A Week in New Orleans With No Bad Eats

(Note: I'm almost done encapsulating the whole trip - only 2 more days to go!)

The Crescent City is quite a fun town, filled with funk, Southern charm, awe-inspiring food for every caste at every turn, acres of beautiful Antebellum architecture... a perfect place to get away, laze and indulge. In other words, Lou's Valhalla, baby.

The air travel coming and going was untroubled and perfectly coordinated. We both cashed in some miles and upgraded to First and Business on the trip, with layovers in the spiffy Denver International Airport on both depature and return. I have experienced heaven, and it's Business Class on a Boeing 767 - the legroom was obscene, even if I still had to wedge my ass into a seat. G experienced the advantages of flying up front and enjoyed it immensely. I'm glad she did; it's gonna take years for both of us to earn the 30,000 miles to do that again.

Travelzoo tipped me off to the hotel deal we got - $69/night at the year-old Astor Crowne Plaza courtesy of EasyClick Travel. The Astor is in quite the optimal spot at Bourbon and Canal - at the beginning of the French Quarter yet a block removed from the noise, a block away from the St. Charles streetcar line to Uptown and the Garden District, about 4 blocks from the Riverwalk and all that accompanies it (another streetcar, Harrah's if you like gambling, the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, a ferry across the Mississippi to Old Algiers and Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World). The Astor is beautifully appointed with nice big rooms. My only wish was that the beds were more comfortable. I'd wake up most mornings with one part of my body or another aching and stiff. (I still dream of the ultra-comfy beds at the Napa Valley Marriott. Why can't every hotel have beds like that?)

Day 1 - July 21:

After getting into town and situating ourselves at the Astor, it was 10:30 at night and we were looking to tuck into our first meal in a renowned foodie's city. Unfortunately, though you can grab a hooch Slurpee and swill it in public any damn time of day or night, food options get quite limited by 10. Fortunately one place was open that a coworker of mine (and former NOLA resident) recommended:

Felix's Restaurant and Oyster Bar (corner of Bourbon and Iberville)

• Felix's Special Po Boy (fried shrimp & oyster)


• Shrimp Po Boy


• French Fries

Located across the street from the more-hyped Acme Oyster House, Felix's is a completely unpretentious joint with beehived waitresses from the Pleistocene era, Formica tables, and bottles of hot sauce with yellowed, half-peeled, illegible labels - telltale signs of a well-aged and authentically fiery condiment. We both ordered our po boys dressed - lettuce, tomato, mayo. I opened up my Felix's Special and tried to apply the hot sauce gingerly. Unh-unh, no such luck. This wasn't your average wussy Tabasco bottle that lets out droplets. Splash, splash, spuh-lash. Soooo fuckin' good. Reminded me of my younger days when I'd slide into Denny's in the wee hours and throw something greasy down my gullet. Only this was fantastic Gulf seafood. Damn fine way to start our gustatory tour of duty.

Afterwards, we took a leisurely stroll down Rue Bourbon. Many more walks down Bourbon during the week led me to the conclusion that the length of the street between Iberville and St. Ann is a spiritual nexus of carnys, mullets and other genetic defectives. I can barely bring myself to fathom the sheer grosses of carnys conceived on that stretch of everlasting-puke-smelling road. Clip strip joints, mediocre live music blasting out of every other bar, scorching yet fading neon, tchotchke shops with heinously overpriced beads, more olfactory offenses than your average slaughterhouse as described in Fast Food Nation. It's as if Memphis's Beale Street acquired a $1M-a-day crack habit. Naz-teeee.

Day 2 - July 22:

Petunia's (817 St. Louis, between Dauphine and Bourbon)

• Cajun Sausage Breakfast - grilled andouille, boudin, two eggs, grits, served with toast and watermelon


• Maw Maw's Cajun Breakfast - bits of bacon, ham, and shrimp scrambled with eggs, rice, carrots and seasonings, served with toast and watermelon

As was the case most of the week, we got up late (around 10), took our own sweet time and went out with not much of a predetermined agenda. This was a place recommended in the Frommer's guide to NOLA, and it was the first of many great tips we got from this book - pick it up if you decide to take a trip down there.

Petunia's is in a small 19th-century townhouse with salmon-colored walls and perhaps the smallest restroom that isn't 30,000 feet in the air. The staff of three or four did a great job and were quite friendly and patient with us Westerners, providing little helpful hints like not to eat the casing on the boudin. There was a line out the door, and waiting any amount of time in the steamy, oppressive Southern outdoors is not much fun, but people exiting told us it was well worth the wait. True dat, yo. G got the sausage breakfast, which she devoured with glee. Petunia's is where she began her love affair with grits, which are not really found in abundance in S.F. The Maw Maw's breakfast is served in a deep dish, and is hot and fluffy and dense with sundry great flavors and ingredients. They're also known for their monstrous crêpes, which we'll definitely try next time.

Afterwards we strolled down to Jackson Square and the French Market, where I procured two dozen Aunt Sally's pralines for my family and Café du Monde beignet mix for Dan. We eventually staggered back to the hotel, my t-shirt thoroughly saturated with sweat, to rest, clean up, dress up and walk the one block down Bourbon to:

Galatoire's (209 Bourbon, between Iberville and Bienville)

• Gouté - a sampling of Shrimp Rémoulade, Shrimp Maison (mayo/lemon/caper sauce) and Crabmeat Maison


• Oysters en Brochette - oysters wrapped in bacon, then deep-fried


• Creole Gumbo


• Speckled Trout in a Meunière Amandine sauce (butter and almonds) with Crabmeat Yvonne (artichokes and mushrooms)


• Filét Béarnaise


• Soufflé Potatoes


• Creamed Spinach


• Sweet Potato Cheesecake with pecan and caramel sauce

Galatoire's, along with Commander's Palace, Arnaud's and Antoine's, is one of the real old guard of New Orleans cuisine. It wasn't until recently that they started taking reservations. We were seated in their downstairs dining room, a clubby space with green-and-gold fleur de lys wallpaper, mirrors and lots of brass. The waiters were crusty, gregarious and friendly. Our waiter, Reynard, was way younger compared with the other gentlemen, far less crusty, and certainly effusive in his charm and advice on what to order. He also took photos of us inside and outside of the restaurant.

As for the fare: solid, well-done, traditional French/Creole. Quite good. But compared with the other places where we dined (including the old guard establishments), nothing leaped out at me food-wise. This was also the only restaurant where we had a bottle of wine with our meal - 2000 Rodney Strong Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon ($33), a vineyard even I (in my limited enological wisdom) was well-familiar with. They had a fabulous Merlot on their list - 2000 Duckhorn Napa Valley Merlot - but it was marked up almost 150% at $110 (bloody fucking ridiculous - I can drive an hour to Duckhorn and get the wine for $46/bottle). Even the markup on the Rodney Strong was almost 100%, but a little more palatable. The sweet potato cheesecake was a dreamy mix of two rich tastes, and the first of many insanely great desserts we had in the Big Easy.

Day 3 - July 23:

Mother's (401 Poydras, between Magazine and Tchoupitoulas in the Central Business District)

• Shrimp Po Boy


• Famous Ferdi Special Po Boy - "world's best" house-baked ham, roast beef, debris (the bits of roast beef that fall into the gravy) and gravy, dressed with mayo, tomato, cabbage, pickles, yellow and Creole mustard


• Red Beans & Rice

Another place recommended by Frommer's, another fine joint - with lots of lunchtime customers to confirm that fact. It's a cafeteria-style place with Soup Nazi-esque brusqueness: grab a menu, get in line, order, move it along, pay, get your drink, grab a table, do not dawdle. Huge portions, great food. The Famous Ferdi was a hoagie/French Dip on steroids. G's shrimp po boy (a half portion) was huge and tasty, too. It was here that we were caught by surprise - and with our umbrellas back at the Astor - by the first thunderstorms of the trip. That was a woolly block-long run to the taxi. When the rains let up, we headed back down to Jackson Square and...

Café du Monde (1039 Decatur Street, near the French Market)

• 2 orders of beignets (square donuts, no holes, tons of powdered sugar)


• Iced café au lait

Fried, sugary perfection with a cold chicorylicious chaser. Now I've had friends fry up the mix before, but it goes without saying that the genuine article is peerless. Alas, G didn't have her camera to document the fact that I ate 3 beignets and yet got nary a granule of sugar on my blue shirt. Historic! (About the only shirt I mussed on the trip was the one I got hot sauce on at Felix's. Now that's almost damn miraculous, considering my penchant for getting Pollock-lookin' foodstuffs on my clothing and the number of sauce-laden dishes I had in NOLA.)

A post-snack walk up the Riverwalk led us to Harrah's, where we kicked around for about an hour. Long enough for me to drop $100 at blackjack and $20 at video poker. (G dropped something like $40 at slots.) Grand total of comped drinks: 1 club soda. Now that's ROI, Clyde. Ugh. That's the only time I spent gambling - if I was gonna blow money in New Orleans, it would be on orgasmic meals. A few hours later we made the trek to our second formal dinner.

Commander's Palace (1403 Washington Ave., in the Garden District)

• Turtle Soup au Sherry


• Creole Gumbo du Jour


• Grilled Veal Chop Tchoupitoulas - with goat cheese stone-ground grits and brandied wild mushroom demi-glace


• Shrimp Cognac and Andouille Grits - toasted garlic, leeks, mushrooms and tomato concassé spiked with Cognac and roasted veal fond


• Bread Pudding Soufflé with whiskey cream sauce


• Chocolate Fudge Sheba - a chilled mousse-like cake with nuts

This is a restaurant that's spawned great chefs (Emeril Lagasse, Paul Prudhomme) and garnered accolades like so much parsley garnish. It's in a sprawling 19th-century Victorian house and is owned by members of the Brennan family, the ubiquitous NOLA restauranteurs (Brennan's, Red Fish Grill, Mr. B's Bistro, Dick & Jenny's, ad nauseum). We were seated in a dining room that looked out on the beautiful patio. An interesting architectural touch: the trunk of a huge tree was located in the middle of the dining room, contained in glass. Most of the service at the restaurants we experienced was impeccable and prompt. The service at Commander's Palace was the best of the bunch, professional and well-orchestrated and brisk without losing a smidge of charm. We were having fun just watching the staff circle the tables and synchronize their service.

We started with a great special: Robert Mondavi partnered with C.P. to offer a flight of three of Mondavi wines for $5 - 2000 Santa Maria Pinot Blanc, 2000 Napa Valley Zinfandel, and 2000 Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. We both liked the lively, buttery Zin the best.

G and I both considered C.P. the best old guard restaurant we dined at. As you can see, it was Creole food with great nouvelle flourishes by Chef Tory McPhail and his crew. My veal chop was exquisite, as was the turtle soup. And the desserts? The bread pudding soufflé was something otherworldly. The Chocolate Sheba was impossibly rich. All in all, a legendary meal.

Day 4 - July 24:

Emeril's (800 Tchoupitoulas at Julia, in the Warehouse District)

• Creole Marinated Calamari - fried and served with smoked tomato sauce, olive salad and Parmesan Reggiano cheese


• Butter Lettuce Wedge - drizzled with a warm bacon-black eyed pea vinaigrette with balsamic braised onions, spiced walnuts and pears topped with Roquefort cheese


• Our Emeril's Salad - farm grown lettuces tossed with extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes, pepper
  jack cheese and seasoned croutons


• Grilled Niman Ranch Pork Chop and Homemade Boudin Sausage - with braised collard greens, stoneground grits and apple-walnut conserves


• Pecan Crusted Texas Redfish - served on grilled vegetables and shoestring potatoes with cane syrup glazed pecans and Creole Meunière sauce


• Banana Cream Pie - with banana crust, caramel sauce and chocolate shavings


• Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie - with homemade marshmallow and chocolate sauce

This is the original restaurant that begat the great and terrible celebrity chef empire of the Portuguese Ewok from Fall River. Chef Lagasse has two other restaurants in New Orleans - Emeril's Delmonico Steakhouse in the Garden District and NOLA in the French Quarter - but Frommer's recommended Emeril's above the others.

Say what you will about his tired theatrics and the sitcom that killed Robert Urich, but in this case, where there's Bam! there's fire. (You now have a dispensation to kick me square in the ass for sliding in that hackneyed catchphrase.) Emeril's has damn good food - a modern twist on Louisiana cuisine. Among the restaurants we sampled, it probably rated third behind Peristyle and Commander's Palace. G's butter lettuce wedge was as big as her head and all the ingredients on it gilded the lily in many savory ways. Entrées were huge and flavorful as well - my redfish was delicious, but alas, something about the sauce seemed off to me. G's pork chop was a fine demonstration of the truism that pork fat does indeed rule.

As for desserts: if you've read up on Emeril's, you may have heard of the legend of its signature finisher, the banana cream pie. Perhaps you haven't, but now you shall hear the truth. It is that freaking good. I've never been a fan of banana cream pie - yeah, great, banana Jell-O pudding in a crust, blech. The Emeril's version is what it should be. Brobdingnagian chunks of banana suspended in a velvety cream filling with a nice dollop of whipped cream and caramel sauce on top. The chocolate-peanut butter pie was also quite good, but damn, that banana cream pie is deservedly the stuff of legend. If you get to New Orleans, you must have it.

I forget how we killed the afternoon - most likely back at the hotel, slowly coming out of that particular food coma - but when we did recover in the evening, we once again braved a walk down Carnyvana (aka Bourbon St.), stopping to grab a couple of go cups of Frozen Blended Getfacedquick (mine was White Russian flavor). We just kept walking, and when we got past St. Ann, the tacky neon aprubtly ended, as did the blaring noise, the drunks and the smell of hastily expelled bodily fluids. We walked a block before we realized: oh cool, we're in the gay part of the Quarter. How refreshingly civilized. We admired the rows of shotgun houses (so named because you can fire off a round from the front of the house and it would go straight out the back without hitting a wall) and spied a couple of the bars/dance clubs like Cafe Lafitte in Exile. It was here that we decided on a low-key dinner at:

Clover Grill (900 Bourbon at Dumaine)

• Cheeseburger w/Swiss


• Cheeseburger w/Bleu and Sauteed Mushrooms


• French Fries

Clover Grill is a small open-all-night diner where the burgers are nicely sized (1/3-lb.) and more than half the fun is observing the sass that the waitstaff and the patrons dish out to each other. The burgers are grilled under hubcaps - to seal in juices and such, they say - but what the hell, it's a tasty gimmick. We were waited on by Mike from New York, a charming fellow wearing a funny T-shirt: the diner's sign, changed to say "CLEVER GIRL" instead of "CLOVER GRILL." G picked one of those up before we got out of town to give to a friend as a birthday present. A fun place that was reminiscent of home.

When we were done, we debated where to go to catch some live music. Frommer's recommended a trumpet player named Kermit Ruffins. His band The BBQ Swingers performs most Thursday nights at Vaughan's Lounge, a place way east of the Quarter in an area called the Bywater. At the hotel I consulted the hip radio station WWOZ and the Gambit Weekly for music info. One of those sources listed Ruffins as starting at 10, so we hailed a cab and got over there at about 9:45. If you decide to go to Vaughan's, take a cab. It's not in the kind of neighborhood you'd care to get lost in. On the ride over, G and I exchanged glances, mostly of the what-the-hell-did-we-get-ourselves-into variety.

When we were dropped off, G noticed the marquee - an ancient chalkboard - which gave the performance time as 11:30. Fiddlesticks. So essentially we had 2 hours to kill at a dive bar in the middle of the boondocks. When they aren't having live music, the entrance to Vaughan's is locked and you have to get buzzed in - another sign of a quality neighborhood. So we hung out and got drinks, which were remarkably priced - something $2.75 for a stiff 7 & 7 (G's libation of choice) or rum and Coke (my old standby). By the time the show was ready to start, the place got packed and raucous. And the band was tight - contemporary jazz with a NOLA flavor here and there. We stayed for an hour or so and then cabbed it back for shuteye. If there's one thing I wish we had done more of, it's sampling the live music scene, which is amazingly vibrant. Oh well, it makes a great excuse to go back.

Day 5 - July 25:

The day started late yet again, and when we finally composed ourselves, we decided to hop on the St. Charles streetcar for the ride uptown. $1.25 well spent to see all the tony old dwellings. We got off near the end of the line, in the Riverbend/Carrollton district, to grab a late breakfast at:

Camellia Grill (626 S. Carrollton Ave., near streetcar stop #43)

• Mushroom omelette w/cheese (served w/french fries)


• Chili omelette w/cheese (served w/french fries)


• Pecan waffle

Dave (my coworker and former NOLA resident) recommended this place, and so did Frommer's. Scoping out other opinions on the web, others were a little more dismissive of such practices as the charging for coffee beyond the first cup. Having dined there, I can understand why they do such things. The Camellia Grill is a tiny 24-hour diner - one counter shaped like a wavy "W" with cooks furiously laboring away up close - with a large following, especially among the college students at nearby Tulane, Xavier and UNO; there's almost always a line to be seated, so they have to turn the clientele over as quick as possible. As diners go, this place hit the spot beautifully. The omelettes were as big as my forearms - I had the chili omelette, which was delivered straight from greasy-spoon heaven - and the pecan waffle (which we split) was a nice treat as well. Nothing fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but quite solid grub nonetheless.

We were going to walk off breakfast admiring the houses on St. Charles up close, but decided against it when we saw the gathering storm clouds and heard the thunderclaps in the distance, so we hopped the streetcar for the ride back, which went through a torrent of sideways tropical rain. Funny thing was, when we made it through uptown and got back to Canal St., we noticed the rain never hit downtown or the Quarter - it was just a very local monsoon. Freaky.

Peristyle (1041 Dumaine at N. Rampart)

• Amuse bouche: Gruyère profiterole (a tasty hot cheese puff)


• Pan-seared Hudson Valley foie gras with a blueberry/port reduction


• Crab salad - horseradish-emulsified crabmeat on a bed of balsamic red onions and roasted beets


• Peristyle salad - mixed greens with pepitas and a Louisiana artisanal Brie


• Veal with "one hell of a" reduction (according to G), fingerling potatoes, artichokes, and baby carrots


• Duck breast w/Picholine olive and peach demi-glace, honey-roasted shallots, haricots vert and French lentils


• Summer Peach Tart w/streusel topping and creme fraiche


• Caramel Café Alaska - bittersweet chocolate cake, Turkish roast coffee and caramel gelato, toasted French meringue, bittersweet chocolate sauce and coffee toffee

This modern French restaurant is on the edge of the Quarter, across the street from Louis Armstrong Park. It's a smallish place with many upscale touches and a fantastic menu. Anne Kearney Sand is the chef-owner; she helped found Peristyle, left to work for Emeril Lagasse, then returned when Peristyle's chef-owner died. It really is the best restaurant we dined at in NOLA. The food is on a par with the other excellent French places I've been to, including Gary Danko in S.F. and Picasso in Las Vegas - the difference being that Peristyle's menu follows the conventional 3-course pattern rather than the tasting menus with many smaller courses that you'll find at the other restaurants. My duck was served a nice medium-rare with the delicious, fatty, crackling skin you'll find in a well-prepared duck. Dessert was incredibly sinful, especially all the dark and rich flavors in the Caramel Café Alaska. We decided to walk back to the hotel to try to alleviate the bloated state we were in, going down Royal St. instead of Bourbon to window-shop at the stores of various price ranges and tastes (my eyes are still recovering from the glimpse inside the horrific Kinkade-esque emporium called Gallery of Light).

I got back last night. I'm still pretty wrecked physically. Just dog tired, but happy. When my brain gets less cloudy, I'm gonna start posting bite-by-bite transcriptions of how we ate our way through New Orleans. Oh but how delicious it all was.

Crescent City Bacchanalia, Day 2

OK, Rule No. 1: Do not have a meal at Galatoire's, quaff half a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and then try to encapsulate the experience using a shitty in-room WebTV-type contraption. I'll elaborate later from a competent actual PC when I'm not fighting a wine and food buzz, but for now: weather is unbelievably oppressive, food is unbelievably rich and flavorable, Vieux Carré smells funny.

Just when I thought the Fox evil empire couldn't get worse, it's trying to change the historical payment paradigm for writers. Who the hell goes to foxsports.com anyway? Talk about grapefruit-sized brass balls.

I'm dog tired, but I auditioned for Sweeney Todd tonight and boy did I eat it. Big lessons learned. I need voice lessons and I need to vigorously rehearse my audition pieces with real live accompanists, not just sing along with the soundtrack in the car. Blech.

I've been in deep mourning over the loss of Barry White. What's worse is, I haven't had time to celebrate his life at a karaoke bar yet. Little known fact: B.W. wrote and produced songs for The Banana Splits. Oh baby, tra la la, tra la la la, baby...

Today has been a highly busy but also highly productive day. From now until I get on that plane to New Orleans, I'm going to have to kick day-job ass like it's seldom been kicked. In between the usual labors, I'll also have to finish the run of Little Mary Sunshine; help strike the set immediately after we close, in the span of about 90 minutes (!!!!!);get clothes cleaned and packed for the vacation; continue to research NOLA stuff, as well as book more restaurant reservations (so far: Commander's Palace, Galatoire's and Emeril's); consider an audition song for a local production of Sweeney Todd (at this point, I'm thinking either "Sorry-Grateful" or "Marry Me a Little" from Company, probably the former); and continue to brainstorm and coalesce ideas for the one-man show (a Theatre Bay Area seminar on producing solo pieces - which I'm attending this Saturday - will hopefully catalyze the process). On top of that, I need sleep. Just a good prolonged period of stasis, eyes closed, theta waves, relaxation. I'm happy when I'm busy, but damn, I need to crawl into my cave and chill for a couple of days.