ROUSES.COM
19
Michael "Hollywood" Broadway – photo by
Ed Lallo
,
Louisiana Seafood News
I
f I tell you I’m hitting the bar after work,
it’s the oyster bar. There’s a shucker not
a bartender; and the only shots I’m
interested in are oyster shooters.
I love a good backstory to where I’m eating,
and Acme Oyster House’s goes all the way
back to 1910 and Prohibition. The original
Acme Café was located in a three-story
Acme Saloon on Royal Street. When that
building was leveled by a fire in 1924, the
owners reestablished at a new location up
the street on Iberville. The new restaurant
was christened Acme Oyster House.
20
years later Felix Oyster House would open
across the street.
Today there are a half dozen Acme Oyster
House’s between the French Quarter
location and offshoots in Covington,
Metairie, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
and Sandestin, Florida, and a new location
going up in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
And boy do Acme’s shuckers stay busy! On a
good day a shucker will open over 1,000 shells.
You can also get fried oysters, oysters
Rockefeller soup, an oyster po-boy ...
is this
starting to sound like a bit from Forrest Gump?
And then there’s my
favorite, chargrilled
oysters, which are
coated with a sauce
of garlic, butter,
herbs and Parmesan
and Romano cheese
before grilling.
Aw Shucks!
by
James, Rouses Meat & Seafood Director
Fresh Gulf oysters are fine to eat year-round,
but at their peak of plumpness between late
November and May.
I can eat two-dozen chargrilled, and two-
dozen raw, more if there’s beer. That’s not
enough to get me into the World Oyster
Eating Championship at Acme Oyster
House in the French Quarter though.
The current title is held by Sonya “the
Black Widow” Thomas, three-time winner
of the Rouses World Crawfish Eating
Championship. She. Can. Eat.
photo by
Cheryl Gerber
