But what about the food?
New
Orleans has some of my favorite restaurants in the world. But since the
COVID-19 pandemic most of them have been operating at reduced hours and
reservations are hard to get. I couldn't even schedule anything at
Brennan's or Antoine's during the month I was in town. That didn't stop
me from getting good food, of course.
My apartment was only a couple of blocks away from the best po-boy place
in town, Verti Marte. If you don't know, a po-boy is the traditional
sandwich from Louisiana and it has multiple variations, from roast beef
or meatball to shrimp or crab cake. I tried quite a few of them, and my
favorite was the All That Jazz: grilled ham, turkey, shrimp, Swiss and
American cheese, grilled mushrooms, tomatoes, and their secret sauce, on
grilled French bread. Spectacular!
New Orleans is a city of cocktails, so I put the wine aside for a month
and explored the many drinks you can find there. I had a Ramos Gin Fizz
(gin, lemon juice, lime juice, egg white, sugar, cream, orange flower
water, and soda) at Bar Tonique. It takes twelve minutes to mix this
drink and get it nice and frothy, and in the old days before electric
mixers they would pass the shaker cup from bartender to bartender as
each of them got tired of shaking the thing. I had a Vieux Carré (rye
whiskey, cognac, sweet vermouth liqueur, Bénédictine, and Peychaud's
bitters) at Hotel Monteleone, where it was invented and served to people
like Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and William Faulkner. I had a
Café Brûlot (coffee, orange liqueur, cinnamon stick, sugar, cloves, and
lemon peels) at Antoine's, one of the restaurants that kept serving
liquor in coffee cups during Prohibition. But the drinks I had the most
are the two most traditional cocktails from New Orleans. During the day,
my favorite is the Hurricane (white rum, dark rum, lemon juice, and
passion fruit). It was invented at Pat O'Brien's Bar, but the best one I
had was at the Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, which, as the name says, used
to be a blacksmith shop owned by the pirate Jean Lafitte in the 19th
century but today is a popular bar. At night, my preference goes to the
classic Sazerac (rye whiskey, Herbsaint, Peychaud's Bitters, and sugar).
I had that in several places, including the Sazerac House, which is a
museum, bar, and store, and the Pirate's Alley Café, where you can get
the old original recipe (cognac, absinthe, Peychaud's Bitters, and
sugar).
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