No Okra, Please: Podna's Catfish & Po-Boys

A few years in South Louisiana taught me some things about Cajun food. Some of those things I still remember, like how to fry up a mess of gator, how to eat crawfish, where to find good gratons, and where they make good boudin. I'm only an honorary coon-ass, but I can still appreciate quality in Cajun food.

I can also tell the difference between Cajun food and Creole food. Creole food is what we used to have when I was a kid in New Orleans. Cajun food is what kids eat in New Iberia and Delcambre and Breaux Bridge and Mermentau. Dishes might share the same name, but they are different enough that most people can tell. The gumbo that you get on Carrollton Avenue is as different from the gumbo on Bayou Lafourche as a Saab is from a Lexus.

This talent for distinguishing one from the other does me little good in a place like San Antonio, where both are often sold together and neither is done particularly well. But there are a few places around town where you can get food that is, if not thoroughly authentic Louisiana cookin', at least tasty. Unfortunately for me, most of them are on the fringes of the city, i.e., outside Loop 410, so I rarely get there. 

But there is Podna's Catfish and Po-Boys, on Austin Highway between the Spectrum Health Club and the Wal-Mart. Nothing fancy about this place, it's just a sandwich shop, but it's got the basics of Louisiana cooking down. It presents itself as a Cajun place, but it's not; it's creole.

I've been there several times, and have been happy with it on each visit. I haven't tried the catfish (cher, if it didn't sleep in the bayou last night, I don't want it), but the po-boys are wonderful. My favourite is the shrimp po-boy, dressed. (In Louisiana tradition, if you want lettuce and tomato and all the other fixin's on your po-boy, you just order it dressed; if not, you specify what you want.) Be sure to add a little of the delicious home-made remoulade sauce, in the thoroughly déclassé squeeze bottle on your table. The bread is huge, maybe twice the size of baguettes used in other places, and just crusty enough to hold together and make that satisfying noise when you press it. (If you've seen the animated movie Ratatouille, you know what I mean.) The cooks at Podna's have learned how to tell exactly when to remove the shrimp from the fryer, making it crisp and hot and not greasy at all. The french fries are cooked with similar precision, though they are sprinkled with a little seasoning -- I'm guessing Tony Chachere's -- that I could do without. (I could probably get them without if I thought to ask, but the truth is I have never ordered fries there; I just always seem to share the table with somebody having fries with their meal, and get to taste them.) The hushpuppies are good, too; but then, you really can't mess up hushpuppies except by letting them go stale. And the red beans and rice ... well, it takes me way back. I can honestly say it's much better than I can make at home.

When it comes to ambience, there's not much to say. It's a plain ol' fast-food place, except for the purple, green & gold table coverings and the mish-mash of Orleanian memorabilia: Mardi Gras beads, Who-Dat shirt, a few other references to the Crescent City culture. (When I lived in Acadiana, if you mentioned New Orleans, you were sure to get this response: a slow shake of the head and the regretful line, "Dem people in N'awlinz, dey sho know how ta paaaarty." Which is true.) Still, the place is clean, and bright, and if not tastefully decorated, it at least is evocative of its spiritual home on the Big River.  

Some of the people who work behind the counter sound like they come from the bayou. I don't have any trouble deciphering their Cajun accents, but at least one friend who accompanied me on a visit there had to ask me for translations. Usually that's not a problem, though; there are plenty of people working there who speak English like the rest of us, and if all else fails, you can show them the menu and point.  One piece of advice, though: don't order a regular-sized po-boy unless you plan to have half of it the next day. It's that big. (I can also affirm that the shrimp po-boy, dressed, makes great leftovers.)