Monday, October 6, 2008

New Orleans: A Culinary Journey

On this trip, I wanted to taste as many Southern specialties as I could. I can assure you, we did not go hungry. Here's a tour of some of our meals:


Muffuletta at Ignatius Cafe. Sandwich filled with salami, provolone cheese, olives and more. Could only eat about half. I don't usually like olives, but this was a fine exception to the rule.



The famous oysters at Casamento's. This restaurant is only open during oyster season (which means it is closed all summer), and it only serves lunch from 11-2 and dinner from 5:30-9. (There's no eating in between). These were indeed very fresh, but neither Dan and I would be in a hurry to have oysters again.


New Orleans is known for their fresh seafood, but in a way it doesn't really make a difference because it is all deep fried. After oysters, Dan and I indulged in this grease fish fest of fried oysters, shrimp, cat fish, crab and fries. The best part--under all that food were four slices of white toast with butter. It was the perfect ending. I don't think that people here know about whole-wheat bread. We only saw white bread in these parts.



I had gumbo twice. Here is a small cup from Madinas. On my birthday, Dan and I went to Upperline where it came part of its Taste of New Orleans menu.


At Madina's, I has some stuffed shrimp, which was more "stuff" than shrimp. My least favorite meal I ate, and at this point was getting a little sick of fried food.


Catfish po' boy from Johnny's. Fried catfish that I requested to be "dressed"--with lettuce, tomato and mayo. One of the best sandwiches I have ever had. HIt the spot.


Here's Dan talking on the phone and enjoying two slushy peach alcoholic drinks (on the street!) that we got from one of the touristy bars in the French Quarter.



New Orleans is not really a cupcake destination, but when I saw this beauty at Sucre, I had to try it. They had many flavors, but Dan and I split this caramel chocolate one which was pretty good. We came back to this place for gelato which was even better.

Some other things we ate not pictured: Fried green tomatoes, frog legs (surprisingly very tasty), turtle soup, pralines, pecan pie, rice and beans, homemade ice cream at Creole Creamery (I had pumpkin ice cream!), some of the most delicious blueberry muffins I've ever had at our bed & breakfast.

It was all good, but by the end of it, all I wanted was a vegetable. Seriously.

1 comment:

Willy The Prince said...

It's lunch time and that po'boy looks tasty. Did an event in NO and served Muffaletta. In my eyes--it's a glorified Italian Hero :)