The Best New Orleans Restaurants

The following are the highlights from our trip to NOLA. I hate that I just wrote “NOLA” instead of “New Orleans.” But ever since we started telling people we we’re going it was all “NOLA this” and “NOLA that” and I got all caught up in the hoo-ha of it all!!!!…….you heard me…..I’m caught up in the vagina of New Orleans!

So I’ll rephrase; the following are the highlights of our trip to New Orleans, and some of the best New Orleans restaurants. Which is also known at the Big Easy and the Crescent City….which is quickly becoming one of the most respected food towns in the world. Maybe it’s the convergence of French, Spanish, Caribbean, African, Italian, and now Vietnamese cultures that produces bites of food like a Jazz Festival in your mouth. Or maybe it’s all the butter and cream? All I know is I want more!

Our list in no particular order

Boucherie or Bust

First night in New Orleans and I now know the true meaning of the phrase “Swamp Crotch!” Yup, it’s muggy here. It wasn’t until we landed and started talking to locals—in what sometimes sounds like a completely different language—about how New Orleans should never have been developed where it is….that I really understood what 100% humidity could feel like. Imagine someone steam cleaning your face. Not only is New Orleans prone to flooding (Katrina, case in point) but it’s humid as all hell and the earth is less than solid. But what’s done is done, right? That being said, we […]
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It Really is a Small World

Have you ever been on vacation and all of the sudden you run into someone you know? Usually your hair is messed up, you’re sweating like the tourist you wish you weren’t (but you are), and your jeans look musty and caked with dirt, because you could only pack the pair and you didn’t want to pay for laundry service at your hotel? I’m not bitter—I swear! Yeah, well this happens to me all the time. It happened to me on a trip to Maui once, when Jonathan and I ran into someone we knew on the plane. I ran […]
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NOLA Bike Tours | Culinary Version

I tend to daydream on the weekends. Particularly any time my mind’s freedom to explore the infinite Möbius strip of my private version of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy is afforded to me. When I’m unshackled by time’s clutch, and its insentient minion of reminders like the morning alarm clock, the shift of the sun, or my smartphone’s 15-mins-warning ringtone and vibrational pulse; the one leaving a visible outline on the exterior of my designer jeans pocket—yeah, that’s when my imagination soars! The rest of it all is just exhausting. The workweek is exhausting. It’s full of these socially imposed—and […]
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Great Anticipations- The Reservation Challenge

“We’ll never get a table,” I shouted, after reading a tweet from my Los Angeles foodie friend who always seems to be on top of breaking news in the culinary world. She knew I was headed to New Orleans in a few days and just a few minutes prior, she’d seen that the James Beard Foundation announced it’s 2014 winners, and Pêche Seafood Grill was at the top of the list, the best restaurant in New Orleans, along with their Chef Ryan Prewitt, named best new chef in the south. Her tweet suggested we go, but with the award being announced, […]
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The Secret to a Happy Marriage

People are always asking us what our secret is, and no it’s not bits of bacon….though I don’t think that can hurt. “You guys are so cute together, what’s your secret?” “How do you not want to bash each others’ faces in all the time?” Well I think I figured it out on our recent trip to New Orleans. It was our last night in NOLA. Arm in arm, Jonathan and I walked up Canal Street toward The Roosevelt Hotel. A sudden gush of Mississippi River air sandblasted our backs, a welcome chill cutting through the week’s humidity with a […]
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The Perfect Po-boy Search

We touched down in “the big easy” with a checklist of New Orleans cuisine and cocktails in hand. The challenge: to find delicious versions of everything on our list—though it was anything but easy! Beignets Andouille sausage Alligator Gumbo Sazerac Crawfish étouffée Pralines Turtle soup Callas And more…. And as someone who loves practically anything sandwiched between the two hinged sides of a French bread roll, you better believe I was on the prowl for a po-boy to ravage. Out of context I can see how that may sound a little pedophilic. But I assure you, all my lascivious interactions […]
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The best beignets in New Orleans

I remember the first time I had a beignet. I was living in Los Angeles and working for a film producer who paid me $450 per week, which back then—was still bupkis! After paying my rent, filling the tank up with gas, covering half the utilities and cable bill, I had just enough left to meet my best friend Barry for dinner at the Beverly Center Grand Luxe Cafe. I remember the crowd in the vestibule. Everyone herded like cattle between the dessert case filled with cream puffs the size of our heads and the counter where the hostesses in […]
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