Last weekend we literally ate (and drank) our way through New Orleans. We took a quick little three-night kid less get-a-way and had the very best time. We had excellent local tour guides (Brian's cousin Molly and her husband Christian) and really felt like locals. I'm going to try my very best to recap and provide the very best guide to NOLA. Enjoy!
Our trip started out a little delayed. Emmy got sick right before we were supposed to leave town. After a doctor's office visit, some tears (from me), and antibiotics, we were on the way. We started the trip with cocktails on the porch at Molly and Christian's house. The best start to a trip! They live in the coolest neighborhood (Freret neighborhood in uptown) that has so many places within walking distance-- a Rouses, food joints, cocktail bars, coffee shops, the works!
We walked to Ancora for dinner-- we actually hit this spot for lunch last time we were in town and I remember loving it! Ancora is a pizzeria e salumeria and what you are looking at above is little pillow heavens in a bowl. It's the Cacio e Pepe Gnocchi and it's possibly life changing. It was the very best bite of the meal. We also ordered the meatballs which had the very best tomato sauce in the entire United States. I'd say world but I haven't tried it all... yet. We also ordered the oven-roasted shrimp, not pictured and the meat board (above). We paired it all with a super fantastic bottle of wine and a pizza to go along-- I think we got the Diavola. A homerun, wonderful way to start the trip and a solid 10 out of 10.
After Ancora, we went to Cure for after dinner cocktails. Cure is actually a James Beard winner so bam bam.
I was so excited to see a blackberry bramble on the menu and it was better than any BB that I've ever had. Ok, that's a bad statement. I'm the only one who has ever made myself a BB and that's a terribly low standard. It was fantastic, let's say that.. because it was out of this world fresh and tasty.
I caught Brian snapping this picture and asked what he was doing. He responded with, "it's for your blog!" So he became the blog photographer for the weekend. He's taken every single picture up to this point-- thankfully or I wouldn't have much a start to this post. Like true, responsible adults, we called it a night early and went home after Cure.
Brian and I started the morning early with breakfast at Bearcat Uptown. We've also been here before and I don't know that I'll ever visit NOLA without going here. It's a 20 out of 10. It's wildly amazing.
The spread! That biscuit was so delicious. I asked Brian if they compared to mine from a couple weeks ago and he very kindly told me there was no comparison. The crispy potatoes are things you yearn for. I love the crispness of potatoes, I absolutely hate when they have any mush. These were also really packed with flavor. We also ordered the pancake. I've eaten a lot of pancakes in my day but this one could be considered life changing. When Brian was telling Molly about our meal he just leaned back during the pancake part. She was worried something was wrong but I really think he just wanted me to slap him because that's how forking good that thing was. It melted in my mouth. I was incredibly stuffed but just kept pushing it in. Every bite was so perfect. We also ordered one of the specials, the avocado toast but with a lot of fancy things. It was perfection. It was light and flavorful and I'd eat it every single morning if I wasn't so lazy.
Happy Cat Brian.
After breakfast, we needed to walk, so went to Audubon Park and did plenty of walking. It was a gorgeous day! We crossed over and had a nice walk through Tulane and Loyola-- I'm amazed at what the kids are wearing to school. It did not look like the UCA campus circa 2006.
We walked-- a lot. I think we put in around 10k steps before 11am. So we rewarded ourselves with the best lunch I've ever had in my life. Yes-- I said that. It was the best lunch and possibly the most expensive, yet so totally WORTH IT.
It started off with fancy bubbles and the bubbles were the best start to this meal, really set the tone. I probably should mention where we ate, PECHE. We got this recommendation from one of our friends and it did not disappoint. I would have been disappointed if we didn't end up going! Haha.
We ordered plenty of oysters and they were so fresh and fantastic. We also got this tuna appetizer, which I think was a special because I'm not finding it on the regular menu. We also got the turnips that were on special (top of the photo.) Not sure if I've ever had turnips before but they were fantastic. They had some kind of chili oil and dill and a lot of other things I don't remember. This meal was a 75/10. It was incredible. We finished it off with dessert and left feeling really, really wonderful. Really, really wonderful.
I need a few more moments to process that wonderful trip of a meal. I can't even gather my thoughts and figure out where we are now. I'm sure we kept eating....
Oh yes, we shopped.. and walked some more. After all, we had to prepare for our next meal that was just a few hours away. We went to the other end of Magazine street for coffee and browsing. I follow a cute little boutique on Instagram that I wanted to check out, Lucy Rose. I also finally got Brian in a West Elm store and he fell in love. My master plan is working masterfully. We walked around for a couple hours then heard from Molly and Christian that their work for the day was wrapping up-- so we went back to the Holland Upperline Casa, changed our clothes and got ready to drink (and eat!) again!
We grabbed drinks at the coolest place, Hotel Saint Vincent-- we will have to stay here sometime, it was so perfect. The first picture on this post was also taken here. This bar was swanky and awesome, I wish we would have grabbed pics of the rest of the place. It was chill and relaxing and I enjoyed chatting with Molly and Christian over fancy French fries and cocktails! You know, preparing for the main event, dinner.
Dinner was at N7 on this night. And this place was really cool-- it was basically a hidden French countryside in some NOLA neighborhood, concealed by only a fence. It was shocking when we walked in to see how picturesque and lovely it was. You can kind of see from the picture below.
I'll start this off by saying that we ate a lot of food. We started off with a bread tray and a cheese plate-- two of my favorite love languages. We added the tarte flambee-- which I don't really know what it was was but it tasted fantastic. We also got the grilled bok choy, wagyu tataki and Brian's pick.... the smoked mackerel, as seen below.
Yes, it was a head of fish. And in Brian's defense, one of our very favorite meals ever (in Paris!) was this mackerel dish. It was insanely delicious! In our minds, the same type thing would come. Not an entire fish with the head (and eyes?! I didn't check!) that would make poor pregnant Molly almost die. Oh yeah, have I mentioned that Molly is pregnant?! Sweet trooper with all the food and booze and growing that sweet baby in her belly! I'm not big on a dead fish head being served to my table pregnant or totally fine--the fish got a 4/10. But you know.. YOLO.
Wine break. We had some really good wine-- we loved it so much that we wanted to remember what it was so here's Brian always coming in clutch with the Vivino. Always excited to see the rating.
Then the mains came-- and everyone's favorite, the duck a l'Orange. It was really fantastic! We also ordered the roasted cauliflower with grilled radicchio and the steak au Poivre. I think the steak was my favorite of the mains, although the duck was pretty close. I can't believe I picked steak?! And then we have these two happy, satisfied dudes.
Dessert was the soy sauce creme bruleee which was so yum. I love that crunch on the top. It was hands down, a wonderful meal. We had a great time chatting and trying alllll this food. We ate for around 2.5 hours and left really happy.
The next morning we were at it again. We had a 10am brunch reservation so I enjoyed laying in bed for a little.. not making anyone's milky or cutting someone's French toast sticks JUST right, just laying there doing nothing. In hindsight, I was laying there mentally preparing for the marathon of eating I was going to do this fine Saturday...
Starting with a fine family brunch at Paladar 511. I'm really glad I kept it light with this fantastic tuna crudo. Let me back that up-- I kind of kept it light because I ate tons of Molly's lemon ricotta pancake with blueberry syrup, which was (again) life changing and we've already made these at our house and I would make it every single weekend if my pants would allow. But the crudo- it was wonderful. Light, bright, fresh, lots of flavor. Never would have thought of it as a brunch but super thrilled it was. As seen below...
..and then we have Brian's spread from other end of the table. He got the huevos rancheros and said alll the wonderful things about them.
What I've learned in NOLA? Eat, walk, drink, walk, repeat. It's working for me. After we ate, we went down to the water and did a little walking about looking at the water. Grabbed a couple pics too :)
And then we went for stop number two-- Bacchanal. Their website says it's a destination and I would have to agree. We went to so many places and I was left wondering, how did this place get this way? But in a good way-- like this place was so perfect at being exactly what it was. How long has it been here? Who started this and how did they know it would fit so perfectly in this spot? It was actually genius. Guests order all their ish, pick a table, take care of yourself and listen to music. That is a perfect business model. Way less overhead! I saw the opportunity for this photo op and had to take it-- way too perfect, Brian in his element.
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We drank some wine, listening to some jams, watched seven million young girls on bachelorette parties wearing denim jackets-- seriously, who knew these were so big again?! and then left to this up a local brewery, which if I remember correctly, never makes the same batch twice!
I don't know what kind of beer this was but I liked it. And I'm not a beer girl. We didn't stay for long here but did grab some fresh, chargrilled oysters and beer. The oysters were my jam. I've never met a chargrilled oyster that I didn't want to be very best friends with. As we were leaving, we heard there was a snowball pop-up close by so we took off in pursuit of this foreign snowball. In LA (lower Arkansas) we call those snow cones, but I was very eager to try the NOLA version. Sad day-- we never found the pop up and now I'm left with the regret of never trying a snowball. Guess I needed a reason for another trip??
Next on the agenda? The French Quarter. Because you cannot go to New Orleans and not visit, right?! And we were told by cousin Brooke that we had to get the purple drink so first stop-- purple drink.
I love you Brooke, I really think you are fantastic but this tasted like robitussin and it was possibly my least favorite thing all weekend :)
All that to say, I didn't throw it away and got almost to the end during our nice walk-- wasting time before our set at Preservation Hall.
Brian was so excited about this one. Molly bought us tickets to Preservation Hall for a jazz show. It was so neat, so intimate and wonderful. Lots of history and a cool little spot in the Quarter.
We actually had two reservations in the French Quarter, after Preservation Hall, we went to Brian's other dream, Beach Bum Barry's Latitude 29. Which essentially was a gem of a tiki bar that had the best rum cocktails and huge shocker-- the appetizers were freaking fantastic. One of Brian's favorite bites of the entire trip was one of these ribs. We were not planning on eating here, I don't know how it happened, I guess the menu just looked yum. I love how Christian kept saying he wanted to come back here and couldn't believe he hadn't been before. That's a local talking about this place, so neat!
Lots of happy smiles and it's not only the rum! I actually think I got these next pictures out of "order." We took a nice walk down to Jackson Square after Preservation Hall. We sat along the river for a little while while we waited on time to pass for our reservation. We really could not have asked for better weather. It was gorgeous. Beautiful!
After the tiki bar, we went downtown to grab dinner (I KNOW, we ARE still eating!) but ran into a lot of concert traffic-- I hear Eric Church was in town. We ended up back at Molly and Christian's house and walked to the fun taco spot around the corner. It was delicious. There was a fried fish taco that was my favorite! It's just really awesome how many fun, delish places they have within walking distance! That's something I def could get use to in Little Rock.
Molly and Christian were the perfect hosts. We kept joking that they could start a tour guide business. But they really could! They had the best recommendations and took us on a fun, exciting and really delicious weekend adventure. We can never repay them! I hope I did a semi OK job of wrapping it all up and providing the fun spots to hit in NOLA. If you need more-- Molly and Christian are up for hire ;)
And finally, to wrap up this super long post, I always like to name our favorite bites. So I asked the entire group and thought it was interesting to see how everyone picked.
Molly
1. Lamb Ragu at Paladar 511
2. Gnocchi from Ancora
3. Duck at N7
Christian
1. Duck from N7
2. Ribs and cocktails at Latitude 29
3. Flambee from N7
Brian
1. Duck from N7
2. Pancake from Bearcat
3. Ribs from Latitude 29, followed by signature cocktail
Alex
1. Oysters at Peche
2. Tuna at Paladar 511
3. Gnocchi at Ancora
XOXO
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