Eating in NOLA:

Never a good sign when 2am is a target time to get to bed...


-- Post From My iPhone

I know, I know. I gave a bunch of big talk about live blogging Jazz Fest food. It didn't happen, but here's what I can do for you. One picture of crawfish beignets. They were from... I don't remember where they were from but they were really good.



I know I shirked my duty. I didn't even take pictures of everything. There was a Cochon du Lait po-boy and a fried oyster spinach salad consumed that I didn't even get the camera out for.

If you are looking for a better Jazz Fest post then check out this post and these pictures from this guy you might know. Oh and look, we have similar tastes!

We headed to Reginelli's Wednesday night before going over to The Bulldog to watch some of the Hornets game. Kerry said it best when she said that Reginelli's always sounds like a good idea, but nothing on the menu really turns out that great. Based on my first experience there, things aren't that great... I had the Baked Ham Sandwich...
When I read the menu I had a feeling it was going to be a little bit terrible. I was right. There were just a ton of flavors going on, and one of the flavors was mushy ham.


She fared better with the bread sticks and a Caprese salad. The bread sticks did come with some weird pepper sauce though, which I'm not going to attempt to explain.

In the end, everyone won, because we walked over to Bulldog and drank some beers and took home some glasses. By far my favorite bar special is Bulldog Wednesdays - buy a pint ($4-$5) and keep the ever changing (and often topical) glass. If you didn't know, now you know sucka.

Why not keep up the Italian theme?


For lunch the next day it was Gelato Pazzo Cafe. Can anyone guess why? That's right, because we read both Bouillie and Blackened Out. Plus, you've got to help out places who had their road literally torn out from underneath them (ahem, Oak Street... ok not literally... whatever).

We got a few paninis.



K Mitch got some with proscuitto, mozzarella, and pesto (I think... I'd ask her but she's fighting with a paper and presentation right now). I had a bite. Hers was better than mine.


I had one with Gulf Shrimp and mixed greens and pesto. It was pretty skimpy on the shrimp but I expected it. I don't really like mixed greens either but I guess that was my fault for ordering it anyway. Both were served with some pretty terrible pasta salad as well.

I think you know that normally I'm not such a Negative Neil about the things we eat. Just blame it on some sub-par meals... and I just finished the aforementioned presentation and paper about 10 min ago.

Kerry was off having lunch with a friend so I was left to fend for myself. So I headed down to Slice. They were real nice to me though and I ordered a few slices and a Diet Coke. I got out of there for under $10 so I can't complain. I took the above picture from my car while driving. Impressed?


And this is what I ate. Slice of Roasted Garlic and a slice of Meatball. I was pretty happy with the meatball but the garlic could have been better thought out. It was good but that's a lot of garlic... I ended up picking most of it off.

I've heard good and bad things about Slice but as far as just getting a few slices goes I think its a good option... maybe the best I know of in the city. Plus I saw sign for a Prix Fixe 3 course meal on Wednesdays that comes with 2 glasses of wine and a cup of coffee. So that could be worth checking out.

MMM... Ice Cream. I always forget what good flavors Creole Creamery has. I had a sample of the Saffron Pistachio (it tasted like rice!) but only after I had already ordered a Cookie Monster Sundae.

And Kerry had this Cake Batter Sunday. Mine looked similar before I devoured half...

Well it has been while since we posted. We have been busy. Mainly with school but also with French Quarter Fest like everyone else. So why not a festival food post? Evey one loves New Orleans festival food and we are no exception. We got a few pretty good things too.

We chose Love at First Bite on Friday when we went to see Soul Rebels on the waterfront. This is what the people that worked there looked like.


And this is what the food looked like. Crawfish Pasta for KM and I had a Cochon de Lait po-boy for me. Maybe the best po-boy I've ever had. There was so much pig in it I almost felt guilty.


Saturday we met up with some fellow MBA's and drank a few drinks and listened to a little music, but also ate some shrimp. Like this shrimp with cheddar and bacon grits from Saltwater Grill.

AND... these "shrimp" skewers from Bubba Gump's. I like that in New Orleans Shrimp Skewers come with Andoullie.

So... sorry for a delayed post but it should be a good warm up for Jazz Fest posts. I'll probably live blog via my phone so that should be really really exciting for everyone. Tell your friends and see you there. And more posts soon I promise.

So every once in a while we eat at a place and I'm sure they aren't going to have a website. Normally I'm incorrect because it's 2009 and everyone has a website. But today I was right. La Macarena Pupuseria & Latin Cafe is websiteless but it has some real good Salvadorian food at what we thought was a fair price.

For example, here is Kerry's Pupusa lunch special, which was delicious and came with fried plantains and rice and beans and some slaw. For around $10 it was a good deal for some delicious food.

And I had this Latin Style Chicken Sandwich. It came with a salad and some Zapp's chips (which was kinda weird I guess). Not a ton of chicken on it but it was enough and it was chargrilled and good and there was some yellow sauce I can't really describe on it that I really liked. And I need to find out where they get their bread. $8.


We'll make it a short post. This place is on Hampson between Carrollton and the river and it really is worth a try. I've heard some complaints about what you get for your money at other places and maybe we just ordered well... but check it out for yourself.

So, by this point it's no secret that we take ideas from Blackened Out every now and again. We like to see it as giving a different perspective of something you might have read. Plus they make some things sound so good we have to try them out.

Well at least this time we waited awhile...

So we saw these recipes for butternut squash soup and roasted broccoli about a month ago and had been waiting to try them out. We did Saturday night... with a few key changes... or one key change.

Did you know that butternut squash is out of season? Or maybe it isn't. Did you know that Robert's at Carrollton and Claiborne doesn't have butternut squash? Well I'll tell you what they do have. Potatoes.

So we switched it up to a potato soup because I love potato soup and potatoes will never let you down. We just boiled them up, put them in a Cuisinart with some half and half and butter, and warmed it in a pan with some cheese and bacon. Easy as that. It was really good too. Here is a picture of it in the pan.


The broccoli came off without a hitch though. Actually we used broccolini but looking at the picture on Blackened Out I think they did too. We just threw it in the oven with some garlic, olive oil, bacon, and red chili flakes. 400 degrees for 11 min and it was ready.


Finished the whole meal off with some garlic bread that you can see above in the picture of the meal and it was one of the best meals we have cooked. Try the broccolini... it's as good as you want it to be.

Whatever... We would have gone to Gott Gourmet today regardless...



It's right on Mag and we needed to be on Mag today for other stuff so we stopped for a quick lunch before our marketing meeting back at school. It was our first time and it sure didn't disappoint. Plus it was warm enough to eat outside and enjoy the view so it ended up being a great idea.



Kerry rarely is more happy with a decision than she was about her Shrimp BLT Wrap. The shrimp was sauteed in Tabasco butter. Now I don't know what Tabasco butter is but I'm pretty sure it was made just to saute shrimp in.



I had the Chicago Dog. A steamed poppy seed bun full of goodness, grape tomatoes, yellow mustard, relish, peppers and onions oh and a pickle I took off. Oh right I forgot the salad... tomatoes are in a salad though.



Why not some dessert from Sucre? How about a pink purse full of $2 a piece chocolates for me...



(flavors: absinthe, port, something else, and wedding cake)


And a strawberry stuffed vanilla cupcake for Kerry.



Oh and some of my hair for this baby squirrel


-- Post From My iPhone

Thanks to a restaurants.com promo we ended up with a $25 gift certificate for Petunia's for $2. I know what you're thinking - you want to get in on deals like that. If you really want to know how shoot me an email and I'll let you know.

So either way we got to try a place we normally wouldn't because they are a little pricey. It had been a while since we had eaten in the Quarter so it was a nice break from the norm. That on top of some pretty good food made it a nice experience.

I was between the Cajun Pasta and a crepe with broccoli and cheese. The waiter directed me to the pasta. It had at least a pound of butter and was completely covered in Parmesan cheese. There was also an absurd amount of shrimp and andouille sausage on it. I was only able to eat about 1/3 of it. Oh and it was delicious. There were red, green, and yellow bell peppers... so it was the healthiest thing I've eaten all week (don't worry about me, I think we are going to Gott for lunch and I'm heading in the direction of a salad).

Success!

So we went in for a round 2 because we don't like to be denied... And it's a cheap meal.

This time we switched it up a little and added some other fresh ingredients we picked up at the Crescent City Farmer's Market yesterday. Namely, fresh basil from our new sweet basil plant and a Creole tomato from a local grower. Oh, and an onion from the corner store on Calhoun.


We cooked up all the goodies in my one pan... By the way did you know I only have one pan and one tiny sauce pan? Well, we cooked it all up...



And you can see the finished product up top. Still not exactly want we got in Rome but just as good. That could be because we have gone through half a (big) container of Parmesan cheese in two days, though.

- Post From My iPhone

I had this in Rome and it was simple and tasty. So we figured we would take a stab at it. I'll tell you now it didn't come out perfect. It was good though.

It seemed simple enough -- just spaghetti, garlic, olive oil and crushed red pepper, and some Parmesan for good measure. It wasn't quite what we were hoping... a little spicy and I think maybe it needed more varieties of cheese in it. Actually in general I think everything in the world could be improved with more and multiple cheeses.

Here is a picture though. It didn't look bad on the plate. Either way, it's good to be home.

So this blog is called "Eating in NOLA" not "Eating in Europe".

So here is what we will do. Because I care about you guys, or I guess mostly I care about taking pictures of food awkwardly in restaurants both foreign and domestic, I took a ton of pictures of food from across the pond. So we are going to do one long post with a ton of pictures and short captions. Then we'll get back to what you come here for. Good old NOLA eating.

So... Here we go...

Here is our meal from the top of Montmartre in Paris. Kerry has Coq Au Vin and I had some sort of steak in pepper sauce. We had a real good dessert with cherries and ice cream too.



We drank lots of red wine that night and this is one of the bottles. We went to a cool little place.


Oh so this was in Dijon France. It was suppose to be one of the best restaurants in the country. It was fantastic and they had colorful plates.

We drank Kir. Its a local specialty with white wine and black current syrup.
And we both had the scallops with a vanilla lime infusion.

So Annecy was another stop along the trip. Annecy is at the foot of the alps and offered some pretty incredible views. It also offered some pretty incredible cheese fondue for lunch one day.
oh and some pretty incredible chocolate fondue for dessert one night too.
And one day I bought some things I thought were cookies but were biscuits and I didn't like them much but I took this picture.


On to Rome. We had our first dinner at this restaurant just feet from the Coliseum.
We started with a local favorite... melon and prosciutto.
Kerry had a classic Caprese Salad
And I ate a pasta dish we are going to try at home really soon so keep an eye out. Its just spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, cracked red pepper and cheese.
And all night this guy sang to us...


So this was a place right by the apartment we stayed in. These are crab fritter things.
They made their pasta fresh and this was some pasta and cheese I ate with cracked black pepper.
Kerry had the gnocchi with Italian sausages

Then we went on an awesome walking tour that took us into some really cool Roman squares. In one we got a cannoli and it cost 11 euro. That's like 89 dollars US.


Alright and the last meal we documented over seas is this one at Vitti, an out door cafe. We got a little wine.

I ate a little pizza. Actually the best pizza I have ever eaten.
Kerry had this pasta that was spicy and good too.
and then we had dessert. We ordered gelato. We ordered the flavors we didn't understand. The flavors we ordered were "kiss" and "egg flop." We are pretty sure the flavors were hazelnut and butter scotch.

So that's it. You never have to hear about Europe again. Start reading again. Don't take us off your blog rolls. We will be NOLA through and Through from now on. Hell I could post a Community Coffee post right now if you wanted.

Oh yeah... one last thing though. I had two connecting flights through new york and Atlanta before I got home to the Big Easy. At JFK I went to Chili's. I'm ashamed about it but in the spirit of full disclosure... Bacon Ranch Burger and fries.