Over the past month or so, my girlfriend and I have been patiently and anxiously awaiting to see what new type of restaurant concept was going to become of the old Subway on NW 23rd in the Ghosts of Shepherd Mall District.
Ready for anything that doesn’t serve lifeless cold cuts on styrofoam bread, we danced a fisherman’s jig when we learned it would be something called Juicy Tails.
Alright…it wasn’t that dramatic, but we regularly checked on the status of the new restaurant, and once we learned it was opening, we moseyed on over for a late lunch of tasty crustaceans and other aquatic life.
We were greeted by a near-empty restaurant, with the only customer being the hand-painted dancing sea creatures adorning the walls, and realized that maybe—just maybe—we were the only locals excited about, or even aware of, this juicy deliverance.
As we got our menu, I noticed a great value calling to my gullet: a large bucket of shrimp, sausage, corn, potatoes and, oh yes, the biggest crawfish I had ever seen.
One bucket please!
But, of course, as the chef was preparing that, I got the Fried Dumplings ($7.95) as a small snack.
Much like a semi-turgid appetizer should be, the dumplings were alright but simply “okay.” More like takeout Asian fare than any handcrafted taste should be, it was a means to an end and it was fine.
Besides, any second now, I will have a big bag of crawfish! Oooowwwweee!
Taking nervous sips of water in the gas-stationed foam cups from the restaurant, I could smell all of the wondrous bounty of both the land and the sea, being boiled for our sheer delights. As I began to sweat in preparation, within moments a shallow tray with a steaming bag of crawdads and their friends came to the table.
Oh Lord, it was magnificent!
As I opened the sweaty bag, the savory spices had been sealed up and cooked everything in their own juices, and immediately images of dancing shellfish danced around my head. The Daily Special 1 ($32.95) had a fine lineup, including a pound of shrimp, a pound of crawfish, as well as potatoes, corn, and sausage.
The spice we chose was the Juicy Special, which we learned was a mixture of Cajun seasoning and garlic butter and, yes, even though I asked for medium, it was enough to blow out my nostrils as a po’ boy cloud of pure adrenaline tainted all my veins. Undeterred, I went right to work!
Of course, the small potatoes, the corn on the cob, and especially the wickedly-spicy cuts of sausage, were most welcomed, but it was the boiled unpeeled shrimp that gave me a fighting chance to win this tasteful war.
As every bite had flavor packets of seasoning in its folds, it had me fighting a two-alarm fire in my belly. It was a testament to the South and its full flavor!
But that was nothing compared to the jumbo crawfish that more than leveled the playing field. With their beady eyes looking, scuttling into your very soul, I wanted them and I wanted them now. I had my girlfriend show me the ropes when it came to shelling crawfish professionally, having done it all her life.
Taking the ass-end of the crawfish, she showed me all of the edible meat that was possible, from the tail up to the treat of the tasty claws. Even though I had fried crawfish before, it was a new diabolical dinner, as I drained the succulent muscles and the pointy grabbers, making this into a world-class meal.
Even though I didn’t have a cartoonish bib with a crab, lobster or other seafood on it, my shriveled fingers were internally sweaty from the plastic gloves as I took them off. Throwing them to my seaborne refuse of shells, skins, and scampers, I marveled at Juicy Tails and their superior food, providing the land-locked masses the taste I had been truly craving.
The fact I live a block from them, well that’s the real bonus.
Cómpralo ya!
