In mid-February, I had the chance to shed my down coat and visit New Orleans, a city where its insane abundance of alcohol will keep you warm. Being a non-meat eater, I knew dining in a city surrounded by water and fed by aquatic creatures would prove to be a challenge. I decided the best approach to this was to invert my food pyramid, making sugar, fats and oil at the very bottom with a healthy 6-8 servings a day. I'm on vacation, right?
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| I dare you to meet a more delicious ice pop. |
First up was this delectable frozen treat from the most amazing ice pop stand,
Meltdown. In a sea of drunken crowds, strippers, cheap plastic beads and artificially colored drinks, this was our only safe haven in the French Quarter. There was a great selection of pops ranging from vegan, gluten-free, tons or gluten and dairy and fruit. Naturally, we went for the fattiest ones that were offered. The tan colored ice pop on the right is a bestseller, salted caramel. I intentionally elected to pass on this flavor, knowing I'd consume this delicious slightly sweet but also pleasingly salty treat in less than two bites. I decided on the saffron rosewater flavor without the slightest clue as to what saffron tastes like. I still have no idea, but I can tell you that it was the creamiest most beautiful frozen treat to grace my mouth.
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| A feast that could reasonably feed 5 hungry people. |
What do you get when you put jerk seasoning on everything? Um, something wonderful. After crawling the sidewalks of Magazine Street and looking at enough antiques to make my eyes bleed, we needed lunch, and a big one at that. Wait, make that gigantic. We decided on a Caribbean taqueria called,
The Rum House. Immediately we ordered the avocado mango dip, which you can see was completely devoured (empty green plate on top left). As always, vegetarian options were lacking, but that was ok because I would have been completely thrilled to eat a bowl of roasted poblano and manchego polenta (bottom center in picture). I still think about that polenta to this day. We both ordered the jerked veggie tacos, and they were great. The other side dishes that were almost as tasty as the polenta were jalapeno coleslaw (pictured center), fried plantains that tasted like butter (yum!) and coconut mango rice. You better believe we ate every last bite.
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| Sucré. Oprah loves it, why shouldn't you? |
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| $5 sicilian pistachio gelato. It now lives in my thighs. |
Sucré is a pretty hyped, highly publicized and endorsed upscale sweet shop. They are known for their authentic french macaroons. Everything is super decadent and unreasonably priced, but hey, there's edible glitter. They have some pretty exciting things on their menu such as every flavor of gelato you can think of, not to mention spiked gelato floats.
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Beignets and au laits.
Excuse the poor photography, I was robotripping. |
Café Du Monde is the place that EVERYONE says is a must when you go to New Orleans. A 24 hour/7 days a week bustling people watching spot, known for their café au lait and beignets. It made for the perfect snack for a chilly evening, while complimenting my random bout of allergies with a hacking cough. I enjoyed my sweet confection with a few swigs of cough syrup, straight from the bottle.
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| Our bill from Slice, a pizza shop. They either hated us or are just a raunchy bunch. |
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| A little bit of Pittsburgh in every city. The Primanti Burger! Sounds gross! | | | |
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The moment I had truly been waiting for.
Straight from my brain and into my mouth,
a champagne float |
My last memory of New Orleans will be the beautiful creation of a champagne float that I have been dreaming of. I eyed the float list the first time I entered Sucré and just knew I had to have one. I'd been conjuring the idea to create such a thing at home, but never got around to it due to my severe laziness. The exact menu name of my treat was called, the Sorbellini, a seasonal sorbet and champagne. Other concoctions included the Grasshopper, vanilla gelato and créme de menthe; Life by Chocolate, chocolate gelato with shots of Godiva liquor and Bailey's; The Velvet Hammer, vanilla gelato, brandy and nutmeg; and A Bunch of Nuts, brown butter pecan gelato, Frangelico and praline liquor. A lushes dream come true.
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| And last but not least, a pair of sweet sister dogs named Sugar and Cookie. |
