Tony's, an Albino Catfish, and a Racist

We had some family down over the weekend.  It's really hard to be a tour guide for family and friends.  You never know what they will like or hate.  Anyway, after a few hours at the Baton Rouge Zoo, we thought we would take our guests to Tony's Seafood Market and Deli.  It's a very interesting place and the food is out of this world good. 

Gretchen discovered Tony's while teaching two summers ago.  What's funny about it is that most people in the BR would consider Tony's to be in the hood.  And some were shocked that we were there at 6:30 on a Saturday night.  My feeling is that most people are good natured and I probably have the same chance of getting a cap busted in my ass at the local Wal-mart as I would at Tony's. ( stepping off the soapbox) 

As you enter Tony's, there is a giant tank full water and catfish.  There is a short wall and walkway for the workers between the patrons and the tanks.  In that walk way, the workers will pull out the catfish on to the floor.  They flip, flop and shimmy around the floor until they are picked by a customer to be taken home.  The fish are then pinned to the wall, de-finned, and filleted.  There's blood all over the wall.  It's quite a site. 

Back to our visit.  One of the catfish attempting to escape the carnage happened to be an albino.  Everybody was crowding around to see it.  Apparently, there is some curse that comes along with the albino catfish.  So, I highly doubt anyone takes him/her home.  I'm not even sure what happened to it.  Anyway, as we are finishing gawking at the abnormality, word spreads about the albino catfish.  Upon hearing about the albino, an elderly black lady says "An albino catfish?  It must be for them" and proceeded to point at us.  I have no idea whether she was being mean or funny.  But I thought that was funny as hell.  Jokes about race can be funny as long as there not mean spirited.  And when it comes to jokes about race, everyone should lighten up. (who keeps putting this soapbox here)
I thought everyone heard her but it turns out I was the only one.  They all had a good laugh when I told them about later.  After witnessing enough ichth-ocide, we decided to order our food.  Rob (brother-in-law) thought we should order the Seafood Tray.  (you can access the menu in the above link)  The tray is for 10-12 people.  Uhhh there are 10 of us but 6 are kids but okay.  Oh and let's kick in a quart of gumbo for just good measure.  The order lady seemed unsure of our order and called a manager over. He took our order and said it would be 20 minutes.  That was cool because we could walk around the store looking at all the Cajun items. 

As I was standing waiting, my little one comes up and tries to tell me that her brother had hit her with something.   I glance over and see he has a miniature size oar used for stirring gumbo, swinging it around like he's Zorro or Bruce Lee.  I yell over at him to stop but he can't hear me.  At this moment, I hear someone yelling "Excuse me! Excuse me!"  It was a cashier trying to get my son's attention.  Yeah, good luck lady.  "Excuse me"? You might as well have been yelling "Hey, I'm a dumb-ass don't listen to me."  Anyhow, I get his attention and he quits...for then anyway.  And the cashier goes back to her duties.  I continue to wait for our food when I turn to see that he has that damn paddle again.  After a brief discussion of what I was going to do with the aforementioned paddle, he decided that putting it back on the hook was a good idea.  At some point, the manager brought the food to Carmen (sister) and they wave me over to the check-out.  I couldn't believe the size of the bag.  I've gone on a week long business trip and used a smaller bag.  It smelled so good.  But when we got home and ate..WOW!  It was so good.  10-12 people? HA!  I laugh at your suggestion.  We didn't finish it all but damn near did.  It was the best food I have had out in long time. 5 STARS!