One Last thing from Vaca . . .

Shocking that I forgot to add this in on the On the Road post from a week or so ago, but here it is.  Better late than never, right?

On the first part of our epic journey to the OBX from Houston we had to leave after work on Friday which meant we were only able to go as far as Slidell, LA.  On route our stalwart and trustworthy chow hound, Chungry constantly, and relentlessly texted us with eating options along I-10.  We finally pulled into Steamboat Bill's at Lake Charles, LA.  Not wanting to drag three kids out of the car, go in, sit and have table service we further refined our "eat take-out in the parking lot and then use the restrooms" routine.  Hubs had the shrimp pistolettes.  Too rich for me for a meal, but nice creamy sauce with good flavor and the fried french bread that held the delectable gravy mixture was to die for.  As Oklahomans these were our first pistolettes and I would consider them a success. Only thing missing to make it better was an ice cold Bud.

I had a shrimp Po' boy.  No complaints.  Again, beer would have been awesome with this but that is the downside to eating in the car, you can't take out beer.  Bummer.  Fried shrimp was fresh and crispy, not too much mayo which I always prefer since I kind of hate mayo.  Bad thing was that I am only ever able to eat half of a po' boy and you can't save the other half if you are doing an 800 mile car trip so into the trash it went.  I was sad to see it go.  Kids had the catfish strips meal--which by the way was huge and way more than any kid I know could eat.  It was forreal homemade cornmeal breaded catfish.  My favorite.  It was a little on the spicy side so only one of my kids really ate more than 2 bites of it.  The one who is not into spicy food went with the abundant french fries.  Bland but serviceable.  Besides, we weren't there for fries.  Hushpuppies would have a better addition for the meals though.

Overall location and clientele are a little sketchy but the food is good so go anyway.  If you are sketchy yourself then all the better (this coming from someone who regularly eats at Waffle Houses)!  I can definitely recommend the back parking lot.  Conveniently located trash can for all of our garbage afterwards!    And the hostess didn't give me any beef when I blew in and said I was not looking for a table for 1 but for the restroom, I was a take out order.  Although she did look confused.  I mostly just didn't give her a chance to tell me no.

Overall I'll give this a 4.  Take out was good if you can eat it right away.  Otherwise I'm not sure any of our fried things would have survived anything much longer than a 10 minute drive.  If you're ever cruising through Slidell this would be worth a stop.