Myran’s Maison de Manger

When we travel, we are tourists. We willingly accept that label, because it’s a simple fact. But like many tourists, we don’t always want to be around too many of our own kind. Myran’s Maison de Manger (Myran’s Eating House), in Arnaudville, is just the place for those times when you want to be the only outsider in the joint. It’s a local restaurant (not a “Cajun” restaurant) that tries to appeal to local tastes.

What to eat at Myran’s Maison de Manger

The menu is devoted to burgers, fried chicken, Tater Tots, chicken tenders… you know the drill. But it doesn’t take much inspection to also find on the menu things like catfish poboys, fried oysters, pistolettes, and crawfish and corn chowder. Visit during crawdad season and you’ll see every diner at every table seated before a heaping mound of bright red mudbugs.

Locals do not generally eat a few crawfish; they eat pounds of them, seasoned medium or extra spicy. If it’s crawfish season, that’s the dish we urge you to get. With endless beers or iced tea there’s no better way to spend a warm, moist bayou evening than snapping apart the little creatures and sucking the meat and juices from their DayGlo shells.

A boiled crawfish dinner comes with boiled corn and potatoes, and it’s surely enough food, but that shouldn’t prevent you from ordering some rice dressing too. A bowl of this highly seasoned grain would also make a splendid main course. We understand many folks come to Myran’s for boxes of chicken to go but, this being crawfish season, we did not get to sample, or even see, any. And we were too stuffed to hit the outside ice cream window.

Myran’s Maison de Manger is brightly lit, there’s a TV blaring in one corner, and service is as casual as at your neighborhood luncheonette. Tables along the back windows, however, look out over Bayou Teche, which is probably a better view than can be obtained at your local luncheonette.