Eating in NOLA:

So, in general, haven't the pictures on this blog been a lot better?  Yeah not today though, so prepare yourself for that.

I had a buddy come down the day of the BCS Championship.  Thinking I would show him New Orleans has some great bars to watch football at I took him to Mid City Bulldog... packed.  So I figured Bruno's wasn't the worst option in the world... also packed.  So we ended up at Doors Pub across the street from Brunos.

I'm pretty sure this location has been three different establishments in the 19 months I have lived here.  Probably not a good sign for Doors Pub but hopefully they make it. Besides having the most bizarre theme I have ever heard of (... doors), it's not a bad place to watch a game and have some beers.  Its clean and comfortable with pretty good TVs and a decent selection on tap, including Andygator.  On Thursday during the game at least, they had 2 for 1 drafts which worked out to $2 beers.

So those are the good things.  The food wasn't great- though in all fairness they have pizza that we didn't try.  What we did try was the below pictured burger.


I think it was called the Big 'n' Hot but it might have be the Big 'n' Spicy.  Either way you get the idea.  It's half beef and half hot sausage.  Now normally I wouldn't get something like that but is said right on the menu it was Voted Best Burger in 2007.  Looking back that seems weird since this place opened up about 2 or 3 months ago so maybe some alarms should have gone off.  My friend said he could have gone with 75% beef and 25% hot sausage... I think I could have gone with 100% beef.  it came with some broken corn chips though so, that's something at least.

That being said It was a good place to watch a game.  Good beer at cheap prices and I'm sure the pizza is okay, we saw a lot of people ordering it.  So if you are ever trying to watch something at Bruno's and it's a little too crowded, head on over to Doors Pub.  It would be nice if they had a little longer tenure than their predecessors.

I had a friend drive through on her way back to Mobile from Louis Armstrong. She wanted brunch so we took her to Elizabeth's on Gallier over in the Marigny. We had to drive further than expected but I'd say it was worth it.



We got there at 11 on Sunday so they sent us to an upstairs bar to wait. Other was pretty lively and we had a Mimosa.



We sat and had we all split a plate of the praline bacon. Here was my piece. The bacon alone was worth the drive.


Kerry had the Red Neck Eggs. Fried Green Tomatoes and poached eggs with grits. It looked pretty good. I'm not a big poached eggs guy but she seemed to like it.



I had the Carolina Shrimp and Grits. They were pretty good too and came with a big biscuit. And I just remembered that I have the left overs in my fridge so I'm going to go eat them. Good reasonably priced brunch stop though.

jpv
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Post From My iPhone

So here we are again with low quality pictures. I don't know what to tell you guys... I'm telling you I really wish they were better because this past week we have had some pretty high quality drinks and they deserve better than an iPhone without a flash.


We went to Delachaise Wednesday to celebrate our internship offers.

It has been a while since we had ventured out to Delachaise after Wednesday night class but it was as good as always. We got a couple drinks and the Pomme Frites to start. Kerry got a Kir Royal and I got a Dark and Stormy. No picture of the Pomme Frites but they are amazing and you should take the trip down St. Charles (at Louisiana) to get them. They come with two dipping sauces - Satay and Red Pepper Atoli.

We did get a picture of the Blueberry Cognac Creme Brulee though. It was ok but I didn't think it was anything special.


We went out Friday to celebrate a finishing a week that included three papers and three presentations. We actually started at Delachaise again to double up on the pomme frites and get a couple of the grilled cheeses they have. Again no picture but the grilled cheese is incredible. Its one of my favorite things to eat anywhere.

The picture above is actually from Cure though. We had been wanted to try out Cure for a while now ever since we caught this article about it. If you are too lazy to read the link the gist of it is that its a new bar at Freret and Upperline that values showcasing their liquors rather than masking them with sugary juices.



I know its blurry but here is a picture of the bartender mixing our Hemingway Daiquiris. At one point an eye dropper was employed, it was pretty intense. Also it looked like they have some pretty good food and Cure too though we didn't partake in any. We did hear that Cure and Delachaise share the same owner so the food should be comparable.

So moral of the post? Good food and drinks and Cure and Delachaise. Go.

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.

What? $1 Abita Red Ales and a free t-shirt? Alright.

I think you can look back at this blog and know that we are pretty big Abita fans. So when we heard about an Abita Pub Crawl in the CBD on Friday the 13th, we were all about it. We had missed one a few weeks back and wanted to make sure we made it out to this one.

It was 4 stops: McGuire's on Magazine, Jasper's on St. Joseph, Rusty Nail on Constance, and Ugly Dog Saloon on Andrew Higgins.

We like to make our own plan so we strayed away from the beaten path a little.

We started at McGuire's and they had a pretty good outside party going on. They were charging a ridiculous amount for some crawfish though. But there was a good crowd, and we got our free shirts and some cheap beers.

We went inside to get some food but they had a special menu for the crawl and it wasn't really what we were looking for. And it was kinda lame in there.


So we went in search of Jasper's to see if they had some better offerings. We will never know because we couldn't find it.

So we headed to Rusty Nail and were the first crawlers there. It was actually a pretty good bar but they don't serve food there so we picked up an Abita Strawberry Harvest (my first) left the car and trekked down to Ugly Dog Saloon to see what they had to offer.

To be honest, it wasn't much but we got a couple of pretty good baked potatoes with butter, sour cream and cheese and called it a night (at about 9pm). When we got back to Rusty Nail to pick up the car we saw a good number of our fellow crawlers milling about... I didn't ask any of them but I'm sure they couldn't find Jasper's either.

My buddy Jordan was in town for a few days (you can blame him for the delayed posts) and the one thing he really wanted to do while he was down from Charlottesville, Virginia was drive across the world's longest bridge, which crosses Lake Pontchartrain between New Orleans and Mandeville.

We figured if we were going to do it we might as well take him to the Abita Brewery on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain. Abita is the brewery that makes beers like Purple Haze, Turbodog, and Amber. For a (very) little bit more info you can check out the Tulane MBA Blog post I did on our first trip back in January.

Well we went and it was fun and free and we drank as much beer as we could in the one hour free-for-all they give you. Here is a picture of Jordan and Kerry enjoying the tour. Looks like Kerry caught me taking it.

Afterward we decided to hit up the Brew Pub for some lunch before we braved the bridge again. Jordan didn't eat anything but he had an oatmeal stout beer that you can see in this picture of the fried chicken salad I got. I'm normally a pretty big fan of fried chicken salads but this one was not too good. It had the kind of honey mustard dressing I don't like. You know what I mean, the one that's less creamy and more neon yellow for some reason. Actually I guess Jordan did eat some of my salad after I discarded it.

Kerry had the crab claws. I had never seen a bowl of crab claws before. I didn't know it existed. Or I guess I knew crabs have claws but I didn't know it was a meal. I ate a few and they were good and Kerry liked them and she liked to dunk the bread in the sauce that it came in and I did it and I liked it too.

We headed to Atlanta Brewing Company after CNN. It's one of two big breweries in Atlanta and they have a tasting/tour Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights.

Fridays they have live music. This Friday they had this crazy looking guy playing off-the-wall jams. It was good though... we drank Ales, Porters, and Blondes and they were good.

Unlike Abita (look for that post sometime next week) its not all you can drink and you get four bottle caps that you can redeem for fill-ups. Also, the pour they give you is only about 3/4 full for some legal reason I don't understand. That being said four 3/4 beers was just the right amount and we had a good time. I don't look like it in this picture but I am I promise.


And we got to keep the glasses so that was good too. We skipped the tour because we have a pretty good idea how beer is made. After that we went to dinner at...

Last night we ate at Le Meritage (formerly Dominique's) in the Maison Dupuy on Toulouse in the Quarter for Valentine's. My sister (who I can't thank enough) had gotten me a gift certificate for Christmas and we had been looking forward to it for a while. There was a set Valentine's Day prix-fixe menu but we opted for the normal menu.

Each dish is paired with a glass of wine and you can get large or small plates. We both did a small salad, soup, and entree.

I'll apologize now for not getting a picture of everything and the lighting not being great but we got some good ones I think.

First they sent out a complimentary starter appetizer. It was like a tiny little cheese and egg omelet. Here is an incredibly blurry picture of it!


First course (sorry no picture) was a arugula salad with grapefruit, apples, goat cheese, pine nuts, and a little avocado. Kerry got a glass of Moet-Chandon with it that she drank with her dinner (I got a half glass).

Second course (..... sorry) was a Corn and Crab bisque. It was really good. It wasn't as creamy as a standard bisque but was really good and sweet with lots of crab. And it was good with the rolls that they brought us. I had a glass of Chardonnay with it that I drank with dinner. Now onto something we can show you...

Kerry had the Grouper served over quinoa (I just looked this up on the menu, I think it is kind of like couscous dish, you can see it in the picture below [definition according to dictionary.com]). It was served with three sauces, one of which was a compounded red wine butter sauce (top left in the photo) that was really good. I think she liked it, I had a bite and I liked it.


I had the Flat Iron Steak cooked medium rare and it was good and I ate it all. It came with pickled Louisiana Cucumber and was in a red wine sauce. Here is what it looked like before I ate it.

The half sizes really worked out well, we could try a few different things and still had a little room left for a Valentine's Day Dessert. We went with the Chocolate Pot. It was good and rich and a great way to end a good meal. Plus it came with a gigantic chocolate covered strawberry and some macadamia nuts.


Just in case you were wondering we went to Circle Bar in Lee Circle afterward and took this dark and shadowy picture of us in a nook while we drank an Abita, a PBR, and a incredibly strong Absolut Mandarin and Sprite.


On the whole it was a great night, we had a great dinner and Kerry got compliments on her dress, and I got a book on cooking with beer and Kerry got roses and looked very pretty. I hope everyone else had as good a Valentines Day.

So Friday the 13th was a night of seconds for us... We also took our second trip to Clever Wines. We had been there once before for a weekly tasting they do.

Now we didn't eat anything there but we had a drink each and listened to Johnny J play some music. I realize I just referenced Johnny J like we listen to Johnny J all time time... or maybe like we have ever even heard of them (him?) before... we haven't. It was good though. We were by far the youngest people there and you could tell people were pretty jealous of our youth and good looks.


This is a picture of our drinks. Kerry had an amaretto sour. I had something called a Grandfather Clock that they invented there are Clever. I don't remember exactly what was in it but I think there was some grapefruit something, bitters, a sparkling wine of some sort and a sprig of thyme. It was good. And then we went and saw Taken at a high school hang out movie theater in Kenner and it was awesome and you should see it too.

I expected to be done posting today but I stumbled on this picture from last night.

Last night for the Super Bowl Kerry, Kerry and I went to a fundraiser at Whiskey Blue (in the W Hotel) that our friend Jeff had told us about.

It was a fundraiser for a community football field they are building in the 9th Ward. A percentage of all the proceeds from the drinks sold went toward the field.

They had the game on a projection television and the 3 of us had a pretty good time. The only issue was we expected there to be food and we were wrong. Dead wrong.

So by the time the game ended at 9 we were pretty hungry. We headed to St. Charles Tavern (a 24 hour restaurant/bar on St. Charles and MLK near Lee circle). In addition to some pretty good food they had The Office on.

I ordered a cheese burger and the waitress told me to get a Cajun burger so I did that and she was pretty impressed with my selection. It was good. Both Kerrys got red beans and rice. I had a bite. It was good too. We had Abita Beer with the meal.

So to recap - New Orleans fundraiser, Cajun Burger, Red Beans and Rice, and Louisiana Beer. Good Sunday night.