Seafood Streak

Pumpkin was in Atlanta recently! And the only reason I was excited about that was because she had said she would go eat crawfish with me ;) I had restaurant.com coupons for both Crawfish Shack and Fontaine's Oyster House, so we made a seafood weekend out of it. We went to Fontaine's on Friday and Crawfish Shack on Saturday.

I've been to Fontaine's several times, but every single time I order the Hot combo platter. You get one pound of shrimp, one pound of snow crab legs, mussels and clams, and one dozen steamed Gulf oysters. Well, we always ask if we can get the oysters raw rather than steamed. Every time they say, Let me check with the kitchen. They have been able to accommodate our request every time :) But now to the food. My favorite thing on the platter are the shrimp because of the spices they are cooked with. Most pronounced of these is cumin (I think), and it gives them a flavor I normally associate with my mother's meatballs rather than shrimp. The crab legs are generally of great quality and taste fresh. I don't think Pumpkin enjoyed them too much because of how hard they are to crack. She needs more practice! And even though she was afraid that we didn't get enough food, we were both stuffed by the end. This platter is a perfect portion for two people.

The very next day we were ready for more food at Crawfish Shack, and Snooki tagged along as well. Of course, we got crawfish (3 lb of it!). Snooki wasn't too eager to eat the whole crawfish, so she opted for a shrimp po-boy.  The coupon I had required us to spend at least $45, and we made up the balance by loading up on sides: Cajun fries, sweet potato tots, herb-roasted red potatoes and corn nuggets. The crawfish was fresh and spicy - just the way it was supposed to be. The "Cajun" fries, though, had NO seasoning on them, not even salt, let alone Cajun spice. Well, maybe a tiny bit of salt, but you get my point. They were so plain, they were impossible to eat. But we were too lazy to return them and had plenty of other things to make up for the fries. The roasted red potatoes were also rather plain. The only seasoning they had was a little butter on the bottom of the dish and hard to get to. The sweet potato tots, though, were just what I expected from them and still retained their flavor after frying. What I was really impressed by were the corn nuggets. I LOVED them. We couldn't imaging what they would be before ordering, but I'm SO glad we got them. They remind me a little of arancini balls, but with corn instead of rice and flattened. The corn kernels are still whole inside and so sweet when you eat them. And overall, all the fried sides did help to counteract the spicy crawfish :) 

Seafood is good for you

In addition to Indian food, I had a lot of seafood recently, too. A lot of it was homecooked, and I didn't think of taking pictures of it. Let's just say that now I know I'm allergic to shrimp when I eat too much of it...

To extend the allergy issue, it seems like I am allergic to crustaceans in general. How do I know that? Well, after consuming way too much crawfish at a crawfish boil. A bar in Buckhead had all-you-can-eat/all-you-can-drink-beer event that Cashew and I couldn't miss. The crawfish was flown in live from Louisiana that morning and cooked on the premises for a nice, fresh taste. The spiciness level was just right, too.  It wasn't that hot that I wouldn't be able to eat it, but it did have some kick to it. And which is even better, there were potatoes, sausage pieces and corn on the cob included to the boil. They all had absorbed the juices from the crawfish and tasted amazing!

To show you exactly how much Cashew and I can eat, the all-you-can-eat crawfish wasn't enough for us... Well, technically, we didn't get that much because we had to wait 30-40 min between batches, and we ate just a few crawfish from each batch. So after a day of seafood, we headed out to get more seafood in the form of sushi. We decided to go to MaLi in the Highlands. I had been there before, and to my knowledge, the sushi was really good. Well, I had forgotten how overpriced and tiny it was! We got a simple salmon roll, an eel roll, and a tuna avocado roll. I think we ended up paying $15-20 EACH! Unbelievable... And the worst part is, the sushi wasn't all that good. Zuma is definitely better.

Last week we were in the mood for sushi again. We were on Emory campus and wanted to get a quick dinner before a concert, so we walked over to Emory Village. I had heard that Falafel King is good, so we walked in. Well, our quick dinner turned into waiting to simply order for 40 minutes, plus maybe 20 minutes to get the food after that. Falafel King is strange that it offers both Mediterranean food and sushi. We ordered a shawarma plate (no picture) and 2 sushi rolls: something with avocado and something with crabstick. Yes, they were that memorable... Even if the service is 10 times faster next time, I don't think I want to go back.