mosca’s with friends: the bigger the group, the more different wonders you can sample, and besides, everything is served family-style.
Mother’s
401 Poydras St.
504–523–9656
New Orleans, Louisiana
BL (closed Sun & Mon) | $
Mother’s remains what it has been since it opened in 1938: a blue-plate lunchroom where, for a few dollars, New Orleaneans from every rung of the social ladder come to feast. Morning grits are usually available with “debris,” pronounced “day-bree,” which is all the pieces of beef that fall into the gravy when a roast is carved. At lunch, in addition to definitive po-boy sandwiches, Mother’s is known for red beans and rice (Tuesday), gumbo (Wednesday), jambalaya, spaghetti pie, and bread pudding with brandy sauce for dessert.
It’s an everyday place where everybody waits in the cafeteria line and the staff treats each customer with nonchalant disrespect. If you are coming for lunch, we recommend visiting early. The first lunchtime customers have the opportunity to avail themselves of a lagniappe, such as cracklin’s from the “black ham”—little amber squiggles and crusty sweet chunks from the outside of the baked meat—which are a brilliant addition to almost any hot lunch or sandwich.
You can have your po-boy hot or cold, made with anything from fried oysters to bologna. The most famous of Mother’s po-boys and one of the Crescent City’s definitive sandwiches is known as a Ferdi’s special: ham, beef, debris, and gravy, preferably dressed with pickle slices, lettuce, Creole mustard, and possibly even “my’nez,” which is how you say mayonnaise in New Orleans.
Prejean’s
3480 I-49 N
337–896–3247
Lafayette, LA
LD | $$
“I love to eat!” wrote Louisiana Roadfooder Laura B., who told us that the next time we were in Cajun country, we needed to try the gumbo and crawfish enchiladas at Prejean’s.
Thank you, Laura, for a recommendation we gladly pass on to anyone who loves to eat to the beat of a Cajun band. Located in North Lafayette, where there are good Cajun eateries galore, Prejean’s is big and noisy (the live music starts every night at 7:00 P.M., and be sure to wear your dancing shoes), and the food is classic Cajun. In some other part of the country, a restaurant this brash might seem too “commercial” to qualify for Roadfood—walls hung with Acadiana, a stuffed alligator in the center of the dining room, a gift shop with tacky souvenirs—but for all its razzle-dazzle, Prejean’s is the real thing, a fact about which you can have no doubt when you dip a spoon into the chicken and sausage gumbo or the dark andouille gumbo laced with smoked duck.
The menu is big and exotic, featuring dozens of dishes