Creole cravings

In my college days, my TV was constantly tuned to the Food Network. I loved the Barefoot Contessa and Everyday Italian the most, but oftentimes I'd find myself watching Emeril Live at around 6 pm while cooking dinner. His constant 'Bam!' was annoying, and I really wondered if he could cook all that well--he seemed more like an entertainer than a super chef.

Regardless, Emeril had embedded in me a curiosity for Creole/ Cajun cuisine. I must have heard him talk about gumbo, etouffee, andouille sausages, jambalayas, and blackened chicken for thousands of time! So despite having left the US for more than 2 years, I still remember these names and even know of the top off my head how to cook each of them.

I've only tried Creole/ Cajun cuisine twice I think...at Nola's in Palo Alto. Once with a good friend T, and again with fellow McK BAs from Stanford. I don't remember much about the food there, so I guess it wasn't spectacular, but Nola's got me hooked on corn bread--slightly sweet, gritty, and with sprinklings of sweet corn kernels. I've always had a weakness for corn; there was one point in my college years that I literally had bags and bags of Safeway frozen corn that I would just microwave up and eat while watching TV, sometimes eating nothing but the corn all day (and I wasn't even dieting =P).

Anyway, for some weird reason, I had a super strong craving for Cajun/ Creole food like corn bread, crab cakes and gumbo while at the hospital post-appendectomy. I also really missed chicken pot pie and meatloaf--the classic American comfort food that brought back memories of dorm life at Frosoco. But being continents away from the US, I didn't expect to find any of these dishes in Bangkok restaurants. So I browsed through recipes for chicken pot pie on Paula Deen's web site and emailed it to my lovely J, telling him that I'd love him a thousand times more if he made a pie and brought it to visit me during my 1 week house arrest. =)

Fortunately for J, I found a restaurant in the heart of Bangkok called Bourbon Street that specializes in Cajun/ Creole cuisine of Louisiana, as well as classic American favorites! It's been opened for 22 years by a Louisiana native. I heard that the restaurant was in a sketchy area (right behind a Cabaret club) but I had to satisfy my cravings, so J and I ventured to well, a pretty nasty area, just to get a taste of Louisiana cookin'...

The area was sketchy alright. It was lined with beer bars, lounges and massage parlors catered for tourists/ expats with rows after rows of scantily-clad women. But the food did not disappoint. We ordered crab cakes, meat loaf, shrimp gumbo, jambalaya, blackened chicken, corn bread and collard greens (I had a serious craving, evidently).

Super moist meatloaf with creamy mashed potatoes and stewed veggies. Lots of gravy!

Gumbo topped with rice--the dark color is from the roux, a caramelized mixture of flour, butter, celery, carrots, and onion (i.e. the trinity)

My favorite dishes were: meatloaf, gumbo, blackened chicken and collard greens. Sadly though, the corn bread here was kinda blah. I would have wanted it to be a bit sweeter and less dry.

Even though we were super full, we decided to order a dessert, and chose Grandma's warm pecan pie with vanilla ice cream. My inspiration for this choice: I had just watched an episode of Martha in which she was a judge at a local pie competition in upstate New York, and the winner came to demonstrate his pecan pie recipe in her show. Unfortunately, Bourbon Street's pie was only covered with pecans on top of the pie, instead of having it all over the filling like the one I saw on Martha (must be expensive to buy pecans here at imported price). Plus the crust was soggy, so I bet it wasn't blind-baked before the filling was poured in. Another turn off was the orange tone of the vanilla ice cream. Could it get any more artificial? Oh well...here's a pic anyway.

Would I go back to this place? Well, only if I have another bout of serious craving. While the food was quite good, J and I felt very out of place in the restaurant. We were surrounded by expats/ tourists, and almost all of them had Thai female escorts, if you know what I mean. It's the unfortunate and ugly side of the Thai tourism industry, which totally ruins the image of Thai women.

Bourbon Street Restaurant & Oyster Bar

Washington Square, Sukhumvit 22

Tel: 02-259-0328