Food You Must Try in Monroe/West Monroe, Louisiana

Guys do I have a list of foods you MUST try if you ever find yourself in Monroe/West Monroe, Louisiana. Why do I term these two towns together? Well because there are 2 towns that are next door neighbors just separated by the Ouachita River.

So why do we care about these towns? Well of course if you’re Duck Dynasty Fans you’ll know that Duck Commander is located in West Monroe, Louisiana!

So the first restaurant you’ll want to put on your list is Willie’s Duck Diner!

And I would highly recommend this!

This would be The Godwin. It is a triple decker ham sandwich with mayo and onion straws, Swiss and Cheddar cheeses, lettuce, and tomato on Texas Toast. I would like to mention that this tastes just awesome warmed up later! The Mac and Cheese lacked pizzazz, but it wasn’t bad.

My next suggestion would be Trapps.

This was my view. Yes, I chose to sit outside. Yes, it was the end of June. Hey, you only live once, just make sure to wear deodorant :).

When walking downtown we asked the lady for suggestions on lunch. Definitely didn’t want a chain restaurant and she suggested Trapps. The next thing she suggested was these nachos, the Mom Bourque’s Seafood Nachos. Holy YUM! Ok so they were Fresh to made order chips piled high covered in fresh onions, tomatoes, jalapeños, fried crawfish tails (I didn’t have those), grilled shrimp, and covered in white queso dip. Oh my goodness…. you can’t imagine how awesome these were. I did have them leave the crawfish tails off because I was afraid I wouldn’t like them and I didn’t want my food tainted with the taste :).

That evening we ate at Doe’s Eat Place. Out of all the places, this is the only “chain” type restaurant and it really isn’t. It’s not like what you think of as chain, there are just a few of these around. The original started in Mississippi to a restaurant owner who actually had the front as a black dance bar. In the back of the house, he fed the white people, steaks, salad, and tamales.

Speaking of tamales, I had to try one. Oh goodness were they fantastic. On top of that, you could get them served with chili. I actually ate mine without… I preferred them that way but you bet I tried the chili!

Each steak came with a salad. One thing I noticed about salads in the south is they don’t typically come with cheese. I kind of missed the cheese and croutons. I kind of like them. But this, this was a good salad even without those things.

And this. This steak. It melted in your mouth. It was worth every last bite! This was a Ribeye and it was excellent! With a loaded baked potato and Texas Toast.

Wednesday’s tend to be donut day back home. This was a Wednesday so we went on the hunt for donuts. After a couple attempts at other places, we wound up at Haskell’s Donuts in West Monroe, LA.

We walked in, made our choice and sat to eat at the restaurant.

Donut holes happened to be the donut of choice. 6 donut holes and 6 donut holes with chocolate glaze. Don’t look at this picture, there are only 5 there. I had already eaten one.

Now on the way home, I picked up half a dozen glazed donuts to take home to Mark, especially since he really wanted me to go on this trip but he was unable to go. These were the best donuts and I typically like the donuts at a place back home. Even at a day old, the ones I brought home were excellent!

Oddly enough, while we were sitting there and looking around, my mom noticed that this happened to be the Haskell’s donuts that was featured in the Duck Dynasty Donut Eating episode.

For lunch that day, my mom found a restaurant, Waterfront Grill that was mentioned in Southern Living Magazine so we had to check it out.

This particular restaurant we happened to be inside the restaurant and still had this excellent view of the Bayou. Not going to lie, I wanted this view, but I’m glad it was indoors. It was HOT HOT that day!

I went with the Samburger which allowed me to choose my toppings. I added bacon, pepper jack cheese, and sautéed mushrooms. For my side I went with a stuffed potato which I was told was a twice baked potato. I was pleased with my choice on all accounts! The burger was cooked Medium-Well which made it nice and juicy. The toppings added to that taste. The baked potato was excellent too.

For dinner that night we went to a restaurant I choose around lunchtime called Warehouse No. 1 Restaurant. Creative name right? The name is due to the fact that the restaurant was a warehouse for cotton back in the day. They chose to try to keep its historical properties down to the name.

We started with these jalapeño hushpuppies. Oh holy YUM! Btw, I absolutely LOVE hushpuppies but these were beyond amazing!

This salad didn’t have cheese or croutons either, but it was very good. Maybe that’s why they don’t include them… they don’t need it!

Other than the draw of the name of the restaurant and the history, the other draw for me was the cheddar jalapeño grits. To go to the south and not eat grits is wrong, but if you get these grits, you’re so totally right! I then went with the blackened chicken breast. This food was friggin phenomenal!

And this view to boot. We sat outside that night. It was hot. It was muggy. It was so totally worth it. And most people didn’t sit outside, but they missed this view.

And as you can tell from this picture, this warehouse has weathered a lot from floods to tornadic weather in the whole time of its existence.

Thursday on our way out of town, we decided to hit up one more restaurant. I asked the lady at Haskell’s where she recommended and she said this place, hands down. Riverside Coney Island.

They must be known for crawfish on the menu but they were out. From the response of the waitress, they had been called a lot because she slammed the phone on the table and said I hope I didn’t just break that. We were just a couple weeks outside of Crawfish season….

Initially we were going to start with chicken stuffed jalapeños wrapped in bacon, but they were out so we started off with this… Beer battered Texas Twister Taters. I’m surprised my mom let us order these since it had the word taters in the menu and she hates that word. Anyway, potatoes, beer battered and deep fried, topped in cheese sauce, bacon, and jalapeños. Oh, pinch me now, I was afraid I had died and gone to heaven. These were fantastic.

But I think my Muffaletta was even better than that. Italian bread, ham, proscuitto, olive tapenade, brown gravy, the works. And it was so awesome. Dipped in that gravy took it up a notch. And these fries. The other fries were better but they were covered in cheese, bacon, and jalapeños… Oh Yum!

And then we headed home to Southwest Missouri.

 

 

*Pulled from my old blog Paved Dirt Roads