New Orleans: Oyster Crawl

Not sure where this is.

On our second to last day in New Orleans, we spent the afternoon on an oyster crawl. We had been to a couple places for oysters, but none that really wowed us, so we thought we'd try a bunch of places and figure out who had the best oysters in the French Quarter. Bourbon House's were surprisingly good, but Royal House won out.

Bourbon House

Royal House

New Orleans, Day 4

On our fourth day in New Orleans, we relaxed. We had massages scheduled at Pura Vida in the Garden District, and figured we'd spend the afternoon out there, checking out a different scene from the hectic French Quarter. We got lunch at the St. James Cheese Company. They had some fantastic looking sandwiches, but we went with a cheese board and a Ploughman's Lunch, the better to try their cheese. And their cheese was fantastic. We especially liked what I think was the Fleur de Maquis, on the left of the picture above. But they were all very good.

After my wife went to get her massage, I went to a nearby dive bar, Le Bon Temps Roule, to read and hopefully watch Mizzou beat  Florida. (They didn't). It looked like most dive bars, but it had a really enormous beer selection. How many dive bars have Chimay? Really chill, and a nice pool table.

After meeting up after my massage, we made our way back to the Central Business District. We hit up the W.I.N.O., the Wine Institute of New Orleans, one of our other favorites from our last trip. This one was actually improved from last time. WINO provides the option to taste 40ish different wines in either 1, 2, or 4 ounce pours. Many of these wines are really good, and now they also provide some spirits like armagnac to sample as well. However, it can get really expensive really quickly, so it's important to be careful.

After WINO, we went to dinner at Cafe Adelaide. This was our favorite restaurant. We started off with the foie gras and truffle flatbread, which was incredible. It was covered in large slices of foie gras, just really rich and creamy. For our entrees, we had the Shrimp Courtbouillon and the Duck Breast. The duck was dark and juicy, and really hit the spot. Fantastic dining here.

After dinner we went to Frenchmen street to listen to some jazz. We settled on dba, which in addition to good jazz has an extensive beer and spirits list. John Boutte was playing the night we went, and we thoroughly enjoyed his performance.

New Orleans, Day 3

On day 3, we drove east of New Orleans, first for a swamp tour (Cajun Encounters, they're great), and then to go to the Abita brewpub. Perhaps I'm spoiled by such great brewpubs as Founders' and Schlafly, but I didn't find this brewpub anything to write home about (and yet here I am...). The food was average, and they had a broad selection of Abita beers, but the special brews, like the pecan harvest my wife had and the Roggen I had didn't seem all that special.

The brewery tour, on the other hand, was great, and was everything the Tabasco tour was not. They were very generous with the free samples -- visitors formed a line, and could just go around and around collecting glasses of beer. The video they showed us was genuinely informative, and the tour was pretty interesting. Abita doesn't really wow me with any of their beers, but the beers are generally well made, and I'm always fine drinking an S.O.S. or a Restoration.

When we got back, we walked over to the French Quarter for dinner. The proprietor of the bed and breakfast we were staying at suggested we get oysters at Market Cafe. On our way, we thought we'd stop at Bar Tonique, which came very highly recommended. And for good reason! They have an extensive cocktail menu, with highlights up on a chalkboard, and a $5 happy hour for several of them. Every cocktail I had there was excellently made. It's odd, though, how used I've become to smoke-free bars.

We then took our innkeepers recommendation and went to Market Cafe for oysters. We should have listened when he said he doesn't eat oysters, but his friends all went there. Outside, it smelled like fish, and not in a fun way. The oysters themselves lacked flavor, and were poorly shucked. On the plus side, this inspired us to do an oyster crawl later in the trip, which was a lot of fun.

We went to dinner at Evangeline. We had gone here last year, and really enjoyed it, so we had high expectations. Sadly, our expectations let us down. My wife had the Shrimp and Grits, and I had the Pasta Evangeline. Both were good, and I was especially impressed by the size of the shrimp in my wife's grits. But they weren't great; my pasta in particular was bland, and the grits weren't very creamy.

New Orleans, Day 1

After the ups and downs of hurricane Sandy, we arrived in New Orleans a little less than 24 hours after we had originally intended. Nevermind that, it was Halloween, it was our anniversary, and we were ready to celebrate. We got our first Sazerac at Hermes Bar. Hermes, as far as I can tell, doesn't have much going for it. The drinks they have on their cocktail list are all cloyingly sweet, and I've not heard good things about their food. But they make a good Sazerac. We had dinner at Herbsaint, in the Central Business District. We were very impressed by the appearance. It was nice and formal, but didn't seem stuffy. I was glad I dressed in slacks and and long-sleeve shirt. At Herbsaint we ordered the lamb neck and the duck leg confit. Both were excellent. The duck leg confit had a nice crust and good tenderness. Their cocktails were good, and overall we had a great experience here. We went out for Halloween after that, and none of the places we went were very memorable.