Southwest Louisiana Top 20 Restaurants

We all need to eat, right? And when we go on trips, we like to have great food and experiences sampling the local cuisine. In Southwest Louisiana's case cuisine and culture are almost synonymous! In an effort to make it easier for visitors to find the best Lake Charles/Southwest Louisiana has to offer, we left it up to the public to tell you where the Top 20 Restaurants in Southwest Louisiana are.

There were 175 restaurant nominations made by the public with 2,655 votes cast, beginning one month prior to National Tourism Week, May 4-12.

Here are the Top 3! (for the complete Top 20, visit: http://www.visitlakecharles.org/top20/)

1. Steamboat Bills1004 N. Lakeshore Drive
   Lake Charles, LA 70601
   Phone: (337) 494-1070
   
   Cajun/Creole, seafood. Serving lunch, dinner & late night. Boiled crawfish (hot & spicy), crabs, seafood dinners, crawfish and shrimp pistolettes, gumbo, etouffee, po-boys & stuffed potatoes. Fast full-service restaurant. Banquet and catering available. Casual attire.
2. Luna Bar & Grill
   719 Ryan St.
   Lake Charles, LA 70601
   Phone: 337 494-5862
   
   Located in Downtown Lake Charles, you will experience great food, eclectic atmosphere, live music and local culture.
3. Pat's of Henderson
   1500 Siebarth Dr.
   Lake Charles, LA 70615
   Phone: (337) 439-6618
   
   Cajun/Creole, steaks and seafood. Crawfish is our specialty! Conveniently located off of I-210 (Legion Street Exit). Family-oriented with a relaxed atmosphere. We have luncheon specials. Banquet facilities are available. Casual attire.

How to Peel a Crawfish

Lake Charles / Southwest Louisiana is known for its amazing cuisine, and no cuisine is held on a higher pedestal to locals than Crawfish (aka- mudbugs or crawdads). Usually boiled in a large pot and liberally seasoned, it's not unusual to see a local go through at least 5 lbs of these delicious critters! So if you are ever in the area and find yourself with the privilege to eat crawfish, you better be prepared!

Enjoy the this fun video and if you have a better way to peel a crawfish, take a video and share the link with us here in the comments section or on our Facebook wall at https://www.facebook.com/LakeCharlesCVB.

My First Mardi Gras

As an individual who grow up in the cornfields of Northern Indiana, nothing could prepare me for the excitement that is Mardi Gras! Sure, we had our county festival that was plenty exciting with rides, entertainment, food and, my personal favorite, the pig races, but the fair never lasted long enough and the parade was generic and lacking.

This brings me to my first Mardi Gras experience that hopefully you can learn from. I was 21 and lured down to Lake Charles by my future wife. I decided that Mardi Gras season would be the perfect time to leave the mundane behind, and I was right!

During my trip I was treated to the legendary southern hospitality, to the point that people I had just met invited me to my very first crawfish boil! I had never eaten crawfish before and my first impression of everyone going crazy about these little mud bugs was that they were nuts. After my first heaping tray full of the little critters, I could see why everyone was crazy… They were delicious!

As the trip progressed I was able to explore the Mardi Gras Museum which is home to the largest collection of Mardi Gras costumes in the world. It was amazing to see all of these very unique and over-the-top costumes that the Mardi Gras Kings and Queens wear at their balls and parades.

After a while I was introduced to my very first King Cake. For those of us not raised in the Mardi Gras culture, it is a delicious cake that comes in a variety of flavors (my favorite is cream cheese and strawberry) traditional served around the Mardi Gras season. My first bite in the cake offered quite a surprise, a tiny plastic baby! Apparently, there is a plastic baby hidden in the King Cake’s that when found offer the finder certain privileges and obligations, such as buying the next King Cake! What a way to welcome a visitor, shove a toy in his food, don’t tell him about it, and then have him buy the next cake! It was a great bonding experience, but be warned, Baby in Cake!

After the cake fiasco, I was finally lead to my very first Mardi Gras parade, the Krewe of Krewes Parade. This happened to be one of the largest parades in Southwest Louisiana. Starting right before dark the excitement was alive with people who had been camping out all day. I quickly learned this was not your typical parade with marching bands, the crazy little guys who fly around on go carts, and beauty queens. Instead, I witnessed these crazy, raised floats pumping out music and a shower of beads, cups, and plastic coins raining down upon my head! People were excited, waving their hands in the air and yelling “Throw me something mister!” It took a little bit for me bust out of my shell, but I quickly found myself having the time of my life.

So, if you’re looking for something different and exciting that you will remember for a lifetime, try visiting Mardi Gras in Lake Charles/Southwest Louisiana!

For more info go to http://www.visitlakecharles.org/mardi-gras/