In hopes of learning about a new city, finding some swinging jazz and filling up on a little down-home southern cooking, my friend Simone Kastner (daughter of CK’s Real Food’s owner and chef Chris Kastner) and I took a weeklong trip to The Big Easy.
The trip was my first time being anywhere in the south, and although I thought I had done my New Orleans food research ahead of time, we still managed to make some rookie mistakes but also stumbled upon some amazing eats.
New Orleans exemplifies the idea of a “melting pot” on all levels. With Spanish, French, African, Greek, Irish and Native American influences (to list only a few) represented in everything from the architecture and street names to the cultural parades and music, it is no wonder that the food in New Orleans has held a reputation for being some of the most diverse and unique in the country.
On our first day, Simone and figured we should start with our most touristy stop and swing by Café du Monde for beignets and coffee. The deep-fried, sugary dough treats are one of the most talked about breakfasts in the city, and even the locals said Café du Monde is the place to try them.
Taking our seats in the outdoor courtyard, we were initially perplexed by the unbelievably sticky tabletops and a white powder that seemed to dust the floor from corner to corner. However, once our waitress brought over our order of beignets, we quickly noticed that they were not only finished with some powdered sugar, but were literally doused and buried beneath a pile of the sweetener. Despite our shorts and shoes being covered in the sugar by the time we finished, we both thoroughly enjoyed our first taste of the south.
Later in the week, we stopped by Acme Oyster House, another fairly touristy stop that comes highly recommended, for some Gulf oysters (yes, they are reportedly safe to eat now). After placing an order for a half-dozen charbroiled oysters, which were nothing less than half shells filled with buttery, Parmesan-y goodness, and an order of Craw Puppies, which turned out to be some sort of deep-fried, bite-sized crawfish appetizer, I tagged two oyster shooters to the end of our request.
I had only had my first oyster shooter a week earlier at Sushi on Second in Ketchum and had loved the flavorful sauce and small oyster. However assuming a shooter from Louisiana would resemble something even vaguely similar to things made in Ketchum was an error. In the south, they do it a little different.
Our waitress returned with two plastic cups, set them on the table and walked away after saying, “Down the hatches ladies!” Simone and I both peered over the cups’ rims to be greeted by a clear liquid that reached over a quarter of the way up with an oyster the size of a small sand dollar nestled in the bottom. The oyster was garnished a squirt of hot sauce that appeared to be desperately clinging to oyster’s side. We then confirmed our fears that the clear liquid was indeed some variety of cheap liquor as we gulped down the burning alcohol and then were left to chew the over-sized oyster. Lesson learned—oyster shooters from the Acme Oyster House are an entertaining yet rough choice of ways to end up day drunk in downtown New Orleans.
As the end of the week approached, we had experienced our first Po-Boys at the Parkway Bakery and Tavern, where Simone ordered the traditional roast beef version of the sandwich and I opted for the fried shrimp variation (both of which we enjoyed), had paid a few visits to the Creole Creamery, which makes some of the best ice cream either of us have ever had, and had each tested out a snowball (the South’s version of a snow cone), which left us hyped on sugar and our lips dyed purple and red.
And although we were already feeling satisfied with our food experiences so far, the final few days in the New Orleans marked our favorites in terms of food. Luke Hoar de Galvan, a friend of my sisters and our host for the trip, invited us to the NOLA Brewery for a birthday that was taking place one night. We arrived to find a series of banquet tables covered in newspapers with seemingly endless buckets of fresh boiled crawfish being dumped onto them. We fought our way to one of the tables and began cracking into the crawfish shells and sucking down the spicy, fresh meat. The crawfish was some of the first not fried seafood we had been able to find in the city, and the flavor was unbelievable.
We stood, briny juice dripping down our elbows, cracking crawfish and munching on the mix of potatoes, corn and garlic pieces that were included from sunset until dark while talking to locals about the city and drinking some of the first good beer we had been able to find. The night was the eating highlight of our trip.
Our other favorite food stop from the week was at Cochon Butcher, a lunch and charcuterie spot. The restaurant is co-owned by chefs Stephen Stryjewski and Donald Link, two of the most renowned chefs in the South. Cochon serves deli sandwiches the way a foodie would make them. The meats we tried were phenomenal and the choices of condiments on each sandwich were exactly what we wanted them to be. Cochon Butcher was not specifically a Southern food experience but was certainly some of the best food we ate.
By the end of the week, Simone and I were ready to return to a coast where salads don’t automatically come with fried toppings and where the amount of mayo that comes on a sandwich isn’t more than the meat on it; but that is not to say we hadn’t enjoyed our time down south. With empty wallets, a few added pounds around the waistline and some good stories to bring back, we left New Orleans with a strong desire to return someday.
