On The Road
Notes from Dan's travels





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Saturday, June 17, 2006
 


A good rule of thumb for picking eateries when traveling is to eat where the locals eat.

Well, Steamboat Bill's, on the lake at Lake Charles, LA, was voted the best seafood place in SW Louisiana by area residents, so that was good enough for two Michiganders and a Wisconsinite in town for a writers conference.

Your reporter joined Dan Donarski, of Sault Ste. Marie, and Bob Gwidz, of East Lansing, to celebrate Donarski's 29th (or so he claims) birthday this evening at this no-frills restaurant with the best Cajun seafood for miles around.

Actually, our first choice was a barbecue joint, but it was closed for a company vacation. Fortunately, we had a backup plan. With the aid of a map provided by the hotel concierge, we managed to find Steamboat Bill's, a centerfield toss from yet another on-water gambling casino, apparently the only kind allowed by state law.

We started off with a pound of peel-and-eat boiled shrimp. Then we all had a large serving of crawfish etoufee, a mildly spicy soupy concoction served in a bowl over rice. Birthday Boy added a pair of stuffed crabs, while Bob had a boudin ball and I, a bowl of crawfish gumbo.

The beer list included a Shiner Bock, so I ordered one and told the story of the Texas brewery road trip I did one summer with grad-school colleague, John Shell. Leaving from Houston, we stopped at the Pearl, Lone Star and Spoetzl breweries. Our favorite was the last of these, situated in an unassuming building on the main drag in Shiner, TX, where the only other visitors in the tasting room were a pair of sun-dried farmers in faded overalls, whose demeanor and obvious familiarity suggested that they tossed down a few free cold ones here every evening before heading home to Mama.

If I had enough energy left tonight, I'd add the web links for all those breweries, but I'm willing to bet anyone curious enough to check them out is resourceful enough to do his own Googling. You'll find more on Shiner, the last of the original Texas brews, on the Beer Can Blog.

Later...

12:35:21 AM    comment []


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