24 hours (or so) in New Orleans…….Cochon Butcher, Oak Wine Bar, Cure Nola & everything in between.

For my birthday back in April or as HBO’s Game of Thrones puts it – my Name Day – my wife surprised me with the news that we would be enjoying a short trip down to New Orleans. Normally we try to get down to NOLA at least twice a year but unfortunately we have not been able to schedule a trip since way back in January of 2010 when I tried out for Fox’s 1st season of MasterChef. We lucked out and got a pretty reasonable rate on a hotel right on St Charles ave,surprisingly since this was the same weekend as Jazz Fest. We drove down to Baton Rouge on Friday and stayed with her sister, Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and headed into New Orleans. Although early early early check in was not available we were able to leave our car in the Hotel’s parking lot. The weather was warm but not as hot and humid as Louisiana can get We decided we would walk a bit up St Charles towards downtown and when we got tired we would just hop on the streetcars that run up and down St Charles. Well we never got tired (till much later anyway) and walked from Uptown to downtown,all around the Quarter and back to Lee Circle where we caught a streetcar back to our hotel.  In between all that walking though we did a lot. Our first stop of the day was at Cochon Butcher for a quick bite to eat and cold beer. They were pretty busy when we got there so we snagged a small table outside. Ann wasn’t too hungry yet so I ate alone, not arguing though. I had the Sweet & Spicy Brisket Sliders with a nice cold Pale Ale to wash them down with. Although there were just two sliders I had trouble finishing the second one due to how much meat was piled on them, these were really tasty.

After Butcher we set off towards Canal St. and the French Quarter. We walked all around the Quarter with Daiquiri and Beer ( Crescent City Brewery) in hand.  Even though we were all over the Quarter I don’t think we ever stepped foot on Bourbon st (this is a good thing). There is just SO MUCH MORE to the French Quarter than that one street. I am not going to go into every little detail of what we did but you should get a pretty good idea from the photos.

We loved this lady’s artwork,so vibrant.

On our way back to our hotel to get ready for dinner (yes still walking at this point) we realized that since Butcher was our first stop we didn’t load up on anything from their awesome deli case. Back to Butcher it is then, luckily since it was mid-afternoon at this point they were not as busy as before so we were able to get a table inside. We picked out what we wanted from the case and grabbed two more beers and just sat and relaxed for a bit. At this point I took a few more pics including a panorama that I would stitch together as seen above. As soon as I sat back down, one of the founders of Butcher, Chef Stephen Stryjewski, came in and I was tempted to take a pic but I didn’t.  Funny story: later that week I read an article where one of the questions asked of him was which trend would you like to see go away and his answer was “people documenting every part of their meal,just relax and enjoy the moment” (paraphrasing here). Also he just won a James Beard award for Best Chef : South

After leaving Butcher we started walking back and caught a street car near Lee Circle and traveled back to our hotel. We had a few hours before meeting up with our friends Blake & Bridget at Oak Wine Bar for dinner so we just relaxed at the hotel. We left about an hour before we were supposed to meet them and started walking (again) on St Charles ave further uptown towards the restaurant. At this point although it was early evening it was still quite warm and sticky (that’s just how New Orleans is ) and caught the street car and rode it to Oak street. I don’t know if it was the heat and walking all day after consuming several adult beverages but I was just worn out at this point. I felt like if I laid down on the booth we were sitting on I would just fall asleep. Unfortunately this affected my appetite so I ordered the Special of the Day Salad ( I forget what all was in it though). This really hit the spot and after consuming this, a few glasses of water and sharing a cheese plate I was back to normal.  Dinner was really fun and after realizing we had a special bodyguard  in Bridget and her cutlery skills (that is all I am saying about that for fear of being “cut”) we headed off towards our next dining/drinking adventure.

I really wanted to try Cure, a fairly new cocktail bar that I had recently read about. We all hopped into Blake’s truck (no more walking at this point) and headed that way. I am glad Blake drove because although I had a pretty good idea where the bar was located I really didn’t. We parked across the street in front of a neighborhood housing service office with a  huge glass window in front. Why am I telling you the details of this you may ask? Well because for some reason the window was covered in red and white stickers much like you would get at a convention with your name on it but these were VERY different. There were a part of a project called Iwishthiswas.com , not sure the general purpose of this but the answers on this particular window were funny,extremely twisted and some downright wrong but I had to take a few pics of them. You can see these in my Flickr Slideshow of the trip below.

Cure did not disappoint,it was still fairly early in the evening and we were able to garb a pretty nice spot to sit down and relax,eat some of their Bar Snacks and enjoy their tasty cocktails.  I have been wanting to try a cocktail called the Pisco Sour (a grape based liquor) . I actually bought a bottle of Pisco about two months ago and it has been sitting in my freezer just waiting on me to make this cocktail. I figured if I was going to start making Pisco Sours I should at least taste a pretty good version of one. Let me tell you it did not disappoint. I do not have another version to compare it to ( except the one I made after getting home from New Orleans) but Cure’s version was very good. The girls drank champagne and Blake had a few Terrytowns ( a mix of George Dickel White Label Whisky,Lemon juice,egg white and orange) . We also ordered up some of their Sweet & Spicy Popcorn (see a trend here) as well as their Pancetta wrapped Dates. The sweet side of the popcorn was like a caramel but we had a hard time figuring out the spicy. The spicy was also a smaller popcorn so i am not sure if the seasoning was liquid based and thus “wilted” the popcorn but it was still good. We asked our waitress and all she could tell us was that it was a house made Cajun blend. Several hours and cocktails later we decided to head back towards St Charles Ave and go to the Delachaise although one member of our party kept saying it was “douchey” and me and/or Blake should be wearing pink pants if we wanted to be waited on. I for one had heard good things about this place in the past. Well after making our way to the Delachaise and standing at the bar without getting waited on and then securing an outdoor table and still not getting waited on (I guess somebody was right after all, on the pants part at least) we walked down a block or so to Superior Grill hoping to score some late night chips and salsa. We grab a few seats at the bar and ordered some margaritas, Diet Coke for me at this point. Guess what – Kitchen was closed therefore no chips or salsa. Much to the dismay of the bartender and his repeated phrase of “kitchen is closed” there were repeated queries about said chips and salsa. I left the Margarita Threesome and ventured my way to the bathroom. Upon returning to the company of the Margarita 3 what do my eyes behold? All three of them munching on chips and salsa……I won’t spill the beans on how they procured these otherwise unavailable tasty vittles but it was only by sheer genius that they were bestowed on us. To further describe how the end of our evening went there was a certain margarita that was missing a straw only to be later located in someone’s hair.  At this point we called it a night and walked home to our hotel about 25 steps from Superior Grill.

The next morning Ann and I woke up and drove (yes I know this is rare for this trip) down towards the French Quarter. As much as we shy away from any food/beverage establishment that is chain related when traveling Ann is still unhealthy-ily addicted to Starbucks. In the area where we were staying there is only one Starbucks and it is on Canal st in the heart of downtown. This should tell her that there is better coffee out there but she is stubborn and set in her ways but I guess that is why we work so well together. We found a parking spot and by found I mean we paid a small fortune to park in a parking lot for less than an hour,well more like 15 minutes because……………we were doing the touristy thing and going to eat Beignets at Cafe Du Monde, something we do every trip down here. Why only 15 minutes you say? well because even though unlike on Saturday when there were no crowds due to Jazz Fest, on Sunday at 9 am there was a huge crowd. The line to get a table was just as long as the take out line………… mission aborted.

We hopped back in the car and headed back towards Uptown to make one last stop at Whole Foods on Magazine st before heading home.

Something about this city no matter how little or how much time we spend here always energizes me and stimulates my creativity – this trip was no different.

Some things I learned and/or remembered from this trip :

• You can still book a good hotel room a week before your trip even during Jazz Fest.
• Walking Nola gives you a pretty good work out.
• Blake and I own the same shirt and apparently that is a big deal to Bridget and if you cross her you will be subject to her cutlery skills.
• Robert Peyton does not love me anymore, he would rather spend his time with his son and his girlfriend…………..whatever
• Passing a guy hiding behind a car with a big ass camera in the heart of the French Quarter probably means you are in the vicinity of Brad Pitt or a really great/unfortunate story about Nic Cage.
• Cochon Butcher NEVER gets old.
• St Louis Cathedral sobers you up pretty quick with its beauty.
• I think I saw Ilan Hall dressed liked a hipster Doofus outside of Scott Boswell’s Stanley.
• if I lived here I would most likely gain 100 extra pounds eating all the great food this city has to offer and most likely be sober 25% of the time.
• and finally I have to thank my wonderful wife Ann who always knows exactly what I need, well most of the time

For an overview of the whole trip click through the Flickr slideshow below. You can also see all my photos from past NOLA trips HERE.