After po’ boys, gumbo was next on my hit list of New Orleans food.
However, randomly by chance, I found a great gumbo in New Orleans when I was actually looking for shrimp. Having heard great things about the barbecued shrimp po’ boy at Liuzza’s By The Track, we drove there with all intents being to devour some more seafood and carbs.
Having looked at the price of the po’ boy and having seen photos of it adorned on the walls, we decided that one would be enough to share and so decided to tick gumbo off the list as well by ordering a cup of it each. For those who don’t know, gumbo is a soup-style dish which typically contains shellfish, meat and vegetables (most notably okra) and is served over rice.
The gumbo was fantastic. It had lots of flavour, was well-seasoned and we got a big portion filled with meat and veggies for a very reasonable price. To be honest, I would have been perfectly happy had I only eaten a big bowl of the gumbo, but we had promised ourselves we would try at least one more po’ boy.
When the sandwich came, it didn’t look like your typical po’ boy. The centre of the bread had been hollowed out and the shrimp poured inside, which gave a great visual effect of them spilling out onto the plate. They had been cooked in a peppery butter sauce, which I really enjoyed, however the whole thing was a bit messy to eat because there was more sauce than bread. We ended up eating the shrimp with a fork and using the bread as an accompaniment, which wasn’t altogether a bad thing, just not what we had been expecting when we ordered a “sandwich”.
Although I enjoyed the po’ boy, it definitely didn’t hold a candle to Domilise’s, but the overall star of the show was definitely the gumbo. I’m not sure why the praise for this place is always heaped onto the BBQ shrimp; let’s start a petition to change that.
- Liuzza’s By The Track, 1518 N Lopez St, New Orleans, LA 70119, United States
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