et toi

My financial priorities are somewhat different from those of my peers once my few bills have been taken care of. I rarely find clothes or shoes that blow my skirt up enough to buy, apps are less than applicable for me since I don't have a smart phone and I'm dehydrated enough of the time without the help of alcohol draining my body as well as my wallet. No, for me, my money is better and more often spent on (you guessed it) food. Or outings centered around food. Outings like... road trips to New Orleans, perhaps?

Thursday of last week my buddy, Kyle, and I set out on a 4 day excursion to the Crescent City. We were heading over for the annual French Quarter Fest, which is just as fun as Mardi Gras, but far less crowded and somewhat less expensive. Our rubber met the road as we salivated over the good music, good times and of course, good food to come. The cherry on top of the whole trip was being able to see good ol' Daddy McMillen, who moved to NoLa (technically Meaitrie, but the two are so close, it counts) a little over a year ago. And we arrived just in time... for Dad's oven ribs.

::Side Note::
Whenever there is an opportunity to have Papa McMillen cook for my sister or myself, chances are there will be one of 3 main staple meals that will be requested; crab cakes, pork chops 'n' apples/pears or oven ribs. I didn't even have make a request before coming over this time - Dad and Ginna already knew.

I loved that I could share such a great meal with Kyle - now that the tragedy of separation has come between the Houston installment of McMillens (thus depriving those of us who stayed behind of a good 50% of our favorite home-cooked meals), letting him in on the homemade goodness was special. The ribs were slightly different from the usual recipe, but still delicious and made a great initiation to the weekend's digestive experience.

Friday we woke up and made our way over to Huevos New Orleans.  Getting into this place was a treat all on its own since on the weekends it's basically impossible to even get inside the door. Healthy and full of flavor, each of us were totally pleased with our respective meals. Dad and Kyle got breakfast sandwiches, I got the country breakfast. The dishes were simple, but made well and satisfied our tummies without filling us to a painful extent.

At that point, it was time to head over to the festival, where music, shopping and cooking were already well underway. We set up our chairs at the Coca Cola stage where a new favorite band, Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes would be playing later that afternoon. Once settled, Kyle and I took a walk.
It's nearly impossible to see all of the French Quarter in one afternoon, but dammit, we tried. We moseyed through the French Market, looking at all of the cheap knickknacks and wares. A little further past the market was where the restaurants started; each of them had their usual bands playing the kind of jazz that Kyle and I were both looking forward to hearing.

Come lunch time, Dad treated me to an Ice Cream Pina Colada. It's funny- like I said, I'm not much of a drinker. when the gal was mixing my drink, Dad made mention of "a little alcohol" to make the drink happy.

Less than an hour later, I was napping by our chairs back at the Coca Cola stage...

But not before getting at least a proper lunch in my belly. We were craving po-boys, and boy, did we get what we wanted. Kyle got a BBQ shrimp, while I tried my very first soft shell crab. Being from Tejas, I was expecting Kyle's sandwich to be covered in a thick, brown, sweet sauce, but in New Orleans BBQ more refers to the way food is cooked vs. its flavor (go figure). I washed my food down with my absolute favorite flavor snowcone (or snoball if you're from NoLa) Blue Bubblegum (there will be an EYP entry for snowcones to come very shortly, by the way).
Then I crashed.

When we got home after a great day of festing, Kyle and I agreed that as delicious as our po-boys were, they only held us over until... well, that moment. We were hungry again. Dad recommended picking up a pizza from Gio's, a little hole-in-the-wall place around the corner from the house where they served the traditional pie as well as salads, entrees and (in my opinion) God's gift to meatballs. We got a pie, which was good and all- but the next time I'm in Metairie, I'll definitely be going back for those tennis ball sized meatballs.

Saturday, even after a great French toast breakfast, we piled into the car and Dad asks, "OK, who wants a snoball?" I didn't think, didn't pause, didn't hesitate a moment, "I DO! I DO!" Ginna made the comment that we just ate. My response was, "I don't think you understand here..." We stopped by a 'hood favorite (there were a lot to choose from). Dad got a White Russian flavor and laughed when I asked if it was adult (I was being totally serious... I wouldn't put it past a NoLa eatery to have alcoholic snowballs...) I enjoyed a half banana, half chocolate stuffed (ice cream in the middle) treat. Kyle asked if it was everything I'd hope for.
"... and more."
The afternoon brought us to the Magazine Street area, famous for its shopping. We enjoyed ambling around with not much destination in mind, followed by putting our feet up at Bulldog's Patio. There wasn't much conversation from the crowds gathered around the TV outside since the Masters were on (sorry Dad, but the Amen Corner wasn't exactly the highlight of the afternoon), but that just made the fountain of taps all the more easy to hear, which is considerably more enjoyable while you're nursing an Abita Amber draft.

 

Here's where we all found ourselves between Hell and a hot spot... 

Every time I've come to New Orleans, I've enjoyed a dish that I couldn't possibly hope to find the equal to in H-Town. BBQ oysters. And every time we've gotten them, it's always been in a New Orleans local place called Acme Oyster House. Yet again, to my pleasant surprise, BBQ did not mean that my shellfish would have grill marks and be covered in A1. 

The way these little morsels are prepared is they're halved and the shell is used as their cooking vessel on the grill. They're laden with garlic, butter, salt and other seasonings to turn what starts out as a loogie on a shell into one of the most out-of-this-world yet simple culinary masterpieces. 

Honestly, add garlic and butter to just about anything and how can you go wrong?

Acme does one hell of a stand up job in preparing these little guys, but each time I've been lucky enough to have them, I'm told, "Oh, well you think these are good, they're nothing compared to Drago's oysters..."

Evidently, Drago's was the first to ever throw half an oyster onto a grill and turn it to gold. I could only imagine if Acme does such a great job with their recipe, how much better the original would be. But that's what I kept talking about to Dad.
"Dad. Oysters. Oysters, Dad... Dude, Dad. Oysters."

Also, as anyone who lives anywhere besides Louisiana, Alabama or Mississippi will know, crawfish gets to be really expensive. So that was something I wanted to make sure I got my fix for.

And beside all of that, Dad was really excited about taking us to Jacques Imo's, a 'Nawlin's Style Cafe that serves up a lot 'tude and a lot of flavor.

Where do we go from here? We bantered back and forth all afternoon, and realized that we should have started way earlier in the day. Finally, though we decided to save the oysters for another time (all the more reason to go back). We headed over to Jacques Imo's.

This entry is already ridiculously long...

The rest of this entry will be continued in the following post. 

Make sure you check it out, though, because Jacques Imo's is a killer-diller trip.
Plus I'll share about the crawfish fix.

This half of the post is dedicated to Daddy McMillen - this trip was one of the best so far.

-k