Marquette celebrates Mardi Gras with Cajun food
Mardi Gras, French for Fat Tuesday, is finally here, and king cakes are all the rage. Marquette’s Lagniappe Restaurant got things heating up with a Bourbon Street-style celebration of its own.
The carnival of celebrations always begins the day before Ash Wednesday with masks, costumes, dancing, parades and plenty of bead throwing. Lagniappe’s buffet-style menu includes just about everything to satisfy a Cajun palate.
“Celebrate the end of Carnival. Fat Tuesday is Mardi Gras, and that’s today,” Lagniappe owner Don Durley said. “Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, Lent begins, so today we encourage everybody to sin like they mean it. Carnival is going on all around the world. Today, indulge yourself. Splurge. Have a great time. We’ve got a full spread so you can taste everything that we’re doing. We’ve got our bowtie pasta. There’s shrimp grill; there’s crawfish etouffe. There’s jambalaya. There’s red beans and rice. There’s fresh vegetables. We’ve got hush puppies. We’ve got a big Caesar salad. our famous potato salad, cole slaw, king cake, bread pudding, and there’s more. I just can’t remember it all right now!”
The celebrations continue until about 11 p.m. tonight with all of the fixin’s.