Category Archives: Texas

Bayou Jacks

On the way back from Wichita Falls, we passed thru Roanoke, TX. Roanoke sits between Fort Worth and Denton off 35W. This little town has been growing quite a bit in the last few years. It’s downtown area is one of my favorites as it mixes the old with the new with boutiques and many, many delicious restaurants. I’m sure you will find something here for everyone.

My manager recently told me about a new restaurant that she pretty much became addicted to called Bayou Jacks that recently opened up off highway 377 in downtown Roanoke. So new, I can’t find a website for them so you will just have to trust me on this one. On Friday, our team ventured there for lunch (I forgot my camera) and on the way back from Wichita Falls, Sy had to stop to try it out.

The atmosphere is everything Bayou which basically translates to Louisiana, crawfish, gators and spice.

I think I was beginning to embarrass Sy so there isn’t a picture of the full layout of the restaurant however I think you get the jist of it above.

The menu is quite extensive when it comes to variety. Let’s see what I can remember.

Appetizers: Fried Oyster Nachos, Dirty Balls (there was no explanation on the menu for this one for this Northern gal), Fried Gator, Crab Cakes. All the favorites.

Main Course: Bayou Jacks has the usual, poboys and lots of ’em. It’s like Bubba from Forest Gump except with Poboys – shrimp poboy, catfish poboy, oyster poboy, etc.. They also have Gumbo, Crawfish Etouffee, Jambalaya, Coconut Crusted Mahi Mahi, Grilled Catfish and Shrimp, Shrimp and Grits. Bayou Jacks also offers a meal where you can choose your meat (Salmon, Catfish, Mahi Mahi, etc) and you can choose to have it grilled or blackened and it comes with rice and veggies. I realize I’m forgetting a few items, many items, but if you are into Cajun or at least want to try it – you shouldn’t have a problem finding an item that tickles your fancy.

Now, I’m going to be honest. When we went with our team on Friday, not everyone was pleased. So for your sake, if you are thinking of trying this place out – I’m going to provide some feedback before I get to the good stuff. They weren’t impressed with the blackened chicken salad (lettuce was off) and the fish and chips (too much batter on the fish).

Now, I had a feeling I was going to venture back to Bayou Jacks (Sy loves some Cajun) so on Friday’s appearance, I tried out the grilled salmon with dirty rice and coleslaw. The grilled salmon was great (kind of hard to screw up grilled salmon), the dirty rice was delicious – the rice was plump and full of flavor and nice cubes of sausage in there. The coleslaw kind of threw me off, although it’s my own fault I mean we are at a Cajun restaurant, right?! It’s a bit spicy but it was good (once I got use to it).

Saturday.

Stop Number Two.

Yea – I’m a sucker for Crab Cakes so I had to try them out.

For $9.99 you will get two crab cakes (featured below) on a bed of lettuce with sides of remoulade, cocktail and tartar sauce. Choose to have them fried or sauteed (I chose sauteed).

You know how sometimes you will go to a restaurant and order crab cakes and you can really taste the crackers in the cakes which they use to hold them together. Not these bad boys! These cakes were all crab. They were moist, flaky and practically melted in your mouth. My only downfall is that I found them a bit expensive for an appetizer but they were delicious.

Sy’s meal of choice: Crawfish Etouffee.

I believe this big ole plate was $9.99.

Loads of crawfish in a tangy and flavorful roue with white rice. I’m lucky I even got a bite off his plate. Saying he loved it is probably an understatement.

Dessert: My favorite! I mean if you say that dessert isn’t your favorite meal you are just lying to yourself here. Bread pudding. That’s all I want to mention. They do have other options but I mean the bread pudding is where it’s at and that’s all you need to know.

Delicious! Scrumptious! Why didn’t they put more on this plate it is so good?! It may be a good thing that I haven’t allowed myself to attempt making bread pudding at home. The bread pudding was scrumptious. Moist and flavorful but when paired with the whiskey sauce it pretty much melted in your mouth. If you tried the whiskey sauce by itself, you could really taste the flavor from the alcohol. Paired perfectly. Price: $4.99.

Overall:

Now I will honestly say that I found some items to be over priced. The appetizers seemed to be closer to $10 each which I find a little pricey for an appetizer. I was honestly expecting a bigger serving of the bread pudding for the price compared to other restaurants which serve the dessert. Poboys are around $8-10. The overall price for a main course is around $10-$13 which isn’t bad.

If you are into Cajun food in North Texas and are just craving some crawfish but can’t get to Louisiana quick enough I would definitely recommend trying out Bayou Jacks. Regardless of the Cajun dish that tickles your fancy, I have no doubt that you will find something here that will fix ya right up!

If you do have a chance to swing by Bayou Jacks, let me know what you think!

Bon Appetite!

Wichita Falls and the Road Along The Way 2012-01-07

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It’s been a little while since I’ve gone out on a drive so this past Saturday seemed to be the perfect day. My only request was to get out of DFW metroplex. It turned out to be the best day to do it as it was so glum and dreary outside (you can obviously see this from the pictures below).

Destination: Wichita Falls, TX.

Time: About 2 hour drive from my apartment.

Ye Haw!

Some of the sights you will see between Fort Worth and Wichita Falls,

Ok – all the sights,

Lots of super long trains, various windmills and oil rigs.

In some places, especially the picture below, it reminded me of southern Quebec traveling near St. Sebastian where my grandfather grew up. Long, straight, pretty much flat stretch of road surrounded by fields.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in a past post but if you are ever wondering where you are in Texas, just look for the water tower. Just about every town has one. The only issue is some towns are few and far between but if you’re lost, it’s only a minor detail, right?!

So when I left the metroplex area it was pretty gloomy and the more we headed northwest, the weather started to clear up but more often than not, I found myself just staring at the clouds. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen clouds like this. Maybe I’ve never paid that much attention but they looked like soft waves in the sky that just went on until the very edge of the sky where they seemed to just, stop.

When we reached the end of the cloud system, the clouds just seemed to string out.

This picture kind of creeps me out because it looks like there is an eye in the top left corner but it was just so crazy looking up there.

Back to the drive…. so we finally reached Wichita Falls. How did I know?

I’ve been told before that there isn’t much in Wichita Falls so I hadn’t really prepared to check out any specific places but luckily I had brought a book with me about “weird” destination in Texas.

Wichita Falls sits in the lower North East corner of what is considered the Texas Panhandle. It falls two hours from Dallas-Fort Worth and Oklahoma City and is near the Sheppard Air Force Base. Originally founded by Choctaw Indians, the white settlers came into the area in the 1860’s and is now home to about 110,000 people.

A noteworthy event in Wichita Falls is the Hotter Than Hell 100. This is a 100 mile bike race – wait for it – in August. I mean, who the hell comes up with this? It’s 100 in August! I think the name fits it perfectly even though I’ve never been to this event. If I didn’t think I would die or if I could have a personal assistant following me around with a sprinkler, ok more like a hose, I would probably consider attempting this feat.

Here is your fun fact – Although it is named Wichita Falls, a “falls” can not be found in this town. Back in the 1886’s the “falls” was destroyed in a flood along the Wichita River. In the 1980’s the town created an artificial falls that is 58 feet high and recirculates water. The origin of names I tell ya!
I wasn’t prepared, otherwise I would’ve caught a better glimpse of the falls.

First, we drove around…

This seemed to be one of the “big” factories in town. (Above)

High five for recycling!

Wichita Falls has a ton of old buildings. We drove by a few that had some art work businesses.

This is downtown. After leaving Fort Worth I thought it was so tiny but then I thought about Vermont and it wasn’t so tiny anymore.

For a Saturday afternoon, I was wondering where all the people were in this town.

“Is there anyone out there?!”

It was a ghost town. Folks of Wichita Falls, is it always like that?

I think we saw more homeless people than actual people venturing out (and the people we saw were police leaving their station.)

The area we ventured to would probably be considered the historical district.

There was the building above, one across the street and a train to the right.

I was trying to research the above building and all I could come up with were paranormal activity information.

For those who are interested…. add this to your list.

I love the brick streets!

Again, no people.

This is a building we saw on our way out. I believe it is the Post Office and the entrance is gorgeous!

Look at the detail!

Next to the Hamilton Building, you will find a wild horse!

This is the Artifact Emporium.

This was our little treasure on the trip. I loved this place and it kind of fell into our laps so to speak.

I loved it so much it’s getting its own post! Look for it later this week!

Along with water towers, many Texas towns also hosts very old court houses. Some of them have such detail in their architecture and may even be quite creepy to look at. This wasn’t one of them.

Our final stop – Midwestern State University.
Maybe if school was in session it wouldn’t have felt like such a ghost town.

The campus was really nice.

We didn’t stay long in town. Maybe an hour or so. Considering we weren’t very prepared and there were hardly any people out and about. We were soon on the road again.

Somewhere between Wichita Falls and Fort Worth, we saw this on the side of the road.

Made me laugh anyway. Maybe that’s why this cowboy looks kind of upset.