Who dat say dey gonna eat dem Cajun... foods... in Arkansas? Anyway, yup, a genuine Louisianan chef…read morehas worked his way up to Bald Knob and maintained this wonderful establishment. Let's go through things one by one.
* Expect a wait. For being half a mile off the Interstate with no signs, it was packed. At 8 pm on a weekday, I waited 20 minutes as a single attendee. They do their best to clear tables and keep things moving, but this means the locals know this place and love it. And by "locals", the ones across from me lived an hour away and came up two days in a row to get some fresh crawfish before it was gone ("last weekend" was advertised). That tells you something.
* Patient and friendly staff. Refilled my car-trip water bottle for me. Brought over a fresh hot sauce because my table was nearly out. Pro tip: ask for Louisiana brand, it's all natural and the name says "I am Cajun."
* Fun atmosphere. Open but down-home. It sure doesn't feel corporate, they did a nice job touching it up.
The only non-food downside: No wi-fi available. With that, on to the foods:
* The gumbos are probably a little overpriced for their size, but I expected that. The chicken sausage gumbo had wonderful dark roux flavor, just a little runnier than I'm used to my gumbo. But I don't eat gumbo often, so this may be the right consistency.
* The crawfish etouffée, on the other hand, is a wonderful value. Yes, it's got quite a bit of rice at its base (maybe I shouldn't have gotten two rice-based dishes), but it has quite a bit of crawfish and vegetated sauce on top. Again, very flavorful.
* You get a little puffy roll with the gumbo. You get a little puffy roll with crawfish etouffée. Make sure every dish you order comes with at least one, preferably up to infinity, puffy rolls. SO GOOD. I want to go drive back there right now for more but they're closed for the night.
* I didn't order the hushpuppies but I noted I was intrigued on someone else's plate, and they magically ended up on mine. (It was, in fact, part of the dish anyway.) Turns out they're rather oily and were a bit overfried. Oh well.
* They may or may not have desserts besides bread pudding, but the non-local locals I waited with up front said there's a different bread pudding flavor every day. They magically had a whole loaf of bread pudding in their hands moments later - those are up by the register and disappear quickly. Now, I'm not a bread pudding guy, but if there is ONE flavor that will get me, it's berries. And they offered triple berry bread pudding the night I was there. I was stuffed from dinner, so I brought it home and ate it the next day. Despite still being stuffed, I couldn't wait. If anything, I wanted Even More Berries inside but it's a good sized slice for the price. The loaf is a steal, comparatively, but I knew I couldn't pack one of those away. It was gone when I left, to no surprise.
The verdict: A couple of imperfections noted above - the wi-fi, the hushpuppies - but considering the location and the food quality, I'm leaving all my stars and recommendations for travelers in the area I've now heard of.