A Taste of the South: Notes from a Trip to Louisiana
Eating our way through the French Quarter in two days
A month before our brief sojourn in New Orleans, we spent a glorious week in New York City. I’d planned it as a foodie trip, and had had a wonderful time exploring many of New York City’s culinary classics. I wanted to do the same for our spell in New Orleans, albeit we only had two and a quarter days in the Big Easy. No matter. Determination and planning can conquer time, and in those two days we still managed to have twelve gastronomic experiences, albeit a couple involved just cocktails. This is the story of our brief trip, in food. Bolded links lead to my reviews of each place.
First night
Our plane was late, not getting into town until nearly 8 PM. I had made reservations at Mamou, a French restaurant in the French Quarter, which has gotten a lot of attention for its innovative food. While it’s a new addition to New Orleans, the pictures made it look as an organic evolution of French Quarter venues – and it looks beautiful. Alas, due to our late arrival, and the restaurant’s relatively early closing time at 9 PM on a Wednesday, we couldn’t make our reservations. I’m still sad about it.
Instead we headed to Napoleon House, one of New Orleans’ historical restaurants famed for its muffulettas – where we had one of such muffulettas. The walk through the French Quarter and the lovely, ancient surroundings was a wonderful way to introduce ourselves to the city.
Day One
On Thursday, we dedicated ourselves to explore the French Quarter. This is the sort of place you walk your way through. Mike, indeed, took an early walk by himself and witnessed the impressive cleaning of Bourbon street every morning. Those extra sale taxes you pay in the French Quarter are definitely put to good use.
We started our day together by going to Café Beignet on Decatur Street for breakfast. They have several branches, but this one was the most convenient to Jackson Square. Here we tried authentic New Orleans beignets for the first time and concluded we liked regular doughnuts much better.
After some more exploring and taking a relaxing tour of the French Quarter in a mule-driven carriage (shoutout to Marie, the mule, for her patience), we headed to Johnny’s Po-Boys to try one of New Orleans’ famed po’ boy sandwiches. It turns out they’re just subs, but Mike loved his shrimp po’ boy.
After lunch, we crossed the street to the New Orleans School of Cooking to pick up some pralines. They weren’t our thing.
After some more exploring of the French Quarter – I’m sad to say the Pharmacy Museum was closed -, we ended up at Pat O’Brien’s Courtyard Restaurant, the creators of New Orleans’ signature drink, the Hurricane. Here I had my first jambalaya and bread pudding in New Orleans – the latter was delicious.
We had two more drink stops that afternoon, as we continued to explore the French Quarter. While Mike was buying souvenirs, I briefly stopped at the Vampire Cafe for a virgin blood bag – namely pomegranate lemonade served in a plastic bag similar to those used when you donate blood. The lemonade was sickly sweet and not worth its $9 price, even despite the blood bag gimmick. Later, we stopped at one of the four Tropical Isle bars on Bourbon Street to try their frozen hand grenade.
For dinner, I’d made reservations at Brigtsen’s, one of New Orleans most acclaimed Creole restaurants. It’s in the Riverbend neighborhood, so quite far away from the French Quarter, but conveniently located near a stop in the Saint Charles streetcar line. We had a lovely but long ride in the wooden streetcar and got to see a glimpse of the French Quarter – which proved providential as my plans were to tour it before we headed to the airport for our flight back home, but we ended up short in time.
Day two
Our second day was much more subdued. Mike did some more exploring of the French Quarter before I woke up and then he nicely went to Café du Monde to get some beignets for the two of us. We confirmed that they’re just not for us.
After hanging out in the patio of our hotel – and playing with the cats – we headed off to a leisurely lunch at Broussard’s, another of the French Quarter’s historical restaurants. It was wonderful.
Mike had a nice nap after lunch – what is better than napping on vacation? – while I hang out in our balcony, before our airboat tour of the swamp. It was a lot of fun, we saw a lot of alligators – and, for better or worse, fed them marshmallows -, though we preferred the flat-bottomed boat ride we took in Lafayette some days later.
Once back, we got dressed and headed to Arnaud’s for a drink at their bar. Their larger bar was full, but we had a French 75 at the Richelieu Bar. Neither of us liked the drink, but we dug the bar.
Finally, it was time for dinner at GW Fins, across the street. We had a wonderful post-anniversary dinner at one of the premier seafood restaurants in the city. And that was that for our second day.
Day three – morning
Our last morning in New Orleans we headed to Brennan’s, yet another of the French Quarter’s historical restaurants, for breakfast. The breakfast here had been much lauded, but we were disappointed. But I guess you cannot win them all.
In all, we had an absolutely wonderful time in New Orleans. We loved the French Quarter in all its aspects – the quietness early in the morning, the craziness at night and the touristy buzz during the day. I think I liked our morning mule carriage ride best of all, which gave us the opportunity to look at the buildings in a leisurely way and a learn a bit about the city, and I’d say that the brunch in the Broussard courtyard was probably my favorite gastronomic experience here.
Two days may not be much, but I felt I got a good taste of the French Quarter.
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