New Orleans

There are two things New Orleans is famous for: food and music. (Ok, ok, also hats… and other things, but we’ll keep it simple for our purposes 🙂 So, when Leiza and I visited NOLA for the French Quarter Festival, we did little else but stuff our faces and listen to music bands and street performers gathered in the city for the fest. And since my sis visited the city quite a bit for work, we had an inside scoop on all the best places.

We started our first night with “Pink Squirrels” at the historical Sazerac bar (named after, supposedly, world’s first mixed drink) in Roosevelt Hotel, had a delicious dinner at the award-winning Cochon, danced to a live band at the Davenport lounge (that looked like a 1960s movie set) in Ritz-Carlton, and ended our night listening to a 12-men jazz band playing Lenny Kravitz at the DBA on Frenchmen street, the locals’ alternative to the Bourbon street.

Next morning, Cafe du Monde‘s beignets and coffee were pretty much a necessity. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm, and after breakfast we strolled along the Mississippi river, stopping to listen to jazz, folk, and rock being played on the multiple stages along the riverside. The festival, by the way, is free, and attracts several hundreds of performers and thousands of people each year.

After listening to a couple of bands, it was time for crawfish! Which I loooove. We lucked out and found a great place for it – Grand Isle at the Fulton Square, with the sunny outside seating ideal for relaxing with a mimosa and a pound (or three) of crawfish. It was awesome!

And also, a perfect “snack” before our dinner reservation at GW Fins – a French Quarter restaurant known as one of the best seafood places in the city. We liked some of the dishes (lobster dumplings, blackened swordfish) and were disappointed by others (poached sea bass and red snapper) but enjoyed the overall atmosphere of the place. The rest of the evening we spent walking around the Bourbon street, doing what everybody else does there – checking out touristy shops, hanging out on the balconies overlooking the crowded street, and stepping into bars to listen to music bands.

Next day, we visited the Garden district known for the beautiful antebellum mansions and century-old trees lining its streets. There, we also walked around the historical Lafayette cemetery full of impressive, often beautiful, tombstones and mausoleums.

In sunny, spring weather it did not look nearly as macabre as it sounds. We ended our trip with a visit to the local aquarium, which while not quite as impressive as the one in Atlanta, was still pretty fun. The culinary highlight of the day was brunch at the Court of Two Sisters – an all-you-can-eat southern-food buffet with spacious outside court seating, linen-lined tables, and a live Jazz-band playing in the background. If you visit just one restaurant in New Orleans – this should be it.