There are a lot of places to eat in New Orleans, and even more delicious things to taste. We did our very best to go to as many places and try as many things as we could.
These are our stories.
Tuesday night (June 30th, 2009) we thought we would try a real “old-line” restaurant. Yes the waiters were in tuxes, yes we had to wear jackets, yes pretty much everything was sauced. But everything WAS good and I constantly felt that a chorus of “Mame” could break out any second. The Place was Galatoire’s and, yes, it’s on Bourbon Street It’s almost the only authentic place left there amid the 20 something bars, the Larry Flynt this and Hustler that. This is the kind of hetero “moral values” with which I can agree.
Galatoire’s has been there since 1905. It’s bright and tiny tiled and the tables are covered in white and the dinnerware is bright white, loud and plentiful. We started with Oysters Rockefeller and Oysters en Brochette. The fist is well known but we’d never had them and decided it was time. The latter was wrapped in bacon, breaded and delicious. Entrees were Trout Amandine for B (butter-toasted almond slivers on trout fillets dusted with flour, sauteed in butter, moistened with a bit of lemon and garnished with parsley) and Crabmeat Sardou for me (hunks of sweet crab atop artichoke hearts with spinach under a blanket of hollandaise sauce) This was accompanied by Potatoes Soufflé. AND for dessert we had, well, we were cut off, or our sweet waiter thought we had eaten as much as we could, or he thought we didn’t want any but we would have tried . . . so Brian sipped black coffee but we would have “tried” the Banana Bread Pudding.
Wednesday morning found us AGAIN at Mother’s this time for the famous “breakfast at Mother’s” I had read about. B got some kind of omelet (I asked him to get grits) and I ordered their ham on a biscuit. Lordy. The ham was thick cut, moist and well, hammy. The biscuit was definitely fresh made; chewy, soft, melting, real delicious. I had to stop myself from coming back here for lunch.
Luckily, for Brian, we didn’t. Lunch took us walking across town to Jackson Square and beyond into the French Market. There lies a famous Italian Market/Grocery/Deli known as Central Grocery and the very, very famed some would say legendary Muffaletta. Something B now describes as “the best sandwich I’ve ever had”. It begins with the bread: Fresh, pure. aromatic, round, squat, Italian, sesame seeded amazement. Then that’s layered with deli: ham, cheese, salami, Then THAT’S topped with a concoction called “olive salad”. Wrapped it paper, eaten at a formica counter with a crowd of fellow "muffas”, priceless. The place is crowded, noisy, famous, wonderful. Ya gotta!
I almost forgot. There was another stop between Mother's and Central. I mentioned we went walking? On the way down Chartres St. to revisit the convent and to prove to me that the corn hotel really existed and to see the Zulu exhibit (I hope to get to all this) we passed Stanley's a little place right on Jackson Square and by the Cathedral and in one of the apartment buildings put up by the Baroness Pontalba in the 1850's and B was a little peckish so he ordered a little ice cream and fruit, etc., just the thing for 2nd Breakfast on a hot sultry morn.
Yet more stories (and FOOD) to come . . . there is SO much, try as we did, there was still much untasted.
- - - David
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