steak opelousas. a tender, juicy ribeye topped with a mass of fried shrimp that have been tossed in a slightly spicy and very sweet sauce. fantastic!
-----21 sep, 2013-----
a good taste of cajun country in little old silverhill. the husband and wife owners of café acadiana are from a little town called opelousas, just north of lafayette in st. landry parish. that should tell you all you need to know about the good food and hospitality you'll receive here. if one meal is anything to go by, this is real deal small town cajun cuisine.
located in the former mom-n-pop house in silverhill (which i regret never getting to try), there's nothing fancy about this eatery, inside or out. it's a humble spot in a quiet small town. there are several tables of varying sizes but the dining hall isn't huge. there's a small salad bar by the front desk. a few accouterments from acadiana line the walls and that's about it.
i managed to sample quite a bit of food on my first visit, and everything was good if not great. that's a pretty good start for what's still a relatively new restaurant catering to a smaller town.
for appetizers i sampled the boudin balls and a nachitoches meat pie. the meat pie was decent, but fairly plain. i'm happy with beef in a fried pastry, but if you want some heat the tabasco sauce and cajun spice on the table kick it up a bit. it was good, but my tastebuds preferred the boudin balls. boudin is a white pork sausage (i.e., no blood) made traditionally with liver and heart, with rice as a filler. i'm no expert but i think these were more americanized, with little of that pungent liver taste that some boudin blanc has. whatever the balance of meat to organ to rice to spice, it's pretty doggone good. an order of 3 is $5 and well worth it.
i sprung for a dinner entrée, boudreaux's burrito, $18. it's more of a chimichanga, really: crawfish, shrimp and crabmeat stuffing in a deep fried flour tortilla, covered with crawfish and shrimp sauce. the burrito itself was kind of tiny but the cost was evident up in the sauce, which was dense with shrimp and crawfish meat. everything here was great. the stuffing was almost paste-like in consistency, so it held together during the deep frying and contrasted the crispy tortilla well. and the cream sauce — man oh man did i sop every lovin' bit of it up. it was probably the best cajun cream sauce i've had down here on the coast.
i also sampled some of the roast beef po-boy, $8.50. it's a good sized sandwich, dressed all the way on good bread. the ratio of meat to bread was right — so many places down here give you 90% bread and 10% meat, but here it's much closer to 50/50. the debris and gravy are rather good as well, but not quite juicy enough for me. i like my road beef really wet! maybe not my favorite but a darn close second, and certainly better than anything i've had innew orleans (so far).
red beans and rice accompanied the entrée and were obviously fresh home made. i like mine cooked down a little more and a little spicier but that's what the table spice and tabasco are for, so no worries.
service was very good and friendly, very accommodating. if i had to pick one nit with this place, it was that the tea wasn't sweet or strong enough. a minor complaint, but i wouldn't be "the southern sweet tea fanantic of urbanspoon" if i didn't mention it.
overall, a welcome addition to central baldwin county and one that i hope stays in business for a long time. a lot of places around here offer po-boys and the occasional "cajun" item, but more authentic restaurants have tended to elude us. chappy's in foley got off to a rocky start and floundered downhill from there until they finally closed recently. if the quality can remain high here, i think this place will be my #1 cajun pick for a long time to come.