Filed under: Food Made by Other Food Folks, Random Foodie Thoughts | Tags: boo fries, food, The Acme Oyster House, travel
So, you know how it goes. You go to a restaurant far from home. You see something unique on the menu. You order. Your taste buds are taken on a journey to Awesomeville. You mourn the fact that you may never taste this dish again.
It is a sad, sad cycle. What to do?
Try to make it at home, and if it fails, you never tell anyone.
If it succeeds, you can post it on your foodie blog for your foodie friends. Both of them.
That, you two, is what is happening here. While at Acme Oyster House, we ordered Boo Fries for no other reason than they sounded interesting. Yet, they were fabulous. Life changing? I don’t think that overstates things. Really, delish.
So, we are home now, and the chance of Boo Fries from Acme Oyster is a dim possibility. It just isn’t gonna happen anytime soon, but they were so simple that I thought that maybe I could recreate them. How hard could it be? Plus, the husband had already given me the go-ahead to make a roast (not his favorite thing to eat) to try out the fries. So, I tried them.
Success, my friends. Success.
Good gosh almighty, they were good. All I did was make a roast in a pretty simple fashion.
I used a small roast with an onion, celery, potatoes, and a package of Crock Pot savory pot roast seasoning. I left it in the crock pot all day, and then just before suppertime, I fried up some frozen French fries. To serve them up, I plated them with the fries, then the juice from the crock pot, and shredded Cheddar cheese on top.
This recipe, as simple as it is, is a keeper. Three out of four of us loved it, and it was pretty close to the Acme’s dish. It was a happy and proud moment for me and my stomach. May the cycle of vacation food be broken again someday. If I can do it again, I promise I’ll tell you both about it.
Filed under: Random Foodie Thoughts | Tags: destin, florida, food, life, places to eat in Destin, places to eat in sandestin, sandestin, seafood, The Acme Oyster House, travel
The Acme Oyster House is a fabulous place to eat. We love it. It was a must-go-to on our trip to Destin.
There is only one problem-the neighborhood.
When we are around the beach, the people in the restaurants we visit are nice and comfortable. Folks may be dressed nicely, or they may be in their sandy swimsuits, which may or may not be a good thing to look at. People at the beach are going with the flow. They are there to have a good time. If someone doesn’t wear makeup or fix their hair or even match? That’s okay. It is all good in the sand.
The Acme Oyster House is not in a run down neighborhood, for sure. Quite the opposite. It is found in a nice area in Sandestin called the Baytown Warf. They have shops and restaurants and neat things to do. It is not really near the beach. Therefore, it is not so near the beach mentality. Everytime we have visited this area, we have felt a little out of place.
Not that we are slackers, I guess. It is just a shock to the system to go from seeing bathing suits and flip flops to seeing whole families dressed in matching outfits of blue and white seersucker with their noses slightly affixed in the air.
For example, we took Miss Helper to the American Girl Doll store near the restaurant. She picked out a doll and an outfit to go with her doll. She had a hard time with the outfit since she was only allowed one. After much thought on Miss Helper’s part, she picked out a green Hawaiian dress with matching lei. It was cute, and it was the last one. Miss Helper was proud of the doll with the dress, and so she carried her around with her all the time.
As we were shopping and such, I heard (and Miss Helper did too) several grown women say to other grown women who all had on Outfits and could have used a sandwich for some meat on their bones, “That was the American Girl dress we wanted.” They were talking about the dress Miss Helper’s doll was wearing.
I wanted to say, “Welp, you snobby little snob, too bad for you.”
That would never happen at Fudpuckers.
And so, when we visit Acme Oyster, it is an experience.
On this trip, our family plus our well-dressed doll ate on the patio to the side of the restaurant. A family in line in front of us wouldn’t eat outside (maybe it might wrinkle their seersucker to sit outside?), but we will and walked right in. The non-outside eating family waited. Outside.
We started our al fresco dining experience with the broiled oysters and the boo fries.
The oysters were fantastic as expected. They were hot as fire and good as gold.
The boo fries were a long shot. I picked them because they reminded me of an article I read recently about the way fries are often served up North.
They were crisp fries with a warm, rich, beefy gravy and cheese on top.
Deee-vine. I now have permission from my non-roast eating hubby to make roast just so we can try making boo fries on our own with the roast gravy.
For our dinner, Miss Helper had the seafood gumbo. She had asked our waitress if it was a spicy dish, and the waitress said no. It ended up being a little too spicy for her, but we think she takes after her Granmommy in such a way that rice krispies would be spicy for her. She still ate like a champ.
Mr. Opinionated wanted to order the boiled crawfish, but they were out. We found that peculiar. He had the fried crawfish po boy instead. So, they could fry them but not boil them. Hmmm….
Mr. Picky had the chicken and liked it fine. No surprises there.
For the second time in a row, I had the Peacemaker. Good Lawd, it is good. It is spicy and crunchy and fresh and amazing. I love it. I ate the whole thing.
While we were enjoying ourselves, our vacation, and our food, the table next to us became occupied with a group of fellow outside the restaurant eaters-a mom and her three kids. They were none of our business, but soon, they became too interesting to ignore.
Two of the kids made it fine, but when it came time for the daughter to order, she wasn’t going to cooperate easily. The fish she wanted was off the menu. The waitress explained that the new fish on the menu was about the same as the one she was looking for. The daughter wouldn’t hear of it. Then, the waitress offered a different fish cooked a different way and several other options. No go. The daughter resorted to pouting and eating nothing.
When the fresh oysters they ordered arrived, the mom took one look and declared they would not do because they were too big. The waitress explained that those oysters were the smallest they had and that she specifically asked the kitchen for small oysters just for her. The mom refused them and sent them back.
What a snot. Like they should shuck all the oysters they had just so she could have the twelve smallest ones.
She didn’t even say thank you.
That’s my only problem with Acme Oyster House. We love it-really, we do. The food is top-notch, but the company could be a little less on the Real Housewives of Destin side.
Filed under: Food Made by Others | Tags: Destin Florida, food, life, places to eat in Destin, restaurant review, sandestin, The Acme Oyster House
Charbroiled Oysters
The Peacemaker
In my opinion, restaurants like Applebee’s, Red Lobster, McDonald’s, and such are fine. I eat at places like these all the time. They will do.
However, I do believe that they have no place at all anywhere around vacation spots. Congress should regulate it. No Pizza Hut within one mile of any condo in the US. The idea of eating at O’Charley’s on vacation? Good grief.
People have to be protected from themselves, I believe. Friends don’t let friends eat at Olive Garden while on vacation. It’s like kissing your sister on the mouth. You just don’t do it.
Instead, you go off the beaten path. You go out of your comfort zone. You make memories in special places. You spend a little more to eat than usual. You save for a year to get out of dodge. Make it worth it.
Go to a place like the Acme Oyster House. It is legendary. Famous for its fresh oysters and best known as a spot in New Orleans, it is where you go on vacation.
We did. We found an Acme Oyster House in Sandestin, Florida. It was loud. It was crowded. It was busy. It was awesome.
We started with the charbroiled oysters since my husband didn’t feel brave enough for the raw type. This is how oysters are done, my friends. I mean, it was the definition of fresh. I could see the guy shucking the oysters from where I was sitting. They were perfection, and you could see the oysters (unlike another Destin restaurant reviewed here). The only problem was that we only ordered a half dozen. I could have eaten another dozen by myself.
My husband’s main course was a pound of steamed crawfish. It couldn’t have been better, but again, he could have eaten another pound or two.
I had the Peacemaker, a sandwich with fried shrimp, oysters, and a tabasco mayo. I ate every drop. My mouth was on fire, but I ate it all.
Steamed Crawfish
My only regret? We didn’t order enough of the oysters and the crawfish. However, I can live with that since we all left full and happy.
We got to eat at a place that otherwise is way off our radar. I hope it’s not, but it could have been a once in a lifetime chance. It was a wonderful eating experience. And that is what vacation is supposed to be.
The Opinionated Foodie: The Love (or Not) of Food and Everything That Goes with It 