VACATIONS FROM HOME: NEW ORLEANS, AGAIN!

SHUT UP AND EAT
ecstasy

Janet has planned a birthday trip for me for us to revisit New Orleans. We’ve been to the Crescent City several times before, but I certainly don’t mind returning. IT IS a great foodie destination.

Ever since she told me about this impending trip I’ve dreamt of chargrilled oysters and etouffee and gumbo and red beans and rice and crawfish boil and jambalaya … and well… you get the idea.

We were last in New Orleans in 2011 to ostensibly to visit my daughter who was living there at the time.

It’s been too long and I’m hungry to return.

As a couple Janet and I first visited New Orleans in 2008 and we used the city as a homebase to explore southwest Louisiana. Between excursions to Avery Island and the Tabasco headquarters, and taking a boat through the Tiger Bayou and the Atchafalaya water basin, or attempting to dance at the Cajun French Music Festival at the Burton Arena in Lake Charles, or tossing biscuits at alligators in the Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge which is a major flyover spot for migratory birds, and driving through the “Cajun Riviera” that was devastated by Hurricane Rita which had hit this extreme western edge of the state just a month after Katrina, we ate our way through towns like Thibodaux, Lafayette, Breaux Bridge (which is the hometown of former NFL QB Jake Delhomme) and the barrier island of Grand Isle, just to name a few.

I kept a pre-Vacations From Home blog during that trip and if interested you can revisit it here: CAJUN COUNTRY TRAVELS BLOG

FOOD TOURISM

I know, the old adage is “eat to live, not live to eat,” but in New Orleans it’s hard to make that adjustment, and for a travel blog that preaches that this is a big world and we are loathe to return to a place, it’s really easy to make an exception for the Big Easy.

Even before I met Janet, I personally traveled to New Orleans a couple of times… JUST TO EAT, and between those soirees there were several work-related trips to the city for entertainment and television jobs. Yeah, I am hungry for New Orleans.

WHERE YOU EATING?

It’s a question you are liable to get as you eat your way through the city. Wait staff and chefs and conversations in bars will undoubtably ask you this question, not because you’re taking your business elsewhere, but because the whole town is wrapped up in the food. It’s a pride thing; they know you’re traveling to New Orleans to eat. Yeah, sure, there’s jazz and cajun music and zydeco to go hear, but only after we eat….

When we first traveled to New Orleans in 2008, just three years after the devasting Hurricane Katrina, which was just one of several massive hurricanes in 2005, the people of the city and the surrounding area were genuinely happy tourists were back to support Louisiana. The chef Jacques Imo even came out to personally thank us for coming back and graciously posed for pictures with him holding our entrees.

In Athens we went on a food tour with Culinary Backstreets. We briefly considered the tour they offer in New Orleans called, The Creole Connection: Gumbo and Beyond in New Orleans, but opted instead to rely on our past experiences (and to save the somewhat hefty price of $175pp). The Culinary Backstreets tour in Athens was spectacular, and a LOT of food. Knowing the food culture of New Orleans I would expect that and much much more.

I once went to a restaurant whose tag line was: “We’re gonna make you hurt yourself.” If you book a tour with Culinary Backstreets, expect nothing less.

CULINARY BACKSTREETS NEW ORLEANS

RESERVATIONS

MUFFALETTA

We are traveling to New Orleans with two other couples so there’s been a bit of give and take about where to eat. Of course, there will be stops at both the Acme Oyster House and Felix’s, just across the street. Maybe there’ll be a quick stop for Po’boys or a Muffaletta or the best hamburgers at Port of Call and we’re sure to bounce around Bourbon Street or hit a great dive bar like the Maple Leaf Bar (next door to Jacques Imo’s), but we’ve got our dinners all arranged.

The thing about eating in New Orleans you can go extremely fancy or very funky and every meal will be great. Places like Galatoire’s requires a suit jacket for dining in the downstairs restaurant. Thankfully they have a rack of suit jackets to borrow in order to properly dress for their establishment. Others, like Jacques Imo’s, you have to walk through their kitchen and sit in a dining room that looks like someone’s back porch.

CHARGRILLED OYSTERS

So, our reservations for this trip to New Orleans run the gamut, from posh to coon ass fun.

Here they are:

MURIEL’S JACKSON SQUARE

Muriel's New Orleans

Unfinished business

They call themselves a contemporary Creole restaurant located on a prominent corner right on Jackson Square and the St. Louis Cathedral in the heart of the French Quarter. Serving dinner 7 nights and brunch on Sundays Muriel’s is considered one of the best restaurants in New Orleans and they even boast several resident ghosts in this historic building that Muriel’s claims are “harmless” as they linger in the ether over unfinished business in this world.

Business casual dress.

MURIEL'S NEW ORLEANS

PALADAR 511

Paladar 511

Outside the Creole formula

Deviating from what I consider standard New Orleans fare we are taking our next meal at Paladar 511. Their menu has lots of items like pizza and pastas and fresh seafood, Paladar 511 is not satisfied with simply serving entrees awash in hollandaise or béchamel sauces and evidently diners in New Orleans are willing to look beyond the same ole Po’Boy for Squid Ink Spaghetti or Eggplant Paccheri. They must be doing something right and have been open since 2015. They are located in the Faubourg Marigny section of New Orleans, just a few steps from the quarter.

Casual dress.

PALADAR 511

JACQUES IMO’S

Yes, Chef

Real N’awlins Food

If ever you would actually hear the tagline on this article “shut up and eat”, it would be here at Jacques Imo’s in Uptown at 8324 Oak Street, but you won’t because this unpretentious fun, funky restaurant has a pleasant staff and great food. When Janet announced this trip, I immediately requested a reservation.

You need to walk through their kitchen to be seated in the dining room that’s made to look like someone’s back porch. The restaurant’s tag line is “Real N’awlins Food.”

To get to Jacques Imo’s take the St. Charles streetcar line, the oldest continuously operating streetcar in the world.

St Charles Streetcar

Now, if the food and the streetcar aren’t enough of an experience you can also eat at a table set on the back of flatbed truck parked partially on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant ...if you can get a reservation for it!

Definitely casual dress. Jacques will come out to greet patrons wearing a chef’s jacket and shorts.

Go, but be prepared to wait even with reservations at this extremely popular joint.

JACQUES IMO'S

Interested in after dinner drinks? Go next door to Jacques Imo’s to the Maple Leaf Bar, perhaps the best dive bar (at least on Oak Street)

MAPLE LEAF BAR NEW ORLEANS

MULATE’S

Get up and dance

Located in the Warehouse District this is a true Cajun restaurant. Live Cajun music and dancing every night and “overflowing” dishes of food. It’s not fancy, but Mulate’s is a lot of fun and a lot of food coming at you! If you have never heard Cajun music, with accordions and a guy playing a washboard draped over his shoulders with spoons, you should come to Mulate’s.

MULATE'S

OUR HOTEL

Past visits to New Orleans had us at the Four Points Sheraton on Bourbon Street. The revelry of that party street

Monteleone New Orleans

We are staying at the Hotel Monteleone on Royal Street. This Beaux-Arts building is a historical and literary landmark. Ernest Hemingway, William Falkner and Tennessee Williams all made a point of staying at the Monteleone when visiting New Orleans, and Truman Capote’s mother lived at the hotel while pregnant with the “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” author. Not sure what will help with my writer’s block more, breathing the rarified air of this place, or taking a spin while having a drink at the revolving Carousel Bar in the lobby.