Lauren Loves Good Food

New Orleans is something else.  Really, there’s no place quite like it.  And there’s no place with food like New Orleans.

Good thing I ate lots of it while we were there, although I did that last time too so I’m sure that comes as no surprise.

Allow me to highlight some foodie moments from my vacation.

Boiled crawfish are required.

“Suck the head and pinch the tail” – don’t even grimace, crawfish are good and really they’re just like baby lobsters, right?

Our first full day in Nola was spent at The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, more on that later but let me give you an idea of the eating that went down on that day.

Can you see all those signs??  So many choices!  Luckily, the portions are small and you can taste lots.  Especially when you’re there for a majority of the day.

Let’s see, between 4 of us we had:

• Cochon de Lait (it’s like a pulled pork sandwich, from what I could see anyways)
• Fried eggplant with crawfish sauce
• Crab cake
• Mirliton stuffing (mirlitons (pronounced melitahn) are a type of squash)
• Gumbo
• Crawfish stuffed bread, oh baby
• Crawfish Madeleine (it’s a creamy pasta dish)

I had the gumbo to myself and tasted bites of the rest so I got to taste some of it all. 

Parkway Bakery and Tavern

If it’s good enough for the president, it’s good enough for me!  Apparently Obama has been there.  I hope he got the reuben because I tasted my sister’s and it was “oh-my-god-good.”  As for me, I ordered a grilled caprese the size of my head.

Like my hat?  I forgot I had it on and wore it through the entire meal.  The best part about this place, aside from the reuben and the Barq’s rootbeer in a bottle and the unique method they use for keeping flies away from the outdoor seating area…

Pennies in a bag? 

Was that they let you use a singer’s name for your order.  “Alison Krauss, your order’s up!”

The search for a tasty and authentic muffaletta.

A muffaletta is a meat heavy sandwich but when in Rome, right?

I ate a veggie one at Café Maspero and was disappointed so I tried again at Koz’s and got the real deal, no vegetarian this time. 

Tasted a little too baloney-ish for me.  I ordered half and only managed to eat half of the half, but cut me a break, muffalettas are huge.

I need to eat more sandwiches that involve an olive salad.

Until next time, muffaletta.

Crescent City Pie & Sausage Company

This place did not disappoint. 

My uncle, Joey and I split three dishes:

• The two pie: veggie pie and seafood pie
• Margherita pizza
• Pan-fried mac and cheese

Gah, why didn’t I take a picture of that mac and cheese?  It was so so good.

Middendorf’s never disappoints.  The drive is so worth it.

For Joey who’d never had fried soft shell crab.

He was brave and got fried catfish.  Joey is many things, but scared to try new things is not one of them.

Mom got stuffed crab.

But the stuffed shrimp is better.  My sister and I shared.  You know something’s good when you take the last bite and are instantly sad that it’s all gone.

And in case you’re not already saying, “Where is Lauren and who is this fried food, meat-eating girl?” I have to admit that I had fried chicken at Willie Mae’s.

Because when  the food network says a restaurant serves “the best fried chicken,” you know I have to try it.  Fried chicken once won’t kill me.

The last restaurant we ate at was Huevos and it only seemed right to order the huevos rancheros.

The waitress asked how I wanted my eggs and I said scrambled but apparently real huevos rancheros come with over easy eggs?  I’m an inexperienced huevos eater.

As much food as this post has, it’s not everything.  There was lots of homemade goodies, like red beans and rice, gumbo and white chocolate bread pudding, plus shrimp po-boys, fresh shrimp tacos, beignets and many many snowballs – refer to this post if you don’t know what a snowball is.

Have you ever been to New Orleans?

What’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten while on vacation?