Recently, I ventured out to New Orleans to sample the fine cuisine.
The first place we ate at was Fuddrucker’s in Harrah’s Casino. That was nothing special. It was the normal unhealthy burgers and chicken sangwiches. We were going to play it slick and get a free drink from the casino floor. But the waitress we stalked saw right through our ploy. So, no free beverages from her.
Next up, KPaul’s. First let me give you a few background details. Our two “tablecloth” restaurants were KPaul’s and Antoine’s. I’ve never eaten at either, but from the websites, they looked awesome. I got us reservations at both restaurants. I got an attitude from the woman at KPaul’s. I was a bit surprised, as my friend had told me that they were supposed to be a nicer place than Antoine’s. When I made reservations at Antoine’s, I spoke with a lovely lady (who gave me the most pleasant of attitudes). Okay, so the stage is set.
When we arrive at KPaul’s, people are being turned away because they do not have reservations; luckily, we do. We had to wait maybe 10 mins for our table to be ready. So, they guys got drinks at the bar. When our table was ready, the maître d’ told us that our table would be transferred to our table. Great! Time for some delicious New Orleans’ food. My philosophy when I eat out is try something new or try something that you can’t get at home. For some reason, our waitress gave us an attitude when she got to our table. She asked about our bar tab. We told her that the maître d’ had told us not to worry about it and it would be transferred up to our table. Our waitress thought we were trying to pull one over on her. An instant attitude came out.
We decided on the rabbit tenderloin for an appetizer. The plate came out, and there was one long piece of fried rabbit. A better description would be, it looked like a long chicken finger or a fried tenticle. I was disappointed by the presentation. It tasted just like chicken. Which brings up a good discussion point, maybe things have really been tasting like rabbit not chicken. Since we were in New Orleans, our deciding factor on how good a restaurant was, was by how great the gumbo was. The gumbo here was made with chicken and andouille sausage. That is another negative for KPaul’s.
For an entree, I ordered the Duck and Shrimp St. Rose. It was supposed to be julienned and have champagne mushrooms. The description looked great on the menu. Ben ordered the tenderloin and Luis ordered the chicken and shrimp scampi (if i remember correctly) . Our plate’s came out. Luis got what looked like shrimp scampi. Ben got something that looked like the same rabbit we had for an appetizer, but flattened. I got something that had a dark sauce and what looked like champagne mushrooms. But the meat looked like steak. Obviously, Ben and I had each other’s plates. Once all that was straightened out, we dug into our delicious meal. That thought ended when I took a bite of the “duck.” It tasted like RABBIT! I’ve had duck before, it doesn’t taste like rabbit. The jumbalaya I got as a side was delicious though. Ben’s steak tasted like beef liver, yuck. He thought it tasted like cast iron. I was put off by my rabbit/duck/chicken. Luis’ plate was delicious. At the end of our meal, another waitress came and cleared our table. Ben mentioned the steak to her. She looked at him like he was crazy and told him that he had the duck. This led to a lengthy discussion with that new waitress (Vicky), our original waitress, and the manager about the texture and taste of beef, duck, rabbit, chicken. Eventually, the manager gave Ben and I our plates for free. Ben still had to pay his Gentleman Jack tab and Luis still had to pay for his whole meal. Overall, I was not impressed by the presentation or the food. The food lacked flavor in places. Just because you put out a bunch of spices with your name on it, it doesn’t mean that you can sprinkle a little of that dust on it and serve it up.
At the end of it, our original waitress was a bit nicer to us, for some odd reason. She and Vicky told us about some local dives to check out. She also told us how she was here on vacation and decided to permanently stay, since she had all of her nice shoes with her.
Saturday, after all the drunkeness of Bourbon Street the night before, we made our way into the daylight. For lunch, we went to Oceana. Our waitress was really cool. We sat on the second floor. Most of the people were on the first floor, so we had the top floor to ourselves. The balcony had a great view of the French Quarter. For appetizers, I got a dozen raw oysters on the half shell; Ben got the gumbo (seafood); Luis got a salad. All of that was delicious. Yummy raw oysters and tasty seafood gumbo. [Double check for Oceana so far.] We were too early for the crawfish broil. Our waitress let us order off of the dinner menu. Ben and Luis got a tenderloin stuffed with crawfish (I think). I got the tuna stuffed with crabmeat and crawfish. Both dishes were delicious. They had the perfect amount of spices and were cooked perfectly. This was definitely much better than KPaul’s and worth the money.
Our snacks during the day were either hurricanes or hand grenades. That satisfied our appetites until dinner. Dinner was at Antoine’s. I was having really high expectations for Antoine’s, just by my phone reservation and cause I had a good feeling inside. Antoine’s has 15 dining rooms. We were of course seated in the first main dining room because I didn’t know about the other 14. We had the most awesome waiter, Cedric. He was about 7 feet tall and was ready to cater to our every need. I’ve been to my share of fancy restaurants. Antoine’s ranks up there with the best.
Ben and I got the gumbo (seafood) . It was delicious. [Check for Antoine's.] I had my camera out on the table, before I could ask, Cedric was on top of taking our picture. He was also on top of refreshing our glasses and warming our bread before we had to ask. When I say refresh, I’m talking about sipping on the same glass for maybe 20 minutes and then Cedric walks out of the kitchen with brand new water glasses for us. Ben and I shared the Chateaubriand (medium). It came with a bearnaise sauce and a marchal du vin sauce, as well as potatoes. Luis got the chicken. The chicken was deliciou. Cedric came out with the Chateaubriand and carved it tableside. I also got a wine that Cedric recommended that would pair nicely with the steak. At this point, Antoine’s is at the top of my list for my favorite restaurant in New Orleans. The food is superb and the service is top-notch.
For dessert, I decided to get a brandy and coffee, only because I saw that it is set afire tableside. I knew I had to see Cedric the Entertainer at work. Another guy came out for the presentation, I was bummed. He got the show started though. He set the brandy on fire and made sure that we weren’t too close to the fire. All of a sudden, he ladeled some of the flaming brandy all around the table. He even feigned ladeling some into my lap. It was quite a show. He didn’t pour a lot of coffee into the brandy. It was a bit strong for me. I’ve never had brandy before. After dinner, Cedric took us on a tour of the 15 dining rooms and of the wine cellar.
Sunday morning/noon, we went to Cafe du Monde for some beignets. That place was extra crowded with tourists, waiting in line for some reason. But we used our heads and just walked up to an empty table and took it. We got orders of beignets and coffee. Everything was deliciou. The only bad thing about this place was that it was cash-only.
For lunch, before we left for home, we went to Felix’s Oyster Bar. I got half a dozen raw oysters again. They were tasty. Oh, and I had to make my own cocktail sauce. That was awesome, cause I’ve never made it from scratch before. Ben got gumbo, I thought it was good, not great but still tasty enough. Luis got a crawfish po’boy. Ben got a basket of boiled crawfish. That was delicious. It had the right amount of seasoning on it. I got the crawfish etoufee. It was alright.
I also want to mention the bars too. You can’t go to New Orleans and not go to a bar. The first bar we hit up was the Ice Bar inside Harrah’s Casino. They had this promotion going on where you text them and they’ll send a text in return and you can get a free drink at the bar. All you do is hold your phone up to this machine that reads it somehow and then it will print out a receipt for you bring to the bar. We got a lot of free drinks there. It seemed like whenever we were walking around the French Quarter, we were sucking down hurricanes or hand grenades. All through the French Quarter, there are these daiquiri bars that serve hurricanes. A hurricane is an awesome drink that’ll get you drunk and happy. We got the tall souvenir glasses, on average it costed us about $12 each. After maybe the second or third one, we found out that if you kept your receipt, you could get a refill for $10. But we were too lazy/drunk to hold onto the cups, so we threw them away and paid full price each time. Luis and I wanted to try some of those hand grenades. Ben told us that you can walk up to any of these bars and order a hand grenade. So that we did. Ben got a hurricane and we ordered hand grenades. And of course, they don’t know what hand grenades were. Yeesh! So we walk a bit and finally find the hand grenades. You can get them on-ice or frozen. I preferred it on-ice, Luis preferred the latter. While we were at this bar that sold hand grenades, Ben tried to order a hurricane. And yet again, they don’t know what hurricanes are. We also checked out the OldAbsinthe House. I always wanted to try absinthe. We ordered two of those drinks and split them three ways. Ben was doing a lot of haggling and got us into a bit of a jam with the bartender with a pissy attitude. The absinthe wasn’t good, or real absinthe.
The Review:
- Fuddrucker’s: 2/5 stars
- KPaul’s: 3/5 stars
- Oceana: 4/5 stars
- Antoine’s: 4.5/5 stars
- Cafe du Monde: 3.5/5 stars
- Felix’s: 3.5/5 stars
- Daiquiri Bars (Hurricanes): 3.5/5 stars
- Bars (Hand Grenades): 3/5 stars
- Old Absinthe House: 2/5 stars
