• Home
  • About Evelyn Kanter
  • Evelyn Kanter’s Books & Apps
  • Evelyn Kanter In The News
  • Workshops
  • NYC Travel Guru

Evelyn Kanter ecoXplorer

smarter traveling, driving and spending

  • Green Hotels
  • Green Cars
    • Best Cars under $20,000
    • Test Drives
    • Diesel Cars
    • Electric Cars
    • Hybrid Cars
    • Hydrogen Fuel Cell
    • Luxury Drives
  • Travel Deals
    • Free
    • Budget Travel
    • Discount Tickets
  • Xplore More
    • Safety and Health
    • How To
    • Five Best
    • Travel Pioneers
    • Motorcycles
    • Vintage Cars
  • Scam Alert
  • Where to Go Next
    • Historic Travel
    • Epic Adventures
    • National Parks
Home » Where to Celebrate Mardis Gras: Lake Charles, La.

Where to Celebrate Mardis Gras: Lake Charles, La.

1 Comment

mardi gras lake charlesParty hearty in Lake Charles, the family-friendly Mardi Gras destination, where kids get their own parade, and there’s another parade for classic cars and hot rods. It’s just as much fun, and a lot less expensive, than Mardi Gras in nearby New Orleans.

One of the traditions of Mardi Gras in Lake Charles is the Chicken Run, which kicks off Mardi Gras celebrations in Lake Charles.

Local legend says it commemorates a dash by a desperate housewife eons ago, going house to house to her neighbors asking for a missing ingredient for her gumbo pot.

These days, the annual event collects shrimp, chicken, sausages, okra, potatoes and spices for a gumbo big enough to serve hundreds of residents and visitors at an outdoor street fair that includes Cajun and Zydeco music and dancing.

There’s also a City of Sulphur Mardis Gras Festival downtown, also with music, of course, and a “taste off” for the best King cakes.

Don’t know what  King cake is?

There are many family recipes and local preferences, as there are with Louisiana gumbo, your Nona’s meatballs, Aunt Sylvia’s potroast, and my mother’s Bavarian-style potato salad.

This recipe from Southern Living magazine is one style.

What all the recipes have in common though, is the tiny plastic figure of baby Jesus – the King – backed into the cake. Tradition says the person who gets that piece will have good luck for the coming year.

Food is an important part of life in Lake Charles year-round, not just at Mardi Gras.  These are my favorite restaurants from a recent visit:

Shrimp-Basket
Cajun boil at Steamboat Bill’s in Lake Charles

Steamboat Bill’s, whose motto is “boiled with pride”, serves up heaping platters of shrimp, crab and crawfish. Rows of red formica tables are stocked with rolls of paper towels to use as napkins. Try an order of ‘gator bites, fried dough balls the size of golf balls, filled with ground bits of farm-raised local alligator. And get there early for lunch or sinner, since lines can get long.

Pat’s of Henderson is more formal, and a popular lunch spot for local business people.  Anything on the extensive menu can be topped with shrimp or crab etouffee, and crawfish or shrimp can be ordered as bisque, stew, gumbo, stuffed, au gratin or fried.

Children’s Day is a kids’ parade and a street fair, both free. And the day ends with a Lighted Boat Parade on Lake Charles.  Either watch the brightly decorated boats from the shoreline, or hop aboard one of the Lake Charles sightseeing boats for a magical cruise.

There are enough Lake Charles Mardi Gras events that the city has issued a mobile app to help you plan and keep track.

Download the Southwest Louisiana Mardi Gras app on iTunes or the Google Play Store.

mardi gras in lake charles
Mardi Gras Museum, Lake Charles, La.

Mardi Gras or any time, be sure to visit the Mardi Gras Museum, in a former schoolhouse downtown. There’s a glittering collection of fanciful and bejeweled costumes, some of which weigh as much as 80 pounds.

You’ll quickly appreciate the amount of work it takes to design and embroider them, and the engineering required to keep a glittering feathered and beaded headdress upright. I cannot comprehend that these marvelous Mardi Gras costumes are worn only once.

I also loved the city tour, which included the Charpentier District, a gem of buildings dating as far back as the Civil War. Many of the homes were built by wealthy sawmill owners, who turned their Victorian houses into advertisements, with fanciful gingerbread trim and intricate cupolas.

My guide also told me about a famous former resident. Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Angels in America” grew up in Lake Charles. His father was the maestro of the local symphony, and his family worshiped at the solid brick Temple Sinai across from the old Post Office downtown.

mardi gras in lake charlesI stayed at the L’Auberge, a 1,000 room casino hotel that looks and feels like it was moved in one piece from the Las Vegas strip.  It shares a Tom Fazio golf course with the Golden Nugget, slightly smaller with 740 rooms, but the same glitzy Vegas feel.  It’s a five-minute walk between the two, or take the free trolley.

photo of steamed shrimp platter courtesy Culinary Traveler.

This article was published on ecoXplorer in 2016, and updated for Mardis Gras 2018.

Thanks for visiting ecoXplorer. Stay up to date with the latest news about green travel, green cars, smart spending and frugal living by subscribing. It's free. RSS feed.
Welcome back to exoXplorer. Stay up to date with the latest news about green travel, green cars and smart spending by subscribing. It's free. RSS feed.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Related Posts:

  • Fast Food Deals & New Menu Items in February & March
  • New Orleans Mardi Gras is Virtual in 2021
  • Germany’s Beer Culture & History Plus a Schnitzel Recipe
  • 24 Best Historic Golf Courses in USA
  • 22 Things to Do in New York State This Spring
  • Enter to Win: VIP Vacations

Filed Under: Budget Travel, Food and Drink, Where to go Next Tagged With: lakecharlescvb, Mardi Gras, New Orleans

What do you think? We value your comments and love hearing from you. Cancel reply

ecoXplorer is your guide to smart spending and eco-friendly living

Evelyn Kanter is a journalist with 20+ years of experience as a newspaper and magazine writer, radio & TV news producer & reporter, and guidebook and smartphone app author – all focusing on travel, automotive, the environment and your rights as a consumer.

Evelyn currently serves as President of the International Motor Press Assn. (IMPA), and is a past Board Member of a prestigious professional group for travel journalists.

Contact me at evelyn@ecoxplorer.com.

Most Popular Recent Posts

  • Scam Alert: Kars4Kids Car Donation Charity
    Scam Alert: Kars4Kids Car Donation Charity
  • 2 Reasons to Avoid Jimmy John's
    2 Reasons to Avoid Jimmy John's
  • Scam Alert: Mideast Peace Charities
    Scam Alert: Mideast Peace Charities
  • NYC Guide: Airport Transportation
    NYC Guide: Airport Transportation
  • ICYMI Travel Deals
    ICYMI Travel Deals
  • How to Get FREE Tickets to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
    How to Get FREE Tickets to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
  • Free Hotel Rooms for Cancer Patients
    Free Hotel Rooms for Cancer Patients
  • Allergy-Free Hotel Rooms
    Allergy-Free Hotel Rooms
  • Best Used Car Buys: 2005-2010 models
    Best Used Car Buys: 2005-2010 models
  • Lamborghini Stretch Limousine for Rent
    Lamborghini Stretch Limousine for Rent

Search ecoXplorer by category

© 2010-2022 EcoXplorer by Evelyn Kanter. All the stories and photos on our site are protected by US (C) Copyright laws. Any unauthorized copying is strictly prohibited. Plus, it’s just not nice.

  • Home
  • About Evelyn Kanter
  • Evelyn Kanter’s Books & Apps
  • Evelyn Kanter In The News
  • Workshops
  • NYC Travel Guru

ecoXplorer.com is an independent information service which is compensated by advertisers and sponsors. This site includes some links to other websites which are compensated for by our sponsors when you click them.

 

Loading Comments...