New Orleans III

Photos from NOLA

The next morning I woke up and really did not feel like taking a run.  Instead, we headed straight to Cafe du Monde. There was already a line a block long, but I went into the restaurant as instructed by our taxi driver, and viola, there were plenty of open tables inside. We polished off one order of three beignets and a couple of cafe au laits. 

Parkway Tavern for Po Boys. I know the others were a little skeptical, but as the place started filling up and the line started getting longer, I think they realized that there might be something here. I went for the surf and turf, roast beef and shrimp covered in house gravy. The roast beef was soft and almost shredded like a pulled pork, really a stewed rather than roasted beef, the shrimp was fresh and coated with a thing crispy breading – the best po boy I had tasted up to that point. I also tried a few of the fried oysters in H's sandwich, also great fresh oysters in a crispy, but not overwhelming batter. The sandwiches were dressed with gravy some lettuce and a tiny bit of mayo, I think they could've benefitted from some acidity, so I added some mustard. Both of them said it was a good call and I think that meant that they had low expectations.

Cochon. The most modern place I'd been to in New Orleans. Ikea style, lots of light colored hard wood. We started with cucumber spicy pickles, wood fired oyster roast and fried boudin with pickled peppers. The cucumber spicy pickles were very korean, the wood fired oysters were absolutely delicious, oysters baked on the half shell in a wonderful spicy sauce – I could've eaten many more of these. The fried boudin was also excellent better than what we had at boucherie, light crisp crust with a savory boudin mixture – not gamey at all. Next came the paneed pork cheeks with pickled green tomatoes, tender pork good flavor, though not particularly outstanding. The Louisiana cochon with turnips, cabbage and cracklins – was the most deeply flavored pig I'd had this trip. It was basically pulled pork formed into a cake, so juicy and just the right flavor. The cracklins added a nice crunch and were clearly housemade. Smothered greens had nice bits of bacon in them. Then we finished with the Pineapple upside down cake, which was a delicious carmelized shell surrounding a sweet tart pinapple cake accompanied by a lime sorbet. beautiful combo of flavors. The Lemon buttermilk pie was fine, nothing special, but o.k. Service was not very good, somewhat cold and it seemed that they were trying to rush us out of the restaurant despite the fact that there were many open tables and no one was waiting outside. They dropped the check on us, cleared the table and after we finished dessert and were relaxing and talking with each other they began to wipe and clean the table.

The next morning we went for a run and stopped for a quick bite at Central Grocery. The muffaletta was fine, the giarinera was better than Frank's next door, but I think I'm just not a muffaletta girl. 

After we freshened up we headed for Casamento's for oysters. Wow really great raw with their mixture of cocktail, horseradish and lemon sauce. They had a very clean flavor (not briny at all) and almost burst in your mouth as you ate them. I'm not usually a fan of very large oysters because they are overly meaty. These oysters were large, but the flavor was light and refreshing. We also sampled their gumbo, oyster stew and oyster loaf. The oyster loaf was the best of the bunch, two toasted slices of texas toast style bread with a pile of freshly fried oysters on top. The oysters were really delicious, though I think the breading was thicker than I like.

On to Lilette for lunch, we started with the chicken broth with poached egg, hmm, not really my favorite, too much celery and herb, this lacked flavor. The grilled beat salad with goat cheese and walnuts was delicious, I liked that the grilling added a char flavor to the beets and made them less sweet.

Our mains were beef cheek and gnocchi in a mushroom bacon sauce. The mushroom sauce was nice, but the beef cheek was just o.k. while the gnocchi were dense chewy and just a little overwhelmingly starchy. The better of the two entrees was the pulled pork which came of toasted french breaded ladled with jus and mayonaise. Honestly, I thought that the jus soaked bread was the best part of the sandwich and for some reason the french fries were particularly good. Dessert was awesome. Quenelles of crème fraiche on top of lavender honey garnished with pistachios and poached pears – a winning combo of flavors and textures. Nutella custard with fleur de sel, caramel cream and chocolate-hazelnut brittle was good though a little on the custardy side.

Then we walked around for a bit and ended up at Sucre and got some truffles. The next stop was Domilese's after a short train ride we came across this shack of a place.

Domilise's – shrimp and oyster po boy was excellent.  The shrimp had a nice snap and the oysters had a like crispy batter all of it went perfectly with the sauce.  This and Parasol's were the most old school po'boy shops we went to.  It was very hot that day and unfortunately they weren't running the a/c otherwise I'd rank this one as my favorite.

Parasol's – roast beef po boy.  The roast beef here is more like a long braised pot roast sandwich piled high with juicy tender chunks of beef, lettuce, cheese and a mayo sauce.  I would've loved a glass of red wine to cut through the richness, but that wouldn't fit this place -- it's the back room of a neighborhood bar.  This is my favorite roast beef sandwich.

Next Restaurant August & Stanley

New Orleans II

I can't believe it's almost been a half a year since my trip.  I'm going to just post my notes.  No time to write.

Brunch at Commander's Palace. I completely understand why people rave about the service here. It is impeccable and the setting is very luxurious and traditional old school southern. Added to the setting was a foursome of debutants seated next to us wearing dresses and sitting with perfect posture and manners. The band is very smooth and professional, they've done this millions of times. The mood is festive and reminded me of an easter brunch with balloons tied down at each table. Now on to the food. We started with mimosas and a bloody mary, the bloody mary was strongly spiced and seasoned. I bit overwhelming for me. Ditto for the garlic bread starter, just overpoweringly garlickly. My dining companions loved it. We went on to the starters, two of us had gumbo while I had the absinthe dome oyster stew. Really delicious stew with an interesting flavor. Things were getting better after coming off on the wrong foot with the overpowering bloody and garlic bread. Next came Eggs cochon de lait with a pork debris gravy and mushrooms. This was excellent, the pork was tender well seasoned, smokey and one of the eggs was perfectly soft cooked, while the other was cooked until the yolk was no longer runny. The hollandaise sauce was very sparingly drizzled on top, but it was nice and lemony. I loved the pork debris gravy and mushrooms. This was a very good dish, save the one overcooked yolk. Dessert was strawberry short cake and a bread pudding souffle with whisky cream sauce. I enjoyed the bread pudding souffle, really a bread pudding topped wit souffle and then whisky sauce melting a hole through the center. Good flavor not overpowering and well balanced.

We walked around a it in the Garden District on Magazine street and saw quite a few people munching on huge piles of boiled crawfish in the beer garden next to the Bulldog. H thought they probably got it from the seafood shop across the street. too bad I was so full.

The Road Food Festival – I missed Lasyone's Meat Pies twice, they kept selling out! Anyhow, I tried pecan pie and a crawfish cake both were fine nothing outstanding. As I walked away, I saw a booth selling gumbo, chicken and sausage gumbo which I would normally pass up because it lacked any seafood. But I noticed that the restaurant Prejean's was from Lafayette, remembering that Lafeyette is in the center of cajun country, I thought I should give it a try as the style might be different than what I'd been having in NOLA, yet I was totally full, it was a small investment so I bought a bowl, thinking I'd eat a few bites to judge. It was thin not very stew like, slightly spicey, but not overwhelmingly so, full of flavor, no bitterness or interesting file flavor, really sort of clean and clear flavors coming through directly – a far cry from the somewhat muddied flavors from the other gumbos I'd eaten. In the broth was some rice, which was fine and there was nothing else, just the soup chicken and sausage and rice. Despite my full stomach I ate the whole thing. Then ran an errand and was thinking of going back for more. Alas it was too late and the festival was already in clean up mode.

That night we wanted to eat light so we cancelled our reservation at Dante's Kitchen. Instead we went to have BBQ shrimp at Mr. B's. We tried a few other items unremarkable dishes and concluded that yes Mr. B's BBQ shrimp – with very fresh large head on shrimp was great, the highlight of the dish is the sauce – which for some reason reminded me of the gumbo from Prejeans! Anyhow it was very peppery spicy finished with cream and balanced with acid and a bbq sweetness – we sopped up the sauce until we finished our entire loaf of bread.

We finished the night with a beignet from Cafe Du Monde. they were as good as I remembered them – crispy on the outside, airy on the inside with a good chew.

New Orleans I

This was our first full day in New Orleans. The road food festival was already in full swing but we decided to take a very long walk to Elizabeth's for brunch.

Elizabeth's – This is an old style two story house in the Bywater neighborhood. The surrounding area is mostly residential so it's definitely had a neighborhood restaurant feel to it. The upstairs has high ceilings and a bar, while the down stairs has that crowded bustling feeling of a traditional breakfast diner.

I had the fried green tomatoes, poached egg and hollandaise. The hollandaise was great, I wish there was more of it. R had the cajun breakfast which was a mix of pieces of smoked pork with shrimp on a slaw and a poached egg. I loved the smokey pieces of pork in her dish. We each had a helping of grits, which were just normal grits. The service was excellent very casual and friendly. I'd definitely come back. The pralined bacon was fine, I imagine the excitement over it is more from the novelty of it before the candied bacon craze of the last few years.

We lunched at Boucherie, a small place fairly far from the FQ. We were very happy with a bowl of crispy fries topped with garlic and parmesan accompanied by the house vinegar. Onto a bowl of mussels and collards, which was good, though not extraordinary.  I did like the crunchy grit chips that came on top.

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Emeril's New Orleans

Emeril's New Orleans was our first dinner in town.   He has several restaurants in town and I was told that this was a good exemplar of the food he became known for.  We started with the Rabbit on fried green tomatoes this was probably our favorite dish of the night. Delicious rabbit tender and flavorful, not the least bit gamey, on top of crispy fried green tomtoes. Just a beautifully balanced dish.

Our second starter was the smoked exotic mushrooms on angel hair pasta with tasso sauce. The smokey mushrooms paired perfectly with the creamy tasso sauce which had a paprika and smoked ham flavor. Sometimes I find smokey dishes over smoked and so that the smokey taste overwhelms the rest of the components. The smokiness here was pitch perfect, though I think the noodles and the sauce could've been tossed together a bit more.  Some ended up stuck together as a chunk, but the noodles that were well coated in the sauce were great. 

We went on to the seafood gumbo, which was a very good version of gumbo, not very spicy but really well balanced a lot of different flavors melded together, but not a soft of muddied overcooked taste that you sometimes get with gumbo.  By the end of the week, I had sampled many gumbos and this one ranked among the best.

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