Stinky’s Fish Camp: Sweet Scent of Seafood
5994 Cty Road 30A, Dune Allen Beach, 267-3053
Hours: Open daily @ 5 p.m.
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By Bruce Collier May 3, 2007 Issue

Stinky’s Fish Camp is located in a former gift store, just opposite the beach, on County Road 30A. It’s a rambling sort of low-built structure, with a main dining room out front, a small bar, back room and outdoor patio. The floors and walls have a rough, unfinished plank board look. The tables and chairs are also wood. There’s a uni-sex restroom, spacious enough. In one corner is a postage stamp-sized bandstand.

When we were seated, the server brought us water, a basket of crackers, and a little tub of spread. “That’s red bean butter,” he said. It had a kind of buttery, hummus-like quality, and reminded me of some of the stuff the late Justin Wilson used to conjure up on his cooking show.

Stinky’s menu offers appetizers, gumbo, chowder, baskets, and about nine main courses. A list of fish of the day is chalked on a board. The day we ate there, the board listed grouper, cobia, tuna, and pompano.

We ordered beers — Stinky’s has a nice-sized list of beers and wines — and appetizers. I ordered oysters Bienville, and my friend got blackened shrimp with lime papaya slaw. We also tried oysters with smoked cheese, bacon and horseradish. Other oyster options include oysters with spinach and mushrooms, garlic butter, and gratin, as well as raw, salsa, ceviche and shooters.

Five large shrimp, butterflied and perfectly cooked, came with a creamy slaw. My Bienvilles were full of savory, buttery and tangy sauce. The ones with cheese and bacon were rich enough to have made a light meal. I only wish the kitchen served bread to soak up the excess sauce. Like any good Louisiana restaurant, Stinky’s respects the sauce, and crackers only go so far.

Other starters include crab-stuffed squash gratin, fried green tomatoes with crawfish etoufÈe grouper squares with three sauces, fried oysters, baked blue crab, and barbecue shrimp with garlic crouton.

We heard a lot of buzz about the house specialty, fried catfish meuniere. Both the server and a staffer recommended it. My friend asked for the meuniere sauce — which she had not yet tried — on the side. I ordered crawfish pie.

Meuniere is a brown butter sauce, seasoned with herbs and lightened with lemon juice. It’s a good sauce for fish, chicken or veal. It definitely has a place with Stinky’s fried catfish. Two fillets came, fried perfectly crisp and oil-free, on a bed of rather salty Brabon potatoes, which are peeled, cubed, and fried. The catfish was smoking hot, tender, juicy, and needed nothing but an appetite. Still, I loved the sauce, which worked well as a dip for my sample bite. Again, bread would have been a nice addition.

The crawfish pie was the deep-dish kind, with a flaky and buttery top crust, loaded with plump crawfish in a sauce that was pleasantly lighter than I was expecting. The pie has a little heat, but it was the gradual kind, not that flamethrower blast that some people think is required in Cajun-country food. It’s a homey, soulful dish, a meal in a bowl.

Other items on the main course menu are fried shrimp, oyster, fish and frog leg baskets, fried seafood platter, panne chicken with pasta, Asian glass noodles and shrimp (from the far-Eastern parishes, I presume), seared fish of the day, a fish stew with pretty much the contents of the refrigerator in it, butter-baked Maine lobster, and braised short ribs with cheese polenta.

We also found space for an order of crawfish hushpuppies, crisp and hot nuggets served with a mound of slaw and remoulade sauce. Then came dessert.

Stinky’s offers a selection of house-made pies, ice cream, or both. We ordered blackberry with ice cream and pecan with ice cream. There was also a chocolate and peanut butter pie. The pecan was warm, loaded with toasty pecans, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. The blackberry was just sweet enough, with real, yes, real, whipped cream to go with the ice cream. I suggest you save room for pie, whatever kind it might be, because dessert is definitely not an afterthought here.

“Stinky” isn’t usually a word I’d want to associate with eating, especially fish, but don’t let that keep you out in the parking lot of Stinky’s Fish Camp. Stinky’s recently opened on CR 30A, a few weeks shy of the explosion that is Tourist Season. Judging from the food and service we had on our visit, they should be prepared for a crowd.

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