Fat Thursday in NOLA and 3 more days of great eats
It’s easy to find cheap, authentic food in New Orleans. What’s hard is trying to eat everything your friends and co-workers suggest.
My wife and I arrived on a Sunday afternoon, unpacked at our Airbnb in Faubourg Marigny and headed for the French Quarter, whose streets were jammed with daiquiri-, Hurricane- and beerdrinking LSU and Clemson football fans warming up for the College Football Playoff National Championship Game the next night at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
The fried chicken and biscuits were top-notch at Willie’s Chicken Shack. The jambalaya had plenty of rice and Creole heat, but not enough chicken and Andouille sausage.
I had the same gripe with the gumbo at Turtle Bay, but loved the draft Gleason India Pale Ale made by Port Orleans Brewing Co. Named for former Saints safety Steve Gleason, this hazy ale (5.8% alcohol) helps raise money for people like him living with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Other local beers I liked were Holy Roller, a hazy, juicy, 6.3% IPA by Urban South Brewery, and Red Stallion, a 5.8% Vienna-style dark lager from Crescent City Brewhouse. Lawrence, an engaging Saints fan with a diamond earring and gold nail polish, served me a 24-ounce draft from the brewery’s takeout window. I confess I felt no guilt drinking while walking the streets in broad daylight.
The next day, I made the first of three beignet runs to Cafe du Monde and Cafe Beignet. Every bite of fried dough and powdered sugar reminded me of the fasnachts my mother used to make with my AlsatianAmerican grandmother’s recipe. It was our family’s Fat Tuesday treat.
Crawfish and po’boys were also on my list. I got them in one sandwich at Taranto’s Crawfish in Biloxi, Miss. If there is such a thing as a lobster hoagie, this is what it would taste like.
The night of the football game, we decided to stay away from downtown and the French Quarter to try a classic burger place recommended by Eater.com. Brown Butter Southern Kitchen and Bar served up a great bacon cheddar burger and one of the best brisket sandwiches I’ve ever had, topped with house-made barbecue sauce, fried jalapeno and coleslaw.
Speaking of slaw on a sandwich, I was reminded of Primanti’s the morning I stepped inside Central Grocery and Deli, home of the original muffuletta. The story is that Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian immigrant, invented the sandwich in the early 1900s when he noticed market workers combining his lunch meats with round loaves from a nearby bakery.
Since I’d had two Cafe du Monde beignets for breakfast, I saved my muffuletta for lunch. I still struggled to finish half of this monster layered with olive salad, salami, ham, mortadella and Swiss and provolone cheeses.
I was so full that I managed only a bite of my wife’s fried chicken from Willie Mae’s Scotch House, which some say is the best in the world. But I did find room for Willie Mae’s heavenly green beans. I didn’t eat a thing for the rest of the day, my Fat Thursday.