Get in the Mardi Gras spirit with king cake.

Make king cake! Eat po’boys! The quest for Mardi Gras spirit in the Bay Area.

By Justin Phillips

Boudin. Po’boys. Crawfish. Muffulettas. Meat pies. Beignets.

I’m a Louisiana native so, for better or worse, this stuff is in my blood. Three months of Bay Area poke bowls, omakase and $10 avocado toast haven’t erased my predilection for all things decadent, deep-fried and spicy.

Taking this position with The Chronicle meant putting 2,000 miles between my taste buds and the flavors I grew up on: Tony Chachere’s seasoning (the equivalent of Cajun salt) and Zatarain’s dirty rice kits.

But I’m here, now. I’m coping.

Unfortunately, no matter how great banh mi from Saigon Sandwich is, it just can’t hit the spot when I really want a muffuletta and a root beer from Central Grocery in New Orleans. The same can be said for fresh Tartine Bakery bread, when only a warm beignet from Cafe du Monde will do.

I take some solace in the fact that there are a number of Bay Area spots billing “Southern” dishes — Wayfare Tavern, the Front Porch, Brown Sugar Kitchen, Buttermilk Southern Kitchen, Farmerbrown.

Unfortunately, Southern cooking isn’t a blanket concept. Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia may all be Gulf states, but their cuisines vary greatly. The differences are more nuanced on a regional level.

In Louisiana, for example, you can get the best meat pies in the world in Natchitoches, but you can’t find them an hour up the road in Alexandria. Lafayette’s jambalaya can’t be replicated in Shreveport. Monroe’s barbecue doesn’t exist in Baton Rouge.

I noticed a handful of Bay Area restaurants throwing around the term “Cajun” and “Creole” on menus, yet embodying Southern concepts from North Carolina all the way to West Texas. That’s too wide a swath. Focus gets lost.

For example, the buttermilk fried chicken at Five in Berkeley is Southern in spirit — it comes with homemade pickles, “Carolina” coleslaw and a Hawaiian sweet roll — but is too mild in overall flavor. Subtlety isn’t the Southern way. And Five’s coleslaw was solid, but it lacked that true North Carolina characteristic of sweetness cut sharply by a savory kick.

With Fat Tuesday around the corner, my food longing for home is getting worse.

To curb this flavor-based homesickness, I began scouring the Bay Area for dishes that remind me of Louisiana. Specifically, I searched for well-made po’boys — the culinary embodiment of childhood, adolescence and adulthood for any boot state native.

For the sake of context, I grew up in Alexandria, a city of about 50,000 in central Louisiana. This means I spent my youth four hours from New Orleans po’boys, 2½ hours from Baton Rouge gumbo, two hours from Lake Charles crawfish, and an hour and change from Lafayette jambalaya.

“Cajun Pawn Stars” was filmed two blocks from my high school. And less than a mile from where my parents live.

I have left crawfish boils only to visit other crawfish boils.

I attended the first postHurricane Katrina Mardi Gras in 2006. Portions of the French Quarter were still shuttered from the damage, but I was there that night, enjoying the Nola version of a group hug.

I can get to Canal Street and the Super Dome from any spot in New Orleans with my eyes closed. I can also tell you the best food in the city isn’t anywhere near Tropical Isle’s hand grenades.

I’ve been to more Mardi Gras balls then I can count, which means I’ve done my fair share of drinking canned beer and eating crawfish while in a tuxedo.

Armed with this knowledge and experience, I began my Bay Area pursuit for po’boys.

I made sure to temper my expectations: The quality of Domilise’s wouldn’t exist in Oakland and San Francisco —

I told myself. While this turned out to be true, I did find some Bay Area po’boys capable of faring well against French Quarter competition.

So what makes a good po’boy?

Simplicity. And it starts with the bread. A po’boy can’t really be considered a po’boy unless it’s served on French bread with a slight crunch on the outside while light in the center. In a perfect world, it comes from a loaf that’s about 3 inches thick, 6 or more inches in circumference. Angeline’s Louisiana Kitchen in Berkeley hits the mark with bread that’s textured the right way, and sufficient in size without being gaudy.

For filling, I prefer deep-fried catfish, seasoned with the south Louisiana mixture of garlic, cayenne, red pepper flakes, thyme and black pepper. I also don’t mind the classic roast beef and shrimp combo, as long as the roast beef is smoked. Duck breast, also smoked, is a solid option as well, but I consider that version a special-occasion po’boy.

The catfish on Brenda’s French Soul Food’s fish po’boy is the best I’ve had in San Francisco. Those Creole flavors of black pepper and hints of cayenne reminded me of home.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to how to dress a po’boy — you can go with tomato, mayo, pickles and lettuce, like the Mission’s brand-new Bayou. Or you can choose nothing at all. Both options are OK. The Cook and Her Farmer in Old Oakland uses peppery slaw instead of lettuce, which is a mistake. The flavor is too strong and pulls away from the seafood in the fish.

Yet when it comes to catching the spirit of Louisiana, equally important as the po’boy itself is the environment in which it is consumed.

Po’boys began as cheap meals for people who worked hard and needed something fast and filling. At its core, that’s still the dish. It shouldn’t feel like luxury food.

Brenda’s and Bayou are both cozy in that Southern type of way — the kinds of places that are clean, but not uncomfortably spotless. The atmosphere is relaxed and free of judgment, which is true to the Louisiana ethos. (On the other end of the spectrum is Bywater in Los Gatos, a place with a talented kitchen but aesthetics far too clean, too elegant, for a po’boy.)

Louisiana food is the backdrop for conversations that ebb and flow between pride and pain, immeasurable happiness and bottomless sorrow. If you find yourself eating a po’boy in a place where you wouldn’t feel equally as comfortable crying into a whiskey, odds are good you’re in the wrong establishment.

Queens Louisiana Poboy Cafe in San Francisco’s Bayview and Big Momma’s Kitchen on Oakland’s International Boulevard are great examples of the right blend for a South Louisiana diner — relaxed almost to the point of quirky, but very capable of producing well-made po’boys.

At the end of the day, Louisiana food is in my blood. It’s beautifully complicated, thanks to equal parts memories, spices and fresh ingredients.

Slowly but surely, I’ll get my Louisiana fix. It’ll just require me taking a little bit from each place willing to offer it.

I’m up for that challenge.

Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle At Brenda’s French Soul Food in S.F., from top, patrons sign in for a table; Maria Avelasco wears the restaurant’s staff shirt; the dining room feels like a real Louisiana diner.