Isleton Crawfish
Originally uploaded by c(h)ristine.
every year my husband and i hold a crawfish boil, complete with crawfish etouffee made from fresh peeled tails. an unlikely pair of hosts (a Jew (born in Louisiana) and a Korean) for a Louisiana style crawfish boil!
where do we get the live crawfish? we get them fedex’d from Louisiana (and now that I’m reading Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” I’m feeling MIGHTY guilty about burning all that fossil fuel for one meal). “did you know you can get crawfish right here in the bay area?” asked one of our guests.
we blinked.
“out in isleton,” he said, chewing. “they even have a crawfish festival.”
hrm.
my husband and i got a hankering for crawfish the other week–and headed out to isleton, which is a small steamboat town located in the sacramento river delta. we almost missed the town center, a collection of ramshackle wood buildings that an outsider would call “rustic” and “charming.” but maybe you could call it rundown, too. we would have zipped on by if not for the crawfish illustrations on the sides of a building. “this is it!” we brought our car to a halt.
we walked into isleton joe’s, the restaurant with the most prominent crawfish signage. the bartender was wiping down the bar, “you here for a crawfish dinner?”
we eyed the restaurant, completely barren. “yep,” wondering why it was so empty. we’re wary of empty restaurants.
“we’re closed. we don’t serve except on weekends, and then we close at–” our disappointment drowned out the rest of her words.
we went outside back into the summer delta heat. across the street was a dive bar with a “crawfish served here” sign hung up on its porch. we walked in THERE. “you in for crawfish?!” bellowed the bartender in there. there were four guys at the bar, all of them turned around and greeted us with smiles.
“yep.”
“well, we’re closed for dinner! no crawfish here!” he yelled good naturedly.
so there’s crawfish in isleton, california. except um, according to my husband, “we finally found isleton and a local source for crawfish but they don’t open on any day that ends in ‘Y’.”
best bet is to head there mid-day on a weekend, i think!
6 responses so far ↓
Susan // July 11, 2006 at 9:02 pm
That is such a funny story. You guys are really good sports.
Eric // July 12, 2006 at 9:48 am
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had a proper crawfish boil before… I’ve had it in etouffee at DisneyWorld or something like that but never really experienced the real thing. Kinda regional thing I guess.
Now have you tried mudbugs? Google it and see! teehee!!
C(h)ristine // July 12, 2006 at 10:30 am
aren’t mudbugs the same things as crawfish the same things as crawdads?
i would imagine crawfish boils don’t happen that often in Canada! the real thing RULES.
Eric // July 13, 2006 at 6:34 am
Actually, you really need to see what a proper Australian mudbug looks like… Its kinda like a horseshoe crab from prehistoric times - gross and disgusting looking but tastier than lobster, for about a tenth the price…
Yeah, we don’t get much in the way of crawfish - but perhaps if I ever get to New Orleans (still REALLY high on my list of places to see) I’ll finally get some…
C(h)ristine // July 16, 2006 at 11:15 pm
You know–Ari and I did end up having dinner at Isleton Joe’s this past Friday evening. We were so excited to be able to have a crawfish dinner outside of Louisiana, and not have to prepare it ourselves!!!
But alas, it’s just not up to par…not to Louisiana standards, and not to the standard of our own crawfish boil. The boiled crawfish came out soft (the cooked shell of a crawfish should NEVER be soft, according to my sources) and questionable. And Ari ended up sick that night and the next morning.
We are not going to give up our search though! But we’re sticking, for now, to ordering live crawfish and preparing them ourselves.
Ah, but it would be GREAT to have a local (and good) source of this food.
Glenn Thibodeaux // September 27, 2006 at 7:14 am
I am from Louisiana. I can ship you all the fresh live crawfish from Louisiana you want. I usually ship via air freight. It is a lot lower cost than Fed Ex. Louisiana crawfish are only in season during Nov - June. In the off season I can get California crawfish.
Thanks, Glenn
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