10320 111 Street NW, Edmonton

Louisiana Purchase has been around since 1989. It’s one of those restaurants that I’ve been to a couple years ago, but don’t frequent too too often. My friends, Jamie and Karly, wanted to try this place out and I thought it’d give me a good chance to write a blog post about it! They have also since opened a location on the Northside!

Louisiana Purchase was featured on You Gotta Eat Here a few years ago. It’s located in the Oliver area of the city, near Grant MacEwan. There’s a relatively big parking lot, so you don’t have to worry about that. It was a really nice summer day and they have a pretty quiet little patio which we opted to sit in. One thing that’s kind of cool about this place is that it’s one of the few restaurants where you can order alligator meat, so naturally we got that, along with their blackened cat fish and a few of their other famous dishes!

So, we started off with the swampstick. It’s described as as a marinated fried Louisiana alligator kabob, served witha sweet and spicy sauce, and served with black bean salsa. As many of you have heard, it tastes very similar to chicken. The only difference is that the texture of the meat was more similar to pork. So if you can wrap your head around it, it tastes like chicken, but kind of chews like pork. I’ve had this a few times now and each time it’s really good. Nice flavours and spice from the sauce. The black bean salsa is a nice addition to the dish. I thought this last time, but it’s kind of small, but it’s definitely worth a try if you feel like being adventurous.

The other appetizer we got was the crispy crab cake. This is served with a nice mango salsa, some spring greens and a ginger-lime dressing. This was actually very good. Definitely one of my favourite parts of my meal here. It comes out nice a hot and the crab cake is amazing. It’s nice a fluffy and they really don’t skimp out on the crab. You can really taste it. The crab cake also went very well with the mango salsa and the combination of flavours really worked together. The salsa is nice and sweet. I really recommend trying the crab cake!

The last time I was here, I got the Southern Fried Chicken, and the Louisiana Jambalaya. To be honest, I wasn’t really impressed with the chicken, and really liked the jamabalaya, so I decided to go with the “Satisfaction” Plate, which has a little bit of Jambalaya, and a few other things! It comes with the jambalaya, shrimp creole and red beans and sausage, and with creole sauce. At 19 dollars, you can’t really go wrong with this! It comes out in a huge plate, and like the name suggests, it’ll definitely leave you satisfied.

The Jambalaya has so many elements. It comes with tomato rice, ham. chicken smoked sausage, peppers, and is topped with cajun spiced shrimp. The rice is very tender and I really like how there is so many flavours. They all really go nicely together and you can really taste the spice! Every bite is delicious and makes me keep wanting to go in for more. I will have to say that my favourite part of this was the shrimp creole on top. They were perfectly cooked and had the right amount of seasoning. The red beans and sausage were also really good and really added to the plate. Overall a really good dish, and if you’re not really sure what to get, this one comes with a little bit of a few things!

The other entrée we got was the blackened blues catfish. This is another dish that that is one of their crowd favourites. It’s cajun spiced fresh-water catfish with creole tomato sauce, and spiced rice. This came out piping hot. The fish was very tender and really melted in your mouth. I didn’t find the catfish to be overly spicy. It went really well with the creole tomato sauce. It was pretty good! If you’re in the mood for fish, this would really hit the spot!

The last entrée that my friend, Karly, got was the Veggie-Houla. It’s a pasta dish that comes with okra, artichoke, bell peppers, zucchini, spinach, mushrooms, and served with their creole tomato sauce. This was actually pretty good. Vegetarian options are really never my number one option (big meat-eater here) but Karly is a vegetarian so I always get to try a few things. This dish was actually pretty tasty. I liked how there were so many different kinds of vegetables. Overall, a pretty tasty dish (would probably be even better with sausage, ham, and chicken), but overall, it has a lot of elements that really work together.

Overall, I’d say my experience here was pretty decent. I’ve been here a couple times before, and each time it was pretty consistent. The prices here can run a little bit on the higher side, but if you consider your portion, it’s really worth it. The portion sizes here are huge for their entrées. I’ve heard that Cajun and Creole can be a bit on the spicy side, and I even heard that their catfish was extremely spicy, but I didn’t find it to bad. It was a little bit more mild than I was expecting, but still, everything was pretty decent! If you’re in the mood for something a little different, definitely give this place a try!