Hebert's Specialty Meats

Hebert's Specialty Meats sits at 1140 Country Club Road in Lake Charles, a butcher shop known for one thing above all others: boudin balls. The shop takes boudin — rice, pork, and spice casing — breads it, and fries it. It's the regional preparation that made Hebert's a listed stop on the Southwest Louisiana Boudin Trail, the official boudin route published by the Lake Charles Convention & Visitors Bureau. The shop also sells what any good Louisiana meat counter sells — sausage, stuffed chickens, cuts ready for the grill — but boudin balls are what bring people in. During and after World War II, Lake Charles experienced industrial growth with the arrival of petrochemical refineries. The city grew to a high of some 75,000 people in the early 1980s, but with local economic recession, the population declined and stagnated. What stayed was the food, the kind that travels well in a paper sack and tastes better eaten in the parking lot than reheated at home. Go for the boudin balls. Leave room for sausage. Don't expect a dining room.