Travel ’16: New Orleans, Part I (The Food)

Leave it to me to eat the touristy food in new cities; I’ll take that “burden” with a smile and some grains of salt, thank you very much. Although it took a great deal of arm twisting on my part, I can finally review my favorite food from my spirit city.

New Orleans is known for many things like Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street, and sustaining tremendous damage due to Hurricane Katrina, but above all, it is known for its food. And it should be! Since New Orleans was heavily influenced by its French and Spanish settlers, the food is incredibly diverse and delicious. Particularly its seafood, which is no surprise because of its proximity to the swamps and gulf.

First and foremost, let’s address the “can’t leave town without trying” dish: beignets.

Coming off my recent detox from the German berliner, I can admit that the French beignet is delicious. All it is is a fried donut that reminded me of a funnel cake; to be honest, it tasted like one too now that I think about it. But there’s nothing like knocking the excess powdered sugar off a freshly fried beignet and dipping it into a cup of steaming café au lait. Top notch even to my favored cappuccino and berliner combination.

Now, if I’m not mistaken, this dessert was created in New Orleans. I’ll check my facts, but for now, I’m going with my gut. Check out that Bananas Foster! It was rich, but not as heavy as it looks. The sauce was more butterscotch than vanilla (a shame my husband wasn’t there), but I suffered through 3 bites.

This little number came before the Bananas Foster. It was called the Vieux Carre (“old square”) and was basically a seafood sampler. Grilled shrimp, fried catfish, the best (Creole) crab cake I’ve ever had, fried oysters, and a mess of fries that defeated me.

This is my friend and host’s plate of fried oysters. They were great–and that’s coming from someone that’s not overly fond of oysters.

This is, sadly, the only po boy I got my hands on this trip. And it wasn’t even mine, nor did I taste it. But my friend had no complaints.

This was a beautiful, but salt-free rendition of crawfish etouffee. The crawfish were fine, but a good shower of salt and pepper turned everything around. Good showcase of the crawfish, but not as good as the crawfish I had at the boil outside of a local grocery store.

Last, but not least, is the only drink I deemed worthy of photographing. It’s called a hand grenade and like the Bananas Foster, it is a regional creation. No idea what’s in it besides pineapple juice–naturally, it’s a proprietary secret. I had one on the rocks and it put me in a good place. Like all good things, it came with a warning: do not drink more than 5.

Aside from my friends’ pictures of their food, that’s all I managed to crush last weekend. I’ll update it if/when I can, but look forward to a post about the city’s architecture next.