Wow!

"There was an EGG at the bottom"

This was the original post Benji couldn't stop himself from making despite not being part of the blog. That was the sheer excitement caused by secret New Orleans food YAKA MEIN.

Yaka mein is one of those foods that makes you excited that food is a thing. Not because its so good, but because when people talk about New Orleans food they say "oh a po boy, oh a muffaletta, hey lets get a beignet" and one day you realize that every po boy shop you go to has something called Yaka Mein, and it captures your boyfriend's imagination so much all you hear for several days is "oh, we gotta try that Yaka Mein."

So we made a plan. Benji finally signed the official papers to start his new job and we were going to celebrate by filling our bodies with Yaka Mein. We were going to Man Chu's, a place known for its fried chicken with psychotropic properties (I think its MSG), because we decided they probably also have the best yaka mein.

Before going, we asked our 14 year old neighbor-kid Keron about yaka mein. His mother makes it, it turns out. He described it as "kind of like spaghetti." Which makes sense if you think about it. By the way, this kid's brother thinks the only kind of lo mein is shrimp lo mein, which is charming.

So Man Chu's was closed and we went to Cajun Seafood on Broad St. This is a delicious seafood place run by several vietnamese folks. They have great food. I almost died from eating a catfish po boy there on my first day in town. Because it was so good, you see, because it was so good. Anyway. So we get there and benji says "get whatever you want. we're having a feast." So we ended up getting all the things in the following picture:















And a spicy crawfish pie. (apologies for accidentally making this look like the royal yakameinenbaums)

As you can see, Yaka Mein, it turns out, is a bland, greasy, salty noodle soup. It's fine. Nothing to write home about. But blog, sure, sure I'll blog about that.

There are two possible stories behind it: 1. it came over with chinese immigrants who settled here in the 19th century while working on the railroads or b. black soldiers brought it back from the korean war. In other pictures online it looks super korean, but ours didn't. UNTIL WE FOUND THE EGG AT THE BOTTOM. That's what that's about. It's also called "Ol' Sober" because it is seen as an excellent hangover food. I think that's probably a misguided move since it's so salty and not fried at all but ok.

The oyster po boy was good. I don't think i like oysters that much, but i like fried things and boy were these fried. The gumbo had a ridiculous amount of crab shell in it. The Bush was cold as a mountain stream and smooth as its name. The crawfish pie was AMAZING. I could eat crawfish pies till i died.