Maybe, like me, today you'll be celebrating Pancake day aka Shrove Tuesday aka Mardi Gras by swapping your normal Tuesday night supper of salmon and veg (ok ok pasta and cheese) with a little bit of batter, lemon and sugar. Mm mm mmmm.
Or maybe you are like 2017 me, or a lucky resident of New Orleans Louisiana and you are going to spend today catching beads, drinking hurricanes and dancing in the street. Mardi Gras, NOLA: its tagline is "the greatest party on earth" and I am not gonna lie, it is pretty fun if you are ready to embrace it - and you give the drunk guy vomiting down himself on Bourbon Street a wide berth.
As well as the music, the instagram gold architecture and the people, do you know what else is pretty fabulous in New Orleans and there all year round? The food.
Here are my families favourite picks from our visit last year:
My sister Emily and her boyfriend Alex - fried alligator with chilli garlic mayo at Cochon and wood fire roasted oysters at Balise. Nb. so you get an idea of the type of adventurous eater they are, they share a steak tartare when they go out for brunch and the other week we went to Casse Croute here in London and Alex ordered veal brain on toast. In his defence, he didn't eat it all but you get the gist, they are hardcore foodies. However, I can vouch for the wood fire roasted oysters. They were damn good.
My mum - the beignets at M Bistro. Not normally a sweet tooth my mum fell for the Ritz Carlton restaurant's version of the NOLA speciality - fried and sugar powdered little donut clouds. Beignets. Personally, I preferred the ones at Cafe Beignet in the French Quarter. Sitting out on their patio, in the sunshine with an iced tea and a portion of beignets whilst live music streamed through the streets was a real nice slice of New Orleans life.
My dad - another vote for Balise, my dad's favourite was their rotisserie chicken. You can't argue with chicken.
Will - you can take a boy out of... well England, but you can't stop him wanting a hot and meaty sandwich for lunch. That sentence sounds a bit more like a sexual innuendo than I intended, but my point was basically Will was all about the po boys and his favourite (of the 3 he tried, what can I say he knows what he likes) was the fried chicken from NOLA chain Daisy Dukes. A po' boy is a fantastic sandwich - some sort of hot, maybe fried meat like shrimp and/or chicken, in a baguette essentially. Tastes as wonderful as it sounds.
I feel a notable mention for Will should be pralines as he ate more than his fair share of our collection. We bought ours from Leah's Pralines.
And finally me, as this is my blog and my post I should get as many recommendations as everyone else combined no?
So in no particular order I loved:
- The vanilla scented French toast at Brennan's (eaten with a mimosa or 2)
- The cochon at Cochon
- And just some cheese and wine with a side of live music at Bacchanal
Is anyone else feeling like the pancake with sugar and lemon juice just isn't cutting it?
PS. More of a waffle than a pancake person? Try this recipe for pumpkin spiced waffles...
PPS. More travel posts, most of them food focussed.
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