Some days, you just need to ditch the niceties of dinner: Throw away the silverware, toss on a bib, and work up a sweat slurping and sucking your food. In the Gulf Coast, land of crawfish boils, they understand this better than we do in the staid Pacific Northwest. Luckily, Crawfish King (725 S Lane, 623-3622) is here to help.
Image: Chris Skiles
RaccoonsIf there’s any doubt that raccoons can be as nasty as they are cute, this should settle it: First there was the day in July when a 28-year-old Lakewood woman was jogging along, totally minding her business and working up an honest sweat, when a handful of raccoons sprang out of the bushes and straight up attacked her. (Okay, her dog may have provoked them. But still.) She ran, and they chased her to her house, knocked her down, and bit her until her dog ran them off. Then in August a gang of masked trash eaters started terrorizing students, dogs, and toddlers near North Seattle Community College. Gotta be the bath salts.
PythonHave you seen the seven-foot reticulated python that belongs to a homeless man who frequents Cowen Park in Roosevelt? No, really, have you seen it? Because it went missing in August, having apparently decided it was done sleeping on the street. And Seattle Animal Control decided not to pursue it because they had “dogs biting all over the city.” Not to worry. No matter how many small pets or children the snake consumes, local herpetologists say it won’t survive the winter.
LynxVacuuming the corner of a room is the worst. You can never get the vacuum all the way in there, but you keep trying to get that Cheerio that you’re too lazy to pick up, and then your boyfriend’s pet lynx surprise attacks you. Or at least that’s what happened last May to a 21-year-old Bellevue woman who was doing a little light cleaning when her man’s feline friend slipped out of its cage and leapt on her. She was okay, but come on. This is why we don’t keep wild cats as pets, kids.
CoyotesCoyotes have been snatching cats out of West Seattle backyards for years, but when the wily canines graduated to attacking pooches last spring, local pet owners had finally had enough. (Confidential to West Seattle cats: Your people don’t care about you.) In June the West Seattle Blog confirmed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services had dispatched an agent to the peninsula to assess the situation and potentially take down the pack, which is great, but then there won’t be anything to keep the cat population in check.
Right now is the perfect time to visit Crawfish King because it’s crawfish season. The wild season corresponds to the rise and fall of the Mississippi River, typically beginning around late March and running until July. Though there is high demand in the Gulf Coast during Lent, desirability (prices go down, size and juiciness go way up) picks up after Easter. So you’ve got the next three months to get some of the biggest, fattest wild crawfish of the year.
Gather a group of good friends (this is not first-date territory), order up a a few pounds of crawfish ($8.99 a pound, flown in fresh daily from down South), pick your spice level (Lil’ Crazy, Crazy, or Extra Crazy) and sauce (I recommend The Big Easy for a garlicky, buttery mess), roll up your sleeves, tie your bib, and wait for dinner to arrive at your table in steamy plastic bags. Enjoy the zydeco music and cheesy fishing dock decor, rip those heads off (don’t forget to slurp out the pungent crawfish essence from the head and lungs), suck out the sweet tails with abandon, and create a hot, spicy mess.
A Cajun seafood boil restaurant in the middle of the International District, incongruous though it seems at first, actually makes perfect sense. As Houston Press restaurant critic Robb Walsh explains, “After the fall of Saigon, Vietnamese immigrants gravitated to the Gulf Coast because they were familiar with the seafood industry. Their affinity for Cajun food was a natural. Both cuisines are rice- and seafood-based, extremely spicy and French-influenced. Baguettes, strong coffee and crawfish are common to both.”
Thanks to Crawfish King’s owner James Nguyen, a Vietnamese Houston native, Seattle is fortunate to get a taste of this delicious diaspora.
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