[2015 New Orleans] Vibrant NOLA

Ever since watching season 11 of Top Chef, I've been dying to visit New Orleans. The beautiful wrought iron balconies, endless supply of fresh seafood and all sorts of delicious Southern food, what's not to like (love)? So as soon as we decided on our vacation time, I strong-armed D to a trip down south (he''d visited NOLA before and didn't like it). The weather forecast for NOLA was sunny with highs in the 80s, I was even looking forward to the humidity, so I excitedly wheeled my huge luggage filled with summer clothing out of storage, even though Chicago was nowhere close to spring, let alone summer.

Our plane flew across the swamps outside the city during the descent, and my first impression was: green! All shades of green made NOLA look lush and full of life, unlike the dead brownish Midwest.

The cab ride from the airport into the city was about 30 minutes and uneventful. I liked the fact that it's a fixed price of $33, so I didn't have to worry about traffic. We're staying at the hotel Monteleone, a block away from Bourbon St. on Royal St. It's a historical landmark, and the lobby looks stunning.

Since our room wasn't ready, we dropped off the luggages and went searching for food. It was way past lunch time, so we were staving. I'm glad we chose to walk down Royal St. so my first impression of NOLA was a quiet clean street with lots of art galleries and tiny storefronts that begged me to go in. "Food first." D was very focused.





















I was so overwhelmed by the huge selection of NOLA restaurants I had trouble deciding where to make reservations. I ended up just making two. Today's late lunch was not one of them. We randomly chose Royal House because I vaguely remember reading about it. Maybe because it was a Saturday, we still had to wait around 20minutes for a table despite the late lunch hour. I didn't mind it though, my attention was drawn to the lovely balconies and live jazz music streaming in the streets. My tight shoulders seemed to relax quite a bit, and it finally sunk in: I'm on vacation!

Hurricane is a rum-based drink with lots of fruit

juices, sweet and refreshing. But be careful,

the afterkick was pretty strong!

As soon as we were seated, D ordered a hurricane, the drink he'd been muttering about as soon as we decided to visit NOLA. Fine, I guess I'll try one too.

For lunch, we of course had to order oysters, since they were delivered in these purple netted bags almost continuously during our wait. But somehow I didn't feel like raw ones today, so we went for a dozen of grilled oysters. We also got crawfish cakes and an alligator po'boy.

When the grilled oysters came, we didn't look too closely and started scarfing them down as we were both starving. So when the waiter realized he gave us the wrong order, it was too late, so we got an extra half dozen for free. These were actually their Royal oysters and Rockefeller oysters, both were pretty good.

These are the grilled oysters we ordered. I regretted it as soon as I saw them, they were covered in this salty cheesy mixture that completely obliterated the delicate taste of oysters.

The crawfish cake, on the other hand, was awesome. And look ma, no hands required!

The po'boy is a popular NOLA sandwich, where you put lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and fried stuff in a loaf of french bread. The fried stuff is commonly seafood, but we were curious about alligator, so here it is. This was surprisingly good, even though alligator really do taste like white meat chicken, albeit a bit more chewy. I was surprised it wasn't greasy at all and the breading was relatively light and very flavorful.



After lunch, our room was ready, so we strolled back to the hotel for a break. This time, we deliberately walked on Bourbon St, and I can only say I'm glad this was not my first impression of the city, because I hated it! It smelled like a mixture of beer and pot and vomit, the sidewalk had weird colored liquids, people were dressed strangely/scantily (we actually saw two ladies with only body paint on their upper body, that was a bit too much for us stuck-up Midwesterners), and the bars were dingy and loud. A bad headache hit about 5 blocks in, and I refused to go down the street any further, today or any other day during our trip.I didn't even bother taking pictures.

Ok, I did take this one, coz it was pretty funny.

Our room in the hotel was not as opulent as the lobby and rather cramped, but at least it was recently renovated and very clean. The most important thing is: it was super quiet. I couldn't hear any of the craziness from Bourbon St. My only complaint was with the tiny bathroom, I lived in constant fear that my toothbrush was gonna fall into the toilet...

Once we've recovered, we set out again. This time, in search of my favorite, the market. The French Market, to be precise. We walked by Jackson Square, which was super crowded. And the famous Cafe Du Monde. I didn't even both slowing down, because the line was ridiculous. It's just fried dough with powdered sugar, I told myself.


The French market turned out to be a letdown. There were a few stalls here but not too exciting, probably because it was close to end of the day. The back of the market was filled with stalls selling knick-knacks such as jewelry and souvenirs, likely all made in China. We didn't spend too much time here. Instead, we took one of the streets north of the French quarter to head back to the hotel. This street was super quiet, with very few tourists, so I could take in all the colorful houses at a leisurely pace. I often wondered if the warmer weather made people here warmer too, thus their love for live music and color?

 

 

 
For dinner tonight, we decided to try K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen. Before we left, I'd tried to make reservations but they were all booked. But I guess it was past peak dining hours tonight, because we were quoted a mere 30minute wait. So we left our number and walked across the street to Napoleon House. This building used to be the mayor's home, and was offered as a refuge for Napoleon, unfortunately he died before he had the chance to visit NOLA. This has gotta be the first bar I walked into that plays classical music! Definitely my cup of tea/alcohol! The famous drink here is pimm's cup, but of course I had to go unconventional and order a ginger version, which tasted rather strange. D's bourbon milk punch was so much better I wanted to switch when he wasn't looking...
Unfortunately we didn't get to enjoy the ambience too long, because the restaurant called and told us we got a table!




Paul Prudhomme，the founding chef of K Paul's, is to Creole cuisine what Julia Child was to French food in America. Our waiter told us that Chef Paul was the inventor of the blacken technique, which involves heating a cast iron skillet until smoking, and putting on a piece of protein coated in spices. The heat of the pan blackens the spices and instantly seals it to the surface of the protein. Well in that case, of course I'll have to get something blackened. How about the famous local drum fish? But first I'll start with the turtle soup. D ordered chicken breast with crawfish butter sauce.

This bacon jalapeno roll was amazing! Soft, buttery, sweet & savory, with a mild kick when you get a piece of jalapeno. I had to remind myself there's more food coming!

Turtle soup is another famous dish in Creole cuisine, but to me it just tasted like alcoholic chili, minus the beans. Meh.

The drum fish, however, was love at first bite. It was a mild white fish that's flaky & delicate. The blacken technique really did a great job sealing the flavors to the fish. My only complaint was the level of salt, it was way too salty for my taste. That seemed to be a recurring theme for all of my meals down south. Maybe they have a saltier palate? Despite that, I gladly gobbled everything up, and would have finished the god-knows-how-much-butter-they-added whipped potatoes if I wasn't so full.

D's chicken breast looks very similar to mine and was also cooked perfectly.

Too bad we were too full to enjoy dessert, but the food was so good I was satisfied. We walked back to the hotel and snapped a picture in our Carousel bar, it really was a carousel, even though it moved super-slowly. I still wish they had actual animals as seats :P

That's it for today, until tomorrow, NOLA!