With apologies to Bubba, Forrest Gump's shrimp-dish connoisseur, on the Alabama Gulf Coast you can experience a wide variety of taste sensations from just one method of cooking: frying.
In my decades on the Gulf Coast, first growing up in New Orleans, visiting my parents on the Mississippi Coast and then living in Baldwin County, I have eaten many a fried shrimp, considering it to be the litmus test of a restaurant's fry station.
Yesterday, I experienced shrimp nirvana, the ultimate fried shrimp, in Bayou La Batre.
The shrimp at The Lighthouse Restaurant on Padgett Switch Road were large to jumbo, plump and juicy, perfect in color, texture and consistency. The half a dozen shrimp, with two sides - I chose cole slaw and potato salad - were cloaked in a delectable tempura-type batter. I ate them with my fingers, each taking two to three bites to consume, and scooped up every last tidbit that fell to the plate.
The waitress, a pleasant lady of indeterminable middle age, said the secret to these prize-worthy fried shrimp was:
The catch was obtained fresh from the docks in Bayou La Batre and never saw the inside of a freezer. Once at they restaurant they were carefully put on ice until a patron's order was placed. Then the able cooks went to work, deveining and cleaning the shrimp before they were popped in the batter and cooked in "clean Canola oil."
Fresh shrimp, clean shrimp, clean oil. Oh, if it was so simply everywhere!
Half dozen were around $10.
On the Baldwin side of the Bay, there are several note-worthy establishments serving fried shrimp.
For shrimp po-boys, two places get applause for quantity and quality.
R&R Seafood, new to the Causeway, serves a fried shrimp that packs a little more embellishment in the seasoning. Here, take note of the count of shrimp and the quality of the bread, which that day seemed like it came from an old bakery in New Orleans. These shrimp reminded me a bit of my mother frying shrimp at home, dredging them through an egg wash and then a dry mix.
In fact, it was my mother who trumpeted her find at Market By The Bay on U.S. 98 in Daphne, just south of I-10. Mom bragged that she found a place that served a po-boy with, count ‘em, 38 shrimp on one sandwich.
Both places serve a po-boy that will satisfy two for around $10.
The Original Oyster House on the Causeway in Spanish Fort consistently delivers superior fried shrimp, along with a host of other seafoods. And it is that consistent product, not perhaps as rave-worthy as The Lighthouse's, but always convenient and always tasty, that draws huge crowds, particularly during the summer.
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