trip report New Orleans

A co-worker spent last week in New Orleans. She is not an LTH member so I gave her some recommendations I had seen on the forum. When she returned she emailed me some comments that I thought I would pass on.

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Tuesday through Saturday
October 23-27, 2007

Tuesday
Dinner at Palace Café (Canal Street) – General Impression: dimly lit--hard to read the menu; moderate to expensive pricing; American/French menu cuisine.
- Early bird menu - $24-27 for soup, entrée (including vegetable) and dessert.
Diner #1: smoked rabbit soup; rotisserie chicken; garlic potatoes, cabbage salad; blueberry cobbler. Comments: soup was more like lentil/veggie soup with an initial smokey taste that quickly dissipated and small shredded pieces of rabbit (I guess—wasn’t evident by the taste!); chicken entrée portion was ample and good (honey glazed); garlic potatoes were very good as well as the warm cabbage salad that had a light vinaigrette dressing; blueberry cobbler was too warm causing the ice cream topping to melt quickly thus making a warm cobbler swimming in cream. Blueberries were tart.
Diner #2: Turtle soup; honey glazed duck with dirty rice; blueberry cobbler. Comments: soup was more like lentil/veggie soup with small pieces of what was thought to be turtle but later was found out to be beef brisket because turtle reportedly is now a protected specie. Blueberry cobbler (same comment as above).
General comments: a mixed premium drink was $13.00! The drink was mediocre . . . don’t believe the bourbon requested was actually used; requested an olive instead of the usual cherry in the drink that didn’t happen initially; the olive had to be requested. Price for the two dinners above (early bird specials) , 2 Miller Lite beers, and one mixed drink was $72.00 w/o tip. Service was just OK (not great). The chicken was moist and flavorful. Part of the duck was good; but part was so dry that it was not edible.

Wednesday
Dinner at Bontons (Magazine Street) – General Impression: lighting was subdued but acceptable so that the menu could be read easily. American/Southern cuisine. Service was friendly and helpful with menu explanations and selections.
Diner #1 – Shrimp/Crab/Eggplant Etoufee on a bed or rice; parsley red potatoes. All was very delicious.
Diner #2 – Breaded catfish with Alvina sauce (a tomato/mayo sauce lightly seasoned with cayenne); parsley red potatoes. Breading on catfish was exceptionally dry but the sauce helped to moisten it so it was edible. General comments: a tasty and pleasant dining experience. We later shared in a “to go container” a bread pudding with whiskey sauce—Excellent. The price for two dinners, dessert, and one mixed premium drink and two Miller Lite Beers was $62.00 w/o tip.

Thursday
Dinner at Bayona’s (Dauphine Street) – General Impression: definitely a fine dining restaurant. Service and cuisine was first rate.
Diner #1 – Began with creamy garlic soup—excellent. Soup was followed by Pacific grilled salmon with seasoned potato slices. Salmon was prepared medium rare (as suggested by the chef) and was excellent. It was served on what seemed to be a sweet/sour sauerkraut bed (unusual combination but very tasty).
Diner #2 – Popano (white) fish on bed of steamed vegetables. Very, very tasty—fish was steamed (moist and not overcooked).
General comments: a very pleasant dining experience. Service was excellent. The price for the two dinners, one order of petit four (10 small gourmet cookies), one mixed premium drink and two Miller Lite Beers was $76.00 w/o tip.

Friday
Lunch/Dinner – Market café in the French Market. Ordered a Mulfetta sandwich that was huge and excellent. It was cut in four quarters. We each (two of us) ate a quarter of the sandwich which was filling for lunch, and took the other half of sandwich (two quarters) to go. We ate that later for an early dinner. It was an excellent sandwich with ham, salami, Provolone cheese, topped with olive salad. Two Cokes and the sandwich w/o tip was $21.00.
As an early evening snack to “fill the void” of eating the second half of the sandwich in late afternoon, we went to Drago’s in the Hilton Hotel for charcoal broiled oysters on the half shell. These were prepared with a topping of lemon butter and light bread crumbs on top. Each oyster cost about $1.25-$1.50 but were well worth the cost. This menu item at Drago’s is highly recommended. As information, Drago’s in the Hilton was just opened recently and is only the second restaurant of its kind in the NO’s area. Look for it in other locales!! Excellent!

Friday
Dinner at Café Giovanni (Decatur Street). This restaurant featured Italian/American cuisine; the atmosphere was good to fine dining.
The two diners had Swordfish topped with a crabmeat Muenier (sp?) sauce on a bed of grits with steamed baby green beans and yellow squash. The Swordfish was a menu special; it was very well prepared (grilled) and very tasty. The service was friendly and excellent. We ordered one order of Tiramisu “to go” since the meal was so filling.
General comments: Although we had no previous recommendation on this restaurant, we found it to be a “good find.” For one premium drink, two Miller Lites, two meals, and one dessert, the cost was $76.00 w/o tip.

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COMMENT: evidently turtles used in turtle soup are not protected from what I can find out, so I don’t know whether she misunderstood the beef brisket comment or what?

D.

How can you call it turtle soup if there is no turtle meat in it?? I'd be outraged if I ordered turtle soup only to find out if was really beef brisket soup. Even if what your friend said is true, beef brisket is certainly an odd substitute for turtle.

I need to go back to New Orleans. I haven't been since Halloween 2000. And thanks to this forum, I know the right spots to hit the next time I venture down south.

I ate at each of these restaurants on several occasions when I lived in New Orleans...While Bayona is very nice, I think Chef Spicer spends a lot more time at her other restaurants these days (Herbsaint, etc) Bayona was fanstastic the last time I ate there in the mid to late 90s, I doubt that much has changed since.

Palace Cafe was always a stay away for me. I was never that impressed with the vast majority of that side of the Brennan Family empire. This restaurant is bread and butter convention and tourist traffic.

Bon Ton Cafe is a classic. It is a very well known businessmans lunch spot on magazine in the CBD. The turn out all the old school favorites. I think it is only open for dinner once a week, if that. Anyway, if you are looking for a classic new orleans creole joint. Crawfish etoufee, gumbo, etc this is a great spot.

If you are looking for true new orleans chow you need to also look beyond the usual suspects and travel uptown to places like casamentos, domileses and various other places off the beaten path. there are many threads which you can locate with the search function which will take you right to some of the best.