AURORA – The humid bayou around St. Landry’s Parish may be a long way from chilly Smoky Hill Road, but the distance disappears when you taste the Cajun-Creole cuisine at Bayou Snack Shack.
The eatery, which was quietly opened by Sydney Moore and her family, specializes is the real deal from Louisiana: gumbo, etouffee, po-boys, red beans and rice, boiled crawfish and all the fixins.
“I’ve always said I wanted to have my own restaurant. When this space opened up I started talking to my parents,” she said, sitting down at the eatery where a washboard-driven, accordion-accented Cajun dance tune played in the background.
Moore grew up in Aurora, graduated from Grandview High School where she took some cooking classes, before heading at age 18 to Las Vegas to attend the Cordon Bleu Cooking School. “Kids used to look at me funny at school because I always brought real food — a whole meal like smothered meatloaf — for lunch,” Moore said.
She was surrounded by cooking and Moore said she has was inspired by the food from various family members, from meat and potatoes to wild game, but especially by her stepfather, Joe Lavigne, who grew up in Opelousas, La. in the heart of Cajun country where his mom was a cafeteria lady and school lunch manager. “Back then the schools cooked everything from scratch,” Moore said.
The family had just teamed up with Nepalese friends to open Kathmandu Restaurant a year ago, but that didn’t stop them from opening Bayou Snack Shack in the same shopping mall a few months later.
There was no question what sort of cuisine the family’s new eatery would serve. “I grew up with this food and I knew there wasn’t a lot of Cajun food in Colorado,” Moore said.
However, before she could open the place she had to do her homework. “I started reading about the history of Louisiana food and I visited my grandmother and asked her how to cook everything,” she said.
Because of her interest in Caribbean cuisine, a local Jamaican cook came by to teach her about “jerk” spiced specialties.
When she started making the Shack’s menu, she started with real gumbos with shrimp and crab or chicken and sausage. The broth is thickened with dark roux and okra and served over rice.
Next came the po-boys, the classic Louisiana sandwich. Chewy white baguettes are spread with Moore’s take on mustard-y remoulade sauce and then overfilled with barbecue chicken, hot links, fried shrimp, blackened catfish, and jerk or barbecue chicken, brisket and pulled pork. The crown is coleslaw.
Be forewarned: These are big, juicy, overstuffed sandwiches that really call for a big bib.
Highly recommended is her brisket, roasted for two days in a slow oven until the beef falls apart into toothsome shreds that are soaked in a tart hot sauce.
Other specialties include seafood platters with fried or blackened shrimp and catfish – smothered if you like it — and the classic spiced, boiled seafood-by-the-pound including snow crab, crawfish and shrimp.
The side dish selection includes warm buttered cornbread, mac-’n’-cheese, beans and sausage over white rice, hush puppies and shrimp etouffee.
One of the rarer sides is macque choux, sweet corn kernels with tomatoes, veggies and a definite cayenne kick. After complaints from early customers about the fare being to spicy, Moore tamed the heat levels. “The people from Louisiana liked it. I can kick it up if anybody wants it higher,” she said.
Needless to say, it can be cooled down by traditionally hyper-sweet and syrupy iced tea, but, this being Colorado, an unsweetened variety is available too. And for dessert: scratch-made banana pudding.
When Moore cooks, she is the recipe. She has a special taste in mind but no written-down instructions yet. “I throw in a little of this and a little of that and adjust it,” she said. She builds her gumbo in the kitchen at Kathmandu Restaurant and carries it over to her place. That may explain why the stew is served over steamed, long grain basmati rice.
Luckily, Moore has an abundance of youthful energy on her side that came in handy when the place was jammed during Mardi Gras. “It was a great party. There were crawfish shells everywhere,” she exclaims with a grin.
For now, she does most of the cooking and keeps the place rocking seven days a week.
“I’d like to add real beignets eventually and some other dishes,” she said. “But I’m still trying to figure out what works and what sells.” So far the blackened catfish po-boy is the top-seller.
When in doubt, Sydney Moore thinks back to the advice her grandmother gave her. “She said to always make the food with love because that’s what will come out when you serve it. If you’re in a bad mood when you cook it just doesn’t taste right.”
Bayou Snack Shack
16621 E. Smoky Hill Rd., Aurora
720-870-0255
Love it! So proud of you, Sydney!