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It’s no secret that some of the best food on the planet can be found in south Louisiana. If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that we love to eat. Being so close to the Gulf of Mexico, there is an abundance of fresh ingredients just waiting to be turned into the next most delicious dish. Boiled seafood, gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish etouffee… the list goes on and on to compete as your favorite Cajun dish.
Cajun Bayou Food Trail
In 2018, Louisiana’s Cajun Bayou dished out their very own Cajun Bayou Food Trail. For the past five years, the trail has celebrated the authentic food found within the area’s Cajun roots, offering a way for visitors to truly experience Cajun cuisine like never before.
Louisiana’s Cajun Bayou Tourism recently unveiled a refreshed trail with new additions and enhancements. Since no one can ever have too many boudin balls, three stops are being added to the preexisting – and authentically delicious – trail, bringing the total participating restaurants to 18. These additions provide more dining options for trail-goers in North, Central and South Lafourche — Grady V’s in Thibodaux (Blue Crab Beignets, anyone?), Bayou Boucherie Meat Market in Mathews, and Mommie Jo’s Restaurant in Cut Off.
Visitors need only a trail map, passport and quite the appetite to begin their journey, though stretchy pants are also recommended! After getting five stamps on your Food Trail passport, which can be found both online and at the Visitor’s Center, guests are eligible for a free Food Trail t-shirt, a comfy badge of honor that, after sampling all the parish has to offer, should be ordered in a size up.
In addition to updated promotional and marketing items like a refreshed landing page and new Food Trail stamps for restaurants, the beloved trail t-shirt also received a makeover meaning those who have traveled the trail and earned the t-shirt in the past have no excuse not to head to Louisiana’s Cajun Bayou for round two!
“The Cajun Bayou Food Trail is one of the top visitor activities in Lafourche Parish and our organization is thrilled to re-launch this delicious updated trail for everyone to enjoy,” shared Cody Gray, President & CEO of Louisiana’s Cajun Bayou Tourism. “The food trail highlights generations of Cajun cooking up and down the bayou, while delivering an experience that’s personal and full of flavor.”
Louisiana’s Cajun Bayou invites everyone to “wander off the eatin’ path” and immerse their palate in authentic Cajun cuisine. To start your journey, head over to lacajunbayou.com/foodtrail or stop by the Visitor’s Center at 4484 LA-1 in Raceland to grab a map and passport to start your Cajun Bayou Food Trail journey.
Bayou Country Crawfish Trail
It’s time to hit the trail! The Bayou Country Crawfish Trail, that is!
In 2021, Explore Houma launched the Bayou Country Crawfish Trail.
This permanent attraction invites trail goers to explore the delicious crawfish and fresh seafood in Terrebonne Parish by eating along the route at 38 trail stops, shining a light on local restaurants. Twelve new stops were just added in July!
The culinary road map stretches from the heart of Houma all the way down to the Gulf. The 38 Trail stops range from take-out seafood markets and drivethru boilhouses to family-friendly Cajun restaurants with lots of character. The Bayou Country Crawfish Trail is part of the ongoing economic development and revitalization efforts that make up Explore Houma’s mission and commitment to Terrebonne Parish.
“We’re excited to be able to involve our local restaurants in this new attraction,” says Sondra Corbitt, Explore Houma’s Executive Director. “Food is not only a pillar of our community here in Terrebonne Parish, but also an attraction itself. This trail is just the beginning of our organization’s product development efforts to build a better experience in the Houma Area for visitors and locals alike.”
The trail is divided into two “seasons,” heads and tails! It’s just a matter of what’s on your plate, whether it’s a heaping pile of freshly boiled crawfish or a hearty, homemade Cajun dish. We are currently in the tails season. When the days grow long and hot, live and boiled crawfish are hard to come by. But that’s no problem in Houma, where we’re eating Louisiana crawfish all year long. Delicious Cajun recipes are front and center during “tails” season, when you’ll find crawfish tail meat in nearly any dish you can think of.
Dig into a plate of crawfish jambalaya or fettuccine. Warm your soul with a bowl of crawfish gumbo or étouffée. Bite into a crawfish pie or stuffed po-boy. No matter the dish, we’ve got authentic, Louisiana crawfish-filled cuisine waiting for you.
Trail goers are invited to “eat, collect, and claim” as they make their way through the trail, keeping track of their crawfish adventure via the free Trail Guide, available online or at the Explore Houma Area Visitors Center. After collecting 5 receipts from participating trail stops, trail goers can then fill out a short form to claim a free Bayou Country Crawfish Trail t-shirt.
Ready to hit the Trail? Explore Houma has packaged up everything you’ll need. The downloadable Trail Guide includes a map and listings of all Trail locations, as well as a printat- home tracker for checking off all the delicious places you visit.
You can download your guide here: crawfishtrail.com.
