Eating in NOLA:

So lately, with the city looking a little less like New Orleans and a little more like Venice, there hadn't been a lot of reasons leave the safety of my second floor apartment.  But if anything gives me a false sense of bravado its EPMD and barbecue so yesterday I braved the roads down to the Bywater for lunch at The Joint.

Now there is a thing about barbecue and that thing is that anytime you have barbecue that isn't terrible you tend to think its the best barbecue in the world.  I think there is an even greater danger of that in New Orleans which has pretty limited barbecue options (at least for a city with such a strong food tradition).  So instead of saying the Joint has the best barbecue around I'm just going to say that its damn good barbecue.

The menu has all the staples you would expect to find, including pork, ribs and local Cajun sausage.  They also have some great sides that are served up in (un)healthy sized portions. 

Now since the Joint isn't a place that requires tippin' I decided I would really make the most of my $10 limit.  I went with the pulled pork sandwich topped with slaw, the mac and cheese, and an a la carte single rib since I heard they were excellent.  When it was all said and done the register showed $10.18 so we are just going to make that the new Cheap Lunch Series Limit.

As you probably expect, the food was great.  The rib was tender more substantial than it looks in the picture.  The sandwich was as substantial as if looks in the picture.  They offer two sauces on the table, one vinegar based and one tomato based.  Both were pretty good but I suggest a mixture of both together.

One of my dining companions got the brisket sandwich.  I've never been a big brisket fan but he seemed to enjoy it and the little piece I tried was as good as any other brisket I've ever had.  But, like anything else, I expect it would taste better if it was made out of a pig.

So again, besides going $0.18 over budget, it was a very successful venture out to the Bywater.  The only issue is that there are plenty of delicious options that would be hard to pass up that will run you a few dollars over $10.  Someone like you can probably afford it though.