Hot 'n Juicy Head Ripping

So, we tried a new restaurant on Friday, Hot 'n Juicy Crawfish. First let me say, go try it. The food is delicious, the decor is nice and the service, while slow, was friendly and efficient.

Hot n' Juicy Crawfish (4810 W. Spring Mountain Road, 702-891-8889, open daily from noon to ten p.m.) is a minimalist restaurant. It is not for the faint of heart. You eat in the style of a southern crawfish boil. Your table is covered in plastic and your meal will come to you in a plastic bag, which you dump in the table and start shucking and eating, pulling paper towels from the roll on your table to occasionally wipe your hands and face with. It is a place that gives you a plastic bib to wear, and trust me, you should wear it. You can choose from crawfish, shrimp, and crab which will be steamed in that plastic bag with your choice of seasonings. They have juicy cajun, garlic butter, lemon pepper or the special which combines them all. You will have to pull the heads off of your crawfish or shrimp, which is not my favorite thing and may not be very appetizing for the squeamish. You have to crack your own crab. No utensils are available except for plastic ones and some metal crackers for the crab. Once you de-head and peel your seafood of choice, dip it back into your plastic bag for some of the tasy sauce that is now covering your arms and hands. You can request your sauce mild, medium, spicy an extra spicy. Our server recommended that we order one step down as their mild was medium, medium was spicy, etc. The medium was just right for me and I like my food spicy. Any hotter and I may have regretted it. I got the special sauce which was awesome, with chunks of minced garlic along with the cajun spice. Food is market priced and on our visit that put the shrimp at $9.99 a pound, not at all overpriced for such large shrimp, which were perfectly steamed.

Sides are available, and for an ultra reasonable price you can add a potato or corn on the cob to your plastic bag. The cajun fries are wonderful, fresh from the fryer, hot and crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside with enough lip tingling spice to make me grab for a drink of water more than once. For those afraid of pulling the heads off of anything or with a total dislike of mess, they do have fried shrimp, fried catfish, chicken wings and a crawfish etoufee which is on my list to try next time. As you shuck your meal, you leave everything on your table, which after you leave the wait staff will just bundle the whole mess into that plastic tablecloth and throw it all away.

Which, combined with a trip to Memphis Barbecue yesterday, left Gourmand Girl pondering why it is so enjoyable to eat such a messy meal. It is perhaps due to our caveman roots that such civilized people enjoy such a visceral experience. To rip off the head of your meal or tear the flesh from the bone is primal. It isn't neat, which is terrible for some people. My grandfather would eat his sandwich with a knife and fork so I'm sure he would have been horrified to see bib wearing neanderthals like me happily ripping and tearing and eating like the primative beasts we am. Sure, I enjoy a seven course meal replete with utensils not used in the everday like an asparagus server or the ice cream fork. But there is something to be said for eating with your hands. There is not art, no edifice to stand between you and the food. Just food on a convenient rib, to taste the meat, succulent and unctuous as at falls away from bone in great satisfying hunks into your mouth. Add to that a tasty sauce and I'm in heathen Nirvana.

If you too love the occasional meal where you're just there for the food and you want a great big messy pile of it, head to Hot 'n Juicy Crawfish. Rip a couple of heads for me!