Long Beach Crawfish Festival
http://www.longbeachcrawfishfestival.com/
With an entire weekend off and no idea what to do with my time, I found myself hopping into my car and driving out of sunny San Diego up to LA for a visit, and when my mom told me they would be at the Crawfish Festival in Long Beach on Saturday and had an extra ticket, I knew I had to tag along. Now, I’m not a huge fan of steamed crawfish or any steamed shellfish really, solely due to the fact that I am lazy and don’t want to work that hard for my food. Luckily, I had a plethora of other down south specialties to choose from, and because I don’t love making choices, I basically just ate everything.
My huge and ridiculously strong margarita was placed in my hand upon arrival after over an hour in traffic, so refreshing on a 100-degree day, and it did its job almost too well.
Mom decided that we needed to “take a lap” to check out all of our options, her new husband (Congrats mom and Mike!) told us to bring something back to snack on before he went and picked up his giant bucket of crawfish, so off we went. We wandered a bit before coming to a screeching halt upon reading the words “fries etouffee.” I became etouffee obsessed when visiting New Orleans, and I love fries topped with basically anything, so these guys did not disappoint. Crispy and substantial fries were the perfect base to hold the rich and saucy etouffee, with a little crawfish tucked into each delicious bite.
Our other choice was the catfish nuggets, because duh, you don’t take a girl to a festival rooted in southern food and deprive her of catfish. Crispy on the outside, perfectly tender and flaky fish on the inside and almost too easy to just keep popping into your mouth, these certainly didn’t last long.
I couldn’t leave you hanging without proof that there actually was steamed crawfish at this event. A whole bucket of crawfish was included in the ticket price for only $4 over the general admission price. What a steal! My stepdad Mike is creole, a huge fan of crawfish, and seemed very happy with his giant bucket of crawfish, red potatoes and corn.
Somehow, I made room for dinner after our little appetizer party, and chose tilapia that was breaded in cornmeal and had the most delicious crunch. I was so full, but could not stop eating and washing it down with my delicious mango/strawberry margarita.
As we relaxed to the sounds of zydeco music and watched everyone fill up the dance floor, we were treated to the most beautiful sunset over the water. It inspired me to walk to the lit up ice cream truck at the edge of the water for one last treat. While I might be sort of lactose intolerant, I will literally never turn down ice cream and am a total sucker for rainbow sprinkles, so this made me the happiest girl in town!
The Long Beach Crawfish Festival was such a lovely way to spend an evening, and after attending the Long Beach Funk Festival last year, I highly recommend any event. The city certainly knows how to offer up a great time!
