Crawfish in Seattle

A couple of weekends ago for lunch, I went to a Cajun-style restaurant in Everett called Alligator Soul. See, about a week before that, I interviewed a woman who was from Louisiana. After the interview portion we got to talking, and crawfish was mentioned. It's been something I've longed to try, because I love seafood/shellfish, but have never been to the South (except for one day in Dallas, but that doesn't really count). Doing some research online, Alligator Soul was the only place even remotely near me that served actual whole crawdads (as opposed to bits of it in a gumbo, or jambalaya, or whatever). It seems that every other Saturday they do a crawfish boil during the lunch hour, so I took the opportunity to go.



The place itself is a little run down, but that kind of added to its charm. The service was really friendly. And the crawfish plate for one that I ordered came with 1 pound of crawfish, along with some fixings. I also ordered a "side" of catfish, because I love fried catfish. When the food came I was stunned at how huge the portions were. I know crawfish aren't that big, but I wasn't expecting THAT many in a pound. And it came with two corn on the cob, three huge red potatoes, two halves of a roasted garlic bulb, and two good-sized spicy sausages. And all this for $10.95. O.o The side of catfish was basically a deep-fried filet with some really yummy tartar sauce that was great too. And it was only $4.50.

I wish I had brought my camera so I could have taken a pic of the giant platter of crawfish that arrived at my table, but oh well -- maybe in two weeks. :D They were good, kind of a cross between shrimp/lobster as many have said, but their shells are so hard that my fingers were hurting part of the way through from opening the shells. The photo is of my leftovers, because it was just too much food for one person. Look at how much is in my leftover box (which was really deep)!