Austin Blues

It's no secret that Ronak and I have been missing and craving Bojangles, since we moved to Texas.

As soon as our plane landed on North Carolina soil, we successfully located a Bojangles restaurant and indulged in our favorite sweet tea and Cajun fries. We were not disappointed. Nor would that be our last trip to Bojangles over the course of our week-long stay in North Carolina.

But the magical, finger-licking time of our visit last summer had to end eventually, and we returned to Texas and its lack of Cajun fries. And our cravings grew again.

Austin Chronicle readers recently voted for their favorite restaurants - including where to get the best tasting fries. Ronak and I laughed when we saw Hyde Park had won again. We had eaten there shortly after our arrival in Austin, and we were disappointed that these were considered the "best fries in Austin."

I checked the Bojangles website for locations, hoping a franchise was somewhere within a day's drive. Sadly, the restaurant in Tennessee appeared to be the closest, followed by the one in Alabama. That's what I thought at first glance anyway. But actually, the closest location is in another country - across the border in Mexico!

So, just 4 hours to the Mexican border, then a couple more and we could have our favorite Bojangles food in hand - maybe. Restaurant menus tend to vary from country to country, and that's a long way to drive to find out that Cajun fries have been replaced by spicy tortilla chips.

Disappointed, I looked again for a local alternative, and I discovered a fast food restaurant called Popeyes. It didn't look like a Bojangles, the menu was different than Bojangles, but they did boast a side item called Cajun fries. Dared we hope?

We did. We dared, we hoped. We drove, we ordered, we tried the lukewarm, greasy fries. We resolved never to return.

And we daydreamed again of our next trip to North Carolina, where we would indulge in Bojangles fries until there was a shortage on Cajun seasoning across the state. (We have to have our "extra seasoning.")