TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
Taste Buds, Ray Sandefur and Andrew McElhany enjoying a "Try it All Pack" at Hot Tails Crawfish.
I’m a big crawfish guy, and we normally boil 8-10 sacks a year with our neighbors and friends. It’s not hard to boil crawfish, but it is hard to do it well with consistent spice flavors. I like my crawfish spicy hot (sometimes I think I like them hotter than I really do). My wife likes them hot, but not too spicy. At times, my spice heat index can be a little off. Sometimes they are so spicy my hands swell up where I can’t get my wedding ring off until the next day. Other times, I over correct and they’re not quite spicy enough. Hot Tails crawfish hit the mark. They had enough of a heat kick to keep your attention and be enjoyable, but not get carried away by it. Besides being seasoned well, they were cooked just right; the tails pulled easily with a slight twist and the meat came right out of the tail. That’s a big deal for me. Crawfish can be a lot of work when the meat isn’t cooked correctly. If you have ever eaten crawfish, you know it makes a difference. I get into a little trance when it’s crawfish eating time, and I like to think I get into a rhythm of peeling, eating, peeling, and eating. It’s a kind of mindless therapy if you will. I enjoy crawfish tremendously but, because of the work it takes to peel them, some people might not think “the fruit is worth the squeeze.” I think it’s worth every last drop! Speaking of fruit, I need to let y’all know about a nice surprise I found in the Cajun sweet sausage. There were pieces of diced up pineapple inside that really hit a nice note. The sausage had great taste with some heat, but they were a nice change up from your typical hot sausages.
Andrew One of my favorite parts of the platter was the large gulf coast shrimp. I have eaten boiled shrimp in many places, and one thing that can turn a good shrimp boil into a bad experience is hard to peel shrimp. That was NOT the case at Hot Tail’s. Their shrimp came out perfectly and the shell was even split down the back for ease of peel. Once I figured out that was the case, I went to town eating it. Peel, dunk (in the cocktail sauce, of course), eat, and repeat. That was until I caught a little side eye from Ray indicating maybe I needed to try something else on the wonderful platter!
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COMMUNITY & CULTURE
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