Quick Food
| Willie's Chicken Shack 🍗 | This fried chicken was suprisingly delicious, considering that this restaurant is part of a small chain. The skin was crispy and didn't slide off the meat. The meat was juicy and well cooked. They even sell frozen daquiris here. We went twice. |
| Central Grocery | This grocery and deli has a popular, and giant, muffaletta. There's plenty of meat in the sandwich, and the bread is soft and balances out the saltiness of the meats well. I really liked the dressing on the bread. Since the deli is inside a grocery, you have to take your sandwich to go. |
| Parkway Bakery | Beyoncé eats these po boys. They're pretty large and comes with a lot of meat. I only wish they were more salted or seasoned. |
Snacks
| Cafe Beignet 🍩 | These beignets were delightfully fluffy with a nice, soft chew. These were our favorite beignets of the trip and went twice. |
| Cafe Du Monde | I'm not sure why these beignets were so hyped. They were hollow inside, and the beignet was pretty much just a sad shell. Fortunately, they were incredibly cheap. |
| Salon Restaurant by Sucré 🍰 | Sucré's King cake changed my opinion of King cake. I had always known King cake as a dry cinnamon roll, with overly sweet icing. However, Sucré's cake, was more like a soft cinnamon babka, with an appropriately sweet frosting. Sadly, this cake is fairly bougie and cost about $24. Also, it's seasonal 😧 |
| Drip Affogato Bar | Unfortunately, there was a hurricane warning, and the shop had shut off its espresso machines when we were there. Luckily they were still serving ice cream, which I remember was thick and custardy |
Activities
| Art Garden & Floating Gallery | This is a mini outdoor art walk in an alley. There were many vendors selling art, jewelry, etc. The string lights draped across made this a nice place to browse and drink |
| Marigny Brasserie | We stopped in here to watch the live jazz band. We only got two beers between the four of us, but they still gave us a table by the band. |
| Frenchman St | This 2-block stretch of bars was low-key poppin. There was a jazz band in the middle of a street intersection, and people dancing. The bars were lively, but not overcrowded. |
| The French Quarter | Bourbon street is the popular street you've heard of. It looks like a trashier, less grandiose version of Vegas. The street is lined with frozen daquiri shops and bars blasting top 40 hits. There are flocks of people wearing tubes of drink around their necks and stumbling around, day or night. It's ok-fun at first, but gets tiring quickly. However, you have to come here if you want Willie's Chicken Shack 🍗 |
Restaurants
| Cochon | This was our "fancy" New Orleans meal. The restaurant had a chill hipster vibe and would've fit into SF easily. I really liked the fried boudin and crawfish hand pie. |
| Lüke 🍤 | We stopped here for oysters and shrimp & grits. The grits were superrr cheesy, but the shrimp was slightly overcooked. While the restaurant had white tablecloths, we didn't feel out of place in our shorts and sandals, thanks to our friendly server. |
| The Ruby Slipper Café | This restaurant/diner was pretty disappointing. The menu and Yelp reviews looked great, but the food did not live up to expectations. My biggest complaint is that all the flavors fell flat. I wasn't excited to take more than one bite of anything we ordered. |
| Kingfish | All of us really hated this place. First, the server was dismissive and ignored us several times (even after I made intense eye contact). Next, the food was poorly cooked and portions too small. The special foie gras king cake we ordered was actually a tiny roll about the size of a mini cupcake, with no distinguishable foie gras taste. The drinks were weak and watery. We couldn't wait to get out of the restaurant, and the server probably couldn't wait either, but for some reason, he kept forgetting to bring us the bill. |
Bars
| St Lawrence 🍹 | Frozen Pimm's Cup!!! This was mine and Becca's favorite daquiri of the trip. The drink wasn't too sweet and cucumber was a refreshing twist on a traditionally heavy frozen cocktail. I like that you can take your drink to go and there's no expectation to sit around and drink (generally true of casual bars in the city) |
| Lafitte's Blacksmith House | Frozen grape slushie was pretty good and tasted exactly how you'd expect. There's a nice patio area to sit and enjoy your drink |
| Napoleon House | They have a variety of Pimm's Cups, with different fruit flavors like satsuma. |
Coffee
| Spitfire Coffee ☕️ | I absolutely adored the latte I got from this coffee shop. The espresso was rich and smooth, and the milk was steamed perfectly. This is a tiny shop with 2 counter stools. I wish I had time to visit twice to see if the coffee was really that good. |