Nothing Boring About A Cajun Shrimp Burger

Mason’s Grill
13556 Jefferson Hwy.
Baton Rouge, LA





Mason’s Grill is the embodiment of everything I love about the state of Louisiana -- the best state in America for eating.

End of discussion.

Even at an ordinary-looking non-descript place on the outskirts of Baton Rouge like Mason’s you can find something extraordinary to light up your taste buds.

I mean, this isn’t the kind of place I normally seek out.

There is nothing historic or quaint about it. It’s not some Travel Channel dining landmark.

Mason’s has no divey charm or scary clientele.

It’s just a boring looking restaurant with a big parking lot filled with pickups sitting by the side of the road patronized by local families out for a good meal.

But looks can be deceiving -- especially in the Bayou State where “a good meal” is almost never boring.

There is nothing boring about chowing down on giant dangerous reptiles -- especially the way Mason’s prepares alligator.

While I enjoy my oversized lizards fried as much as any red blooded heterosexual American male, you have to try your gator blackened just once in your life.

This alligator was generously seasoned with Cajun spices, perfect with the tangy New Orleans style remoulade dipping sauce.

Tender, juicy and packing a nice kick, Mason’s blackened gator was like a Mardi Gras parade in every bite.

So does gator taste like chicken?

Well, yeah. Kind of.

Like a swampy, greasy, delicious chicken.

While the gator is top notch, the real reason to come to Mason’s is for their famous Cajun Shrimp Burger.

This burger is epic!

A half pound of fresh ground beef spiked with jalapeno peppers is then sautéed in more jalapenos and Cajun spices.

But I’m pretty sure that is not even half of this burger’s caloric overload.

The burger is topped by a molten lava concoction of gooey Monterey Jack cheese and shrimp.

Yes. Shrimp.

On a burger.

How awesome is that?

Pretty damn awesome as a matter of fact.

And these aren’t those lame little cocktail shrimp I was expecting.

We’re talking big plump local Gulf Coast shrimp. The real deal.

The cheese/shrimp topping was thicker than the half pound burger -- and oozed appetizingly with every delicious bite.

Fortunately, Mason’s uses an industrial-sized sourdough bun fresh made from a bakery in Houston to keep it all together.

Too often these epic sized burger/condiment combinations transform into an epic failure because the buns just can’t stand up to the meat/cheese/grease assault.

But not here. Mason’s has mastered the art of burger structural integrity.

Cooked exactly the way I asked for it -- a nice medium pink with plenty of juices flowing, the burger featured a harmonious yin and yang of sweet and spicy.

The jalapenos in the beef let their presence be known, but never turned my mouth into an inferno of spice.

The jack cheese and shrimp lended a perfect sweet balance to the Cajun spices.

Definitely a Suit757 burger Hall of Famer. For sure.

Along with a side of first rate onion rings, I had trouble finishing my meal. And that’s saying something.

My bartender said most folks don’t finish the burger. And most folks don’t start with a whole appetizer of gator either.

But then again most folks ain’t Suit757.

I’m a professional after all.

The beer selection at Mason’s was decent -- for Louisiana -- a state with among the least adventurous tastes in craft beer.

Proving that Louisianans are all about the food -- not the drink, the local Canebrake from Parrish Brewing Company in Lafayette was just a bland boring wheat beer with a sweet aftertaste.

Canebrake just adds further proof to my theory that wheat beers are brewed for people who don’t actually like the taste of beer.

So much for trying new local beer I’ve never had before.

So I switched to the familiar.

Mason’s sports a nice lineup of Abita beers from the brewery down the road in Abita Springs.

I opted for my favorite Abita -- Turbo Dog.

First of all, it’s fun just telling the bar tender, “I’ll take a Turbo Dog.”

The dark heavy ale is a perfect foil to the Cajun spiced delicacies you can find on just about any menu in this state.

Even at a mundane looking place like Mason’s.

Sure, it would make for a more entertaining story if I could tell you I risked my life walking into a smoky biker bar with heads turning, beady eyes glaring, fingers on switch blades twitching as soon as I swung upon the saloon doors.

But you know what? I’ve been to enough of those places.

Sometimes it’s nice to nice to know a suit doesn’t have to risk his life to get an epic burger.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Up the Creek with Kate Upton

Up the Creek
313 Water Street
Apalachicola, FL



They call this the “Forgotten Coast.”

And a trip to the small town of Apalachicola on the Gulf Coast of Florida’s Panhandle will help you understand why.

There are no interstates here. The nearest airport is an hour and a half away.

This is the northwest corner of Florida with more in common culturally, geographically and politically with Alabama than Miami or Orlando.

The tea and Southern drawls are sweeter here.

The Spanish moss hangs thicker here.

And the pace of life is slower here.

Apalachicola’s quaint beauty and rustic isolation is probably why Sports Illustrated chose this town to shoot its 2012 Swimsuit issue with Kate Upton.


Any town good enough for Kate Upton is good enough for me.

Mickey Mouse has his charms, I suppose, but when I travel the backroads of the Sunshine State, it is sugary beaches, cold beer and salty oysters that I’m looking for.

Apalachicola and the “Forgotten Coast” is where I come to find them.

A tiny town of just 3,000 people, Apalachicola is synonymous with oysters.

The Apalachicola River drains out of the farmlands of Georgia and Alabama spilling its contents into Apalachicola Bay where fresh water collides with the salty Gulf of Mexico, creating the ideal brackish cauldron of seawater that oysters crave.

Blessed by geography and God’s grace, this town is perfectly situated to take advantage of the bounty of one of Earth’s perfect oyster estuaries.

90% of the oysters consumed in Florida (and two thirds of the oysters consumed in the Southeast) come from this little bay in the “forgotten” corner of Florida.

As you might expect, Apalach, as the locals call it, has quite a few options for knocking back cold beers and the local delicacies served on a half shell.

Like Apalach itself, Up the Creek benefits greatly from its location.

Rising high into the air hard against the waterfront, Up the Creek is the ideal place to eat oysters in this ideal oyster town.

Fresh Apalachicola oysters always taste good. But they just seem even tastier when you eat them outside on a big porch overlooking the water with an ice cold India Pale Ale in hand.

Since this is the middle of winter -- and as I already explained, this is a world away from the warmth of Miami -- I opted for the heated glassed-in half of the deck.

Somewhat surprising for this remote crevasse of the Deep South, Up the Creek had a very nice selection of craft beer along with the usual ubiquitous mass produced stuff.

On tap were two of my favorite IPAs on earth -- Southern Tier out of Upstate New York and Cigar City Jai Alai out of Tampa.

I alternated between the two, hoping to settle the debate in my mind as to which one I liked best.

Unfortunately the results of my testing were inconclusive as my palette and mind got foggier as the afternoon wore on.

The Cigar City Jai Alai IPA was a little sweeter with a fuller alcohol kick than the Southern Tier but both are top notch facsimiles of the style.

I think. The details are a bit fuzzy.

It was an expensive experiment as Up the Creek charged six bucks a pint -- triple the price of the Bud and Miller Lite taps.

I think these small town places in the rural South are catching on that big city tourists want good beer -- but they are going to charge the hell out of them for it.

Meanwhile the locals snicker as they suck on their two dollar long necks of red white and blue.

Oh well. That’s American entrepreneurship at its best.

I’m certainly not going to fault them for giving me what I want and making a profit off it.

In this case, good beer was just an added bonus because I was here to eat local Apalachicola oysters regardless of beer selection.

Up the Creek didn’t disappoint.

I’ve eaten a lot of oysters in my day, but these were some of the most exquisite.

I ordered them in two ways -- steamed and “Southern Fella”.

The “Southern Fella” were steamed with finely chopped collard greens, butter, parmesan cheese and bacon bits.

They looked like a work of art -- almost too good to eat.

Almost.

Decadent is the only way to describe them.

Unlike oysters baked with goops of melted cheese, these gourmet oysters allowed the toppings to complement the oysters rather than overwhelm them.

I mean, isn’t that the point of eating oysters? To actually taste the oysters?

You are paying a buck a piece for them -- an absolute bargain, by the way, compared to the price you’ll pay for oysters in Portland, Oregon or New York City. You want to make sure you get that taste of the sea you can only get from a freshly shucked oyster.

If I wanted lasagna on the half shell, I’d have gone out for Italian and skipped the oysters altogether.

The parmesan butter and the tender greens enhanced the flavor of the oysters while the bacon lended a smoky crunch.

Bacon enhances the flavor of EVERYTHING!

But as good as the gourmet “Southern Fella” oysters were, I have to say the more simple steamed oysters were even better.

Unencumbered by competing -- though complimentary -- flavors, the succulence of Apalachicola’s famous shellfish shone more brightly with nothing but some butter, parsley and seasoned salt.


I jazzed a couple up with some Ed’s Red Hot Sauce, a local cocktail/hot sauce hybrid made up the road in Port St. Joe.

Like a miracle bra on Kate Upton, it was good…

…but unnecessary.

What made these oysters so extraordinary was the labor and care that went into serving them.

First of all, Up the Creek only serves the freshest, plumpest oysters.

Each and every oyster is shucked by hand, freed from the shell by severing the attaching muscle and left to steam in a bath of butter for the absolute perfect duration of time.

There is no grit or grime or shell fragments to deal with. All the work is done for you. All you have to do is pop the oyster in your mouth and enjoy.

Easy and delicious.

Almost too easy.

I found myself exclaiming the virtues of my oysters to my waiter while ordering up another couple dozen.

“I know what you mean! I’ve been enjoying them my entire life,” said my friendly attentive waiter in a coastal drawl.

I say too easy because the tab for my afternoon of oysters and beer came to nearly seventy bucks.

But worth every penny.

In fact, the next day I came back again.

While the temperature wasn’t any warmer, this time the sun was out.

So I opted for the open air section of the deck facing the bay and the oyster trawlers tied up to the pilings.

I scored the only picnic table in the sun, a crucial coup considering that 60 degrees with a breeze off the bay wasn’t going to work for me in the shade.

If possible, the beer and oysters tasted even better in the sweet salt air with warming sunshine beating down on a bright blue afternoon.


After more of those delicious oysters and a couple more pints of IPA, I decided to explore the Up the Creek menu a bit further.

You think I would pass up the alligator, sausage, shrimp and crab gumbo?

Not a chance.

As good as it sounded -- big chunks of gator and sausage in a spicy crab meat broth warmed me up as the pelicans enviously swooped by searching for their own meal.

I had to try the alligator burger too.

Made with fresh ground up alligator meat and topped with a sweet mayo and a spicy slaw, this was one of the strangest sandwiches I’ve ever eaten.

It’s hard to describe.

The burger had the consistency of a swampy crab cake.


Okay. I know that is not helping much.

Like a gatorey chicken salad? Is that better?

No?

I don’t know.

It was odd. The meat was white, crumbly and surprisingly bland. Most of the flavor came from the tasty condiments. And the dousing I gave it with some tableside “Tiger Sauce”.

Oh, well. At least I can now say I’ve tried an alligator meat burger.

That might be the most I can recommend about it.

The side dish was the highlight -- fried green beans.

Vegetables taste so much better when they are breaded and deep fried. Especially when dipped in Up the Creek’s homemade rémoulade sauce available on the topping bar inside.

As I paid my tab and hit the road for civilization, I realized that this place is the ideal personification of everything an oyster-eating journey to the Forgotten Coast should be.

Up the Creek has the freshest plumpest oysters and the nicest views of this quaint bayside town.

Now I can see why Sports Illustrated chose this place as the backdrop for shooting Kate Upton in her various states of undress.

The American South never looked so good.

I wonder if she’ll ever come back to Apalach.

I know I will.

Hey, Kate, if you want to meet me on the deck at Up the Creek for a few dozen oysters, the t-shirt is on me.

Rating: Bought two shirts! (One for me and one for Kate.)

Gettin’ Some Cooter in Cross Creek

The Yearling
14531 E. County Road 325
Cross Creek, FL

Homesick but it’s alright
Lochloosa is on my mind
She’s on my mind-- “Lochloosa” by JJ Grey & Mofro

What’s on your mind when you think of Florida?

If it is cars driving on the world’s most famous beach, 45 story high-rises filled with Jewish widows from Brooklyn or a giant mouse, well, you should come down here to the shores of Lochloosa Lake.

If you do you’ll understand why songwriter JJ Grey can’t help but feeling homesick for the place.

This is the Florida not of amusement parks, golf courses and snow-fleeing Yankee refugees but rather horse farms, fresh water springs and winding country roads canopied by Spanish moss-draped live oak trees.

It’s a slow Southern landscape that has inspired poets and writers from JJ Grey to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1939 for her book “The Yearling” about a fictional local boy and his pet deer.

Almost all of Rawlings’ writings were based on the local animals, cuisine and characters who lived around the 72 acre Cross Creek orange grove she adopted as her home. From preachers to moonshiners, the Cracker culture of 20th Century North Florida was a never-ending source of inspiration for Rawlings.

“Half-wild backwoods country,” she called it.

I’m happy to say, not much has changed in Cross Creek during the 58 years since she died. You can still tour her home and orange grove.

And a stone’s throw from there, The Yearling restaurant is still serving up pretty much the same authentic Cracker cooking Rawlings loved to write about.

A ramshackle joint that has been standing here beside County Road 325 for almost six decades, where else are you going to go to get yourself some fried cooter and frog legs?

The Yearling serves it all – venison, oysters, crabs, quail, alligator. And cooter.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Cooter is soft shell turtle, a local delicacy once abundant that’s getting harder to find around these parts. And is apparently – in the right hands, any way – quite tasty.


The Yearling dining room is patrolled by waitresses wearing bright Yearling T-shirts that proclaim “Eat Mo Cooter”, with a friendly looking tortoise on the back.

The Yearling restaurant is cluttered with memorabilia from “The Yearling” book and “The Yearling” movie. Old timey bottles and cans decorate the shotgun mounted mantle above the working fire place.

Best of all is the sound track to this rustic Southern setting – Willie Green.

Willie sits in a chair alone in the middle of the dining room picking his guitar, blowing his harmonica and singing old acoustic blues tunes. And chatting with the eclectic mix of locals and out-of-towners.

Hovering somewhere near the 80 year mark, Willie is a local blues legend. The real deal. You just know sitting there watching him and listening that Willie has been more places and seen more stuff go down than even the most traveled suit in a strange place.

Old time Southern blues performed live by a real life legend. An authentic rustic atmosphere. Shotgun on the mantle.

I know this place sounds like it has all the markings of Suit757 Hall of Famer.

Unfortunately, the food and prices hold the Yearling down a notch.

First of all, they were out of cooter.

Bummer. No cooter tonight for Suit757.

I ordered the combo plate of frog legs, soft shell crab, alligator and catfish. And fried green tomatoes for an appetizer.

While tasty and enjoyable, all five items were fried with the identical batter, lessening a bit the excitement of sampling such a wide range of creatures out of the swamp.

No one comes to The Yearling for culinary creativity.

The tomatoes were battered, fried and served with ranch dressing. Everything else was battered, fried and served with cocktail sauce. No exotic seasonings or fancy remoulade sauces here.

Simple. Familiar. And just bit monotonous.

Hey, if you want creative Southern cooking, go to Asheville. If you want authentic Cracker cuisine, come to Cross Creek.

It seemed a bit early to me for soft shell crab season, but my waitress insisted they were fresh. More batter and shell than crab meat, these soft shells weren’t going to make me forget about the Chesapeake Bay any time soon.

Big and meaty, the catfish fillet needed a few shakes of hot sauce to rise above its bland batter.

The star of the plate was the gator, tender succulent chunks of fried reptile tail meat. I always find some sick pleasure in chowing down on an animal bigger and more dangerous than me. This tasty swamp creature didn’t disappoint.

If you’ve never had Southern fried frog legs, The Yearling is a good place to try them. These appendages were pulled off some mighty large amphibians, producing a surprisingly generous portion of meat.

The texture and taste of swampy chicken wings, eating fried frog legs while listening to Willie Green’s low down Southern blues is way more fun than riding Space Mountain.

The side dishes of cole slaw, hush puppies and collard greens were pretty standard. Again, nothing to elevate them to shirt-buying accolades.

I was somewhat amused by the beer selection.

The chalk board at the bar bragged about having over a dozen beers. Except it was like The Yearling went out of its way to stock its bar with the most ubiquitous twelve beers in America. Not one unusual or unique offering.

Of course that’s not too surprising considering the setting. If you are looking for microbrews, don’t go to a traditional Southern restaurant in Florida. The Sunshine State has the worst beer variety of all 50.

So I ordered the most out-of-place beer on the list – Negra Modelo.

Yeah, the dark Mexican beer you can find at every neighborhood order-by-numbers Mexican joint. My waitress asked me to repeat it three times. Apparently Negra Modelo is not a big seller to accompany fried swamp critters.

But the best part of the meal came at the very end. Sour orange pie.

This has to be one of the ten best desserts of all time.


Made from fresh oranges picked from the groves right here in Cross Creek, this is a powerfully sweet pie.

The look and texture of an orangey key lime pie, sour orange pie is sweeter and less tart.

Drizzled with chocolate syrup and accompanied by whipped cream, this pie deserves celebrity status. Instead of being relegated to being a meal capper in some swampy obscure corner of North Florida, sour orange pie needs to be discovered by some Food Network bigwigs because every American deserves to try this once.

Man, I’m serious. Forget free health care for life. Sour orange pie for all!

Unfortunately, my sudden out-of-character generosity waned considerably once I got the bill.

After throwing a five in Willie’s tip bucket, my evening was just over $60. Sixty big ones for some fried swamp creatures, two beers, a few fried tomatoes and a slice of pie?

Normally if I’m going to dine at a place that runs sixty bucks per head, I’m going to demand an ocean view or a harem of tabletop belly dancers. Or something.


I mean, it’s not like you are paying for the property taxes or overhead at this rustic shack in the woods. And I’m pretty sure they paid off the mortgage some time over the past six decades. Even poor Willie, rumor has it, only gets paid what comes out of his tip bucket at the end of the night.

So I’m not sure what the justification is for the Ruth’s Chris pricing.

But then again, as Willie would probably agree, cooter just ain’t as easy to get as it once was.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt, But I Didn’t Have Any Money Left.