It’s worth getting a little messy for this hidden dish on Buford Highway

Lee’s Bakery is known for its banh mi sandwiches, but there is a hidden dish on the menu that rivals traditional outdoor seafood boils for flavor and spice. The country boil shrimp makes me want to bring newspaper, cover a table and order pounds of shrimp to top it … except I wouldn’t want to waste the sauce.

Head-on jumbo shrimp first are boiled in a proprietary mixture of spices, then tossed in a spicy buttery mixture. Leaving the peel on enhances the flavor, allowing the shrimp to be infused with peppers, spices, ginger, lemongrass and garlic. It’s a blended, balanced synthesis of Vietnamese-Cajun flavor superlatives. The tender shrimp swim in red ocher sauce, with the creaminess of the butter counterbalancing the Cajun spices.