Biloxi Food Tour: A city full of delicious foods!

 

Bozo’s Seafood Market, Pascagoula, MS

Hippocrates:  “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

My love affair with American food started when my family immigrated to the United States when I was 9 years old.  I had my first taste of a hamburger in a small diner in Astoria (NYC) under the N train.  Back in South Korea, a ‘hamburger’ was a patty made out of mostly flour and possibly some meat.  It surely didn’t taste anything like a real hamburger in the land where the hamburger originated!

The elevated train rumbled above, cars honked their horns, and I was about to bite into my juicy, tender American hamburger for the very first time that day.  My eyes went wide as my taste buds exploded from sheer delight.  It was a taste I had never known in all my 9 years of existence!

The combination of tender beef patty with ketchup, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and a soft bun, made me a believer in American food.  Paired with crispy French fries, I was in true foodie heaven…

Since that first taste of a burger, I never stopped eating and enjoying American food.  Like most Americans, my taste buds would eventually grow up as I tried, then fell in love with other delicious foods. Besides the usual suspects including Chinese food, Italian food, Mexican food, Japanese food, etc., I would also fall hard in love with Southern foods/Cajun/Creole food.

A colleague from work had turned me on to Southern cuisine during a business trip to Las Vegas for a conference.  He would take me to Emeril’s Restaurant at the MGM Grand and to House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay.  

I had my first taste of catfish nuggets, jambalaya, gumbo, etoufee, Po-Boy, chased down with Abita Amber beer.  I couldn’t believe what I was eating, as they were so flavorful with a little kick, compliments of never-before-tasted spices.  That love for Southern cuisine took us to different meccas for Southern cuisine like Memphis, New Orleans, and to an unlikely place, Chicago.  

In Chicago, my wife and I had the best tasting Cajun foods at Buddy Guys Legends, a blues club and a restaurant.  The Cajun sampler comprising of a gumbo, etoufee, and jambalaya were incredible, and it would turn out to be our favorite Cajun food anywhere!  

Ever since our stop at Buddy Guy’s Legends, our quest to find tasty Cajun/Southern foods never stopped.  Anytime we would travel down south, we’re always in a search mode, kind of like the Terminator programmed to search/destroy Sarah Connor.  

When we stayed in Biloxi for a week, we were again in our search/destroy (food) mode!  We were glad we chose Biloxi, as the proximity to the waters (Mississippi Sound/Gulf of Mexico) made seafood kind of a default food source.

Most restaurants would sell seafood based sandwiches like the shrimp/oyster/fish Po-Boys, seafood gumbos, and beloved Cajun classics like the shrimp/crawfish etoufee, Jambalayas, and catfish sandwiches.    In short, my kind of a place, as I love a good seafood!

These days when we’re eating out, we’re looking for tasty foods that doesn’t break the bank.  I strongly feel that if a meal costs more than that, then it better be the best tasting foods anywhere!  In my experience, this is rarely true unfortunately.  

Way I look at it, anyone can make a tasty dish if it’s incredibly expensive.  It takes a genius though, to make tasty foods at cheap prices.  They’re hard to find, but they are there.  For example, I found an excellent Mexican place in Moab (UT) where fish tacos were awesome, yet cost just $2.75!!!  This is what I’m talking about!

For us, our idea of a good meal is when we’re spending under $50 for two people with tips.  If it’s a casual place where we order the food ourselves from a counter, then we bring our prepared foods to our seats, the better…

Like most people, we’re mindful of high cost of living these days.  We’re trying to balance our budget and our taste buds the best we can.  The best way to do that is by eating at inexpensive but awesome places, where a meal doesn’t break the bank.

We think we found those during our one week stay in Biloxi.  Below are our list of awesome restaurants (both sit down and casual) we would recommend to anyone!  Bon appetite and happy travels!

• Bozo’s Seafood Market (Pascagoula)

We stopped by Bozo’s after our visit to the Pascagoula River Audubon Center nearby.  As usual, I was searching for a place nearby and found this small hole-in-the-wall place full of character, awesome taste, and excellent prices.

Bozo’s was listed by Time Inc’s Coastal Living Magazine’s Top 20 seafood dives in the country of all time.  We couldn’t pass up that kind of an endorsement!

We found the place about 10 minutes from the Audubon Center.  There were limited parking spaces but we found one.  After parking, we walked inside to a restaurant full of people around 11:30 a.m.

We looked over the menu and decided on a cup of seafood gumbo, shrimp Po-boy and a catfish Po-boy.  We took seats at a counter with bar stools, then patiently waited for our food.  While waiting, we couldn’t help but hear locals talk among themselves in a very smooth Southern accent.  It was awesome!  We love immersing ourselves to local culture whenever we travel.

Bozo’s, Pascagoula, Louisiana 

After about 10 minutes or so, we picked up our food, and noticed immediately how big the sandwiches were!  It was a New York City style hero (Italian bread), meaning the bread was easily 10 inches or longer, but with the girth not found in many sandwiches these days.  I already loved the place based on portion size!  

We tried the gumbo which was just delicious.  It had okra, which is something I rarely see in gumbos (at least at places I’ve eaten lately).  I personally think okras make gumbos so much more interesting, but more importantly, tasty.

We both took bites out of our impossibly big Po-Boys and loved it.  It had so much shrimp and catfish, as well as hearty servings of lettuce and tomatoes.  We were in hog heaven…

We managed to eat only half of our sandwiches (that’s how big they were), and we took the other half to our hotel to be eaten as dinner.  Definitely my kind of a place!  Who wants to eat at a restaurant where the portions are so small that you have to eat another meal afterwards???

Bozo’s certainly did not have that problem!  Yummy and really inexpensive, as we got two meals out of about $30!

• Parrain’s Jambalaya Kitchen (Biloxi)

I had done some research on a good and an inexpensive Cajun restaurant near Biloxi, and I found Parrain’s Jambalaya Kitchen.  I’m glad I did, as the food was authentic and delicious.

The restaurant was only about a 5 minute drive from our hotel, Beau Rivage.  We saw the parking lot was rather small, but we did manage to find a spot near the front.  It was a compact sized space, but our SUV squeezed in ok, but just barely…

We sat down and took in the restaurant vibes.  It had many posters of past jambalaya festivals, as well as Louisiana themed decor.  We felt right at home!

We ordered a catfish Po-Boy and a cup of crawfish etoufee.  Our server was incredibly friendly and gregarious, and it made our dining experience that much better.  It felt like we were visiting a friend who happened to own a Cajun restaurant.  Just awesome…

My catfish Po-boy sandwich was huge but I managed to eat the whole thing as I was starving from walking around the Gulf Islands National Seashore.  My wife’s crawfish etoufee was rich with flavor, maybe tad little too much heavy cream for our liking.  It did grow on us by the time we finished it though.  

We gulped down our food, savoring every bite.  We were so glad we went to Biloxi and found this place!

Parrain’s Jambalaya Kitchen, Biloxi

• Woody’s Roadside (Biloxi)

Woody’s Roadide boasts three different locations near the Gulf Coast:  Biloxi Beach, Gulfport, and Ocean Springs.  Thanks to our stay in Biloxi, it made sense to visit the one in Biloxi Beach.

From our hotel, it took about 10 minutes to get there, along Beach Blvd.  We found it easy enough with plenty of parking spaces.  After parking, we walked inside while admiring the beach views across the street from the restaurant.

Woody’s Roadside, Biloxi Beach

We were seated at a booth, and we looked around the restaurant.  We loved the airy and bright dining room.  We ordered a mahi fish sandwich and a salmon entree.  I was getting tired of constantly eating fried fish on a Po-Boy, so I ordered a grilled fish this time around.  

I’m glad I did, as the sandwich was flavorful without being overly cooked where the fish has no taste or texture.  My wife’s salmon entree was delicious as well.  I had to steal some of her food as usual, and I loved the flavor of the grilled salmon and the asparagus.  

They were all delicious and the bill was under $50 with two soft drinks and tips.  Definitely worth the price!

• Various restaurants inside Beau Rivage (Biloxi)

I covered all the restaurants we had eaten at the Beau Rivage in my previous post.  All of them were surprisingly good, tasty, and reasonably priced.  For a link to that post, please click here.

In conclusion:

When we were planning our west coast trip from North Carolina, we definitely wanted to add Biloxi to the list of destinations to visit.  We wanted to check out the local cuisine for one, and for the other, the many attractions near the city.  Thanks to MGM Resorts owning Beau Rivage, it was a no brainer that we stop by.  

During our week long stay at the Beau Rivage, we got to experience many wonderful foods.  We ate some of the best tasting foods anywhere, especially the barrage of Southern/Cajun foods anywhere you look!

We absolutely loved the Po-Boys, jambalayas, fish sandwiches, and gumbos.  We got a lifetime’s worth of Cajun foods during our week there.  It felt like we were locals eating all these flavorful and delicious foods!

We welcome anyone looking for a place to visit to check out Biloxi, for its many excellent attractions and for its history.  For foodies especially, Biloxi is an awesome destination with so many tasty foods to try out!

Thank you all for reading and happy food hunting!

Jake

Wandering Money Pig 

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