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Vice Blog

FREE CRAWFISH AT HONEYCHILE'S

While Brooklyn's grimiest have been rending their chests in grief at the news that the Charleston is no longer serving free pizza, my shit isn't the least fucked because it's being replaced by a cheap-ish Cajun restaurant called Honeychile's. Honeychile's grand opening is tonight and to they've bought a hundred pounds of live crawfish which they're giving away to anyone with a face. Personally I find crawfish a little weird-looking and bug-like, but I'll definitely eat at least five. They've also got one of New York's best bands, Liquor Store, performing and Jonathan Toubin playing his olde-tymey rock and roll records. I'm intending to get really drunk, eat a buncha gross bug monsters, and dance until I pass out from heat exhaustion.

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The proprietors of this eatery are Brooklyn's punkest. The chief guy is Jesse Crawford, drummer from the Ex Humans. If you call him Jesse Crawfish you get ten percent off your life expentancy. He's been telling me about the items on the menu for the last couple months and they sounded so amazing that I got hunger headaches. Then one of the dudes from the Weight is involved. There's some other punker types cooking and serving the food too. Eating at this place is like getting punked in the mouth.

I had a seat with the owners and discussed the restaurant the other day.

(PS: For the record, I think they should have named the restaurant "Punky's" and their slogan should have been, "Punk on down to Punk's and get punked in the mouth." I acknowledge that there is still time, but can't help but wonder why my suggestions were left to ROT.)

Vice: Why Cajun food?
Jesse: First and foremost self-motivation. There's a lack of authentic Cajun food in the Williamsburg area. I'm hungry constantly and I can't get this kind of food.

The guy from Harvey Milk has Pies and Thighs. Now the Ex Humans and The Weight have this place. How many other band owned restaurants are there around here?
Jameson: Finger to the wind… seven.

You think people are gonna be pissed off that they're not getting free pizza with their beers no more?
Jesse: I don't care. If you want free pizza go to Lulu's. it's a lot better than the pizza here ever was and probably a hell of a lot cleaner.

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You probably shouldn't knock the cleanliness of your as-yet-to-open restaurant.
Josh: We just spent a week de-funking it.
Jesse: I would eat vagina off our kitchen floor right now.

What kinda stuff did you find in the kitchen when you were cleaning it?
Jesse: We found a Jack of Coins tarot card. No bullshit.

Except that there is no Jack of Coins card in tarot, so it is. But I'm guessing you meant Page of Coins or something. Which is fine I suppose. So what kinda food are you serving here?
Jameson: First of all we're gonna have a great jambalaya. We're using sausage made from pork raised in the Berkshires. We thought that was better than trying to fly pork products up from Louisiana. We tasted a lot of different pork and we felt that this was almost as good as something you'd taste in the South.

What is it about Southern pigs that makes 'em taste so good?
Jameson: They sweat all the time. They're constantly basting themselves in their own gravy.

What other food you got?
Jesse: Green onion and smoked cheddar hushpuppies.

What's a hushpuppy?
Jesse: It's like a pone or--

What's a pone?
Pone is pan fried cornbread and a hushpuppy's deep fried cornbread. It's also a comfortable shoe. Jimmy Buffet wore 'em. No, sorry, he's a flip-flop kinda guy… Warren Buffet!
Josh: Dolemite? "You better move these cars and let me pass before I have to pull my hushpuppes out your motherfuckin' ass."

I think I've heard that sampled on every record ever.
Jesse: Eventually we're gonna get weird stuff like gator, turtle, and squab.

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I hear gator's delicious.
Jesse: Gator tail's amazing. It's like chicken but it's sweeter and healthier for you.
Gator sausage is great.

If food in the South is so great then why even come to New York?
Jesse: Food in the South is pretty great but it's got a pretty lousy music scene and the arts and culture in Jacksonville, Florida is lacking.

Wait, you're from Florida? I thought you were from Louisiana.
Jesse: First thing's first, none of us is from Louisiana and we're not trying to act like we're some deep-ass Acadians and we're pulling out grandmother's cookbook, making rabbit jambalaya that our ancestor's grew up on. We're just trying to fill a void and make food that comforts us and makes us feel closer to home.
Josh: Half these sushi places I go into they got Mexicans making sushi. Mexicans make good sushi.

I went into the back of my local Mexican place-
Josh: And it was Japanese dudes making the food?

No, they were eating McDonald's. You got anything to say to people who are afraid of a bunch of filthy punks preparing their food.
Josh: I say,"Hey, just cause I'm a punk doesn't mean I take showers, you dorks."

Hey.

NICHOLAS GAZIN