New Orleans, Louisiana Eats
Wheeee! Aaaand a 12 hour road trip from Austin, Texas later and we’re in New Orleans baby!
New Orleans is known for gumbo, crawfish and of course, the beignet aka the famed fried donut covered in a cloud of icing sugar.
We begin at Cafe Beignet (311 Bourbon St, New Orleans) also home to the musical legends park where sweet jazz tunes fill the courtyard. Cafe Beignet serves Cajun/Creole food but it was the beignets that we were after. It was pretty humid so luckily the queue was short and we took a number and found a table in the shade but unfortch it’s also home to crazy and daring seagulls and pigeons.
3 beignets for US$3.99 = deliciousness that doesn’t have to be divided between three people 😛 Piping hot golden pillows of dough are lightly dusted with icing sugar and disappear within seconds.
Then a wander through the New Orleans French Market and it was off to Cafe Du Monde (800 Decatur St, New Orleans) which was chock a block mainly with tourists at the tables but also with locals who ordered takeaway from a window around the corner.
Tee hee couldn’t resist another paper hat!
3 beignets (US$2.42). Zomg so much sugar! Look! Would you like some icing sugar with your donut? Haha I think I preferred Cafe Du Monde over Cafe Beignet because of the table service in the huge hall was much preferred over ducking for cover from the diving pigeons and well, the novelty of a mountain of icing sugar was just so insane!
Even though we dunked our beignet into the icing sugar this is the amount that was left! I wonder how much sugar they go through in a day..
Aaaand a Crawfish Beignet (US$5) from J’s Seafood Dock to even out the sweetness 😛
IT’S PINCHY!!! Ok, I realise Homer’s Pinchy was an American lobster but I’ve always wanted to pick up a crawfish which is basically a small lobster and wave its claws around and weep at it’s deliciousness after it’s hot bath:D
Helen and I had been walking through the madness that is Bourbon St which was filled with happy drunk people but surprisingly it felt more safe there than walking around the Cross. Like, everyone had plastic fishtanks filled with various hues of alcoholic beverages hung on lanyards around their neck but they weren’t off their faces! I dunno I just found it very refreshing lol anywhos we needed a break from walking and stumbled into Pier 424 Seafood Market (424 Bourbon St, New Orleans) after spotting crawfish on the menu at the super cheap price of US$11/pound. ELEVEN BUX GUYS!!! WHY SO CHEAP?!
Haha this is the way I reckon the pinchys should have been arranged! I had a bit of trouble opening them up but our trusty waiter came to the rescue and showed us how to get at the sweet meat in the tails. So fricken tasty I still can’t get over how the food is so much cheaper in the states even with tax and tips.
The next day Lex leads us to Felix’s Restaurant & Oyster Bar (739 Iberville St, New Orleans) where we sat at the bar to watch the oyster shuckers hard at work. They’re a chatty bunch and Michael Jackson “it’s the name on my driver’s license!” shows us his wallet before shucking open a sample oyster for us to try before we’ve even looked at the menu. After we’ve ordered the shuckers find a pearl and soon they’re all trying to find us a bigger pearl to take home haha I ordered a salad thanks to my fail over-eating but ended up adding fried oysters, fried and grilled shrimp on top of it which kinda negated the health factor but made it one fine salad indeed.
Not quite sure when I ate this on our trip in New Orleans but I had to include it because Popeye’s has the best biscuit ever! And the crispy bacon rashers was bloody awesome!
We’d been eating so much that I was literally feeling sick at the end of each day and may have entered my very first gym. Of course I had to wear my bacon tshirt to cheer me up..
