A Grosse Savanne Feeding Frenzy
Posted by Pete Robbins on Oct 14th 2019
You don’t develop a physique like this one without downing a few pounds of Cheeto dust. Fortunately, I hang around enough foodie types that not all of my indulgences are so lowbrow. I’ve made the rounds of Manhattan, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New Orleans and other eating meccas. I’m on good terms with Wagyu beef, churrascaria and all kinds of Thai chiles. I once ate a 31 course meal from Chef Jose Andres that included a serving of “lime air.”
I know how to eat.
I also care more about fishing than about food, so if you take me someplace with a world-class bite, I’ll gladly eat scrapple sandwiches.
Nevertheless, if you can catch the snot out of them and then retire to a gourmet meal, that’s the best of all worlds, and while I’ve traveled all over the place to fish, I can state with confidence that the chef at Grosse Savanne near Lake Charles, Louisiana, produces the best fishing meals I’ve enjoyed. Hell, they might just be the best meals of my life, fishing or otherwise.
We arrived mid-afternoon on Friday and we were greeted by a cheese tray in the bar area that had all sorts of meats, olives, cheeses and pickled vegetables, plus an addictive candied bacon that went remarkably fast. Then out came heaping mounds of fried pickles and crab claws. I could’ve gone to bed at that point, but the actual meal was still coming – an incredible seafood bisque followed by a steak that kicks the crap out of anything your favorite steakhouse can prepare.
The next day at lunch we had what might’ve been my favorite meal of the bunch – pimento cheese grits with a tempura fried softshell crab on top, surrounded by big shrimp wrapped in bacon. I was full halfway through but could not let all of that goodness go to waste, so I finished it off and then might’ve eaten dessert, too.
The hardest part of the whole thing is pacing yourself, because the fish there are the only thing more gluttonous than the anglers…..and if you end up in a food coma you might not be able to make it back out for the next session’s slugfest. It’s a fishing and hunting lodge that’ll turn even the most steadfast vegetarian and animal rights activist into a slobbering carnivore. Can’t wait to go back – as soon as I find a way to lose 10 pounds.
