Eating our way through New Orleans (part 2)

When we last left off, we covered all the work days and the meals from then.  But when we got to the weekend, the food got even better...

Saturday 2/25
The plan for this day was to allow everyone (chaperones included) to sleep in and then pick up something at a small farmer's market that was on the way to the World War II museum.  But the male chaperones decided that they absolutely MUST have a big breakfast and that they would be leaving the hotel at 8 am to go get the early bird breakfast at Daisy Dukes, a bit of a hole-in-the-wall type place around the corner from the hotel.  We (the other chaperones) were invited to join if we wanted, but the kids were not aware of this plan.  We ladies decided that we'd wait to see if we felt like going in the morning and set the alarm for 7:30.  This is important because the overly loud hotel phone rang at 7:07 that morning with the boys reminding us of breakfast plans.  Thanks boys.  We all decided to join them since we were now wide awake and away we went to go enjoy some real breakfast.

The early bird breakfast consists of 2 eggs, choice of meat (bacon, sausage, or ham), choice of hash browns or grits (ew), and choice of biscuits or toast, all for $3.99.  Not bad.  I got scrambled eggs with bacon, hash browns, and a biscuit.  It was all fine - not super exciting, but satisfying nonetheless.  I was disappointed that they didn't have hot chocolate or apple juice.  That just seems like normal breakfast beverage offerings, but I survived with water.  All 6 of us got the special, so it wasn't a particularly large bill...

We made it back to the hotel before any of the students emerged from their rooms - success!  At about 10 AM, the whole group made its way to the farmers market to poke around for awhile.  We bought (or shared) some baked goods from one guy - there was this delicious thing called an ooey gooey.  I couldn't tell you what was in it, only that it was really really good.  I split a chocolate oatmeal walnut cookie with another chaperone.  That was good.  While we were getting our baked goods, the kids came to tell us that some random guy was buying them candy.  Deciding that we should possibly investigate what was going on, Mario discovered that the man in question was actually the owner of the lot who found out from the kids why they were in NOLA.  He bought homemade pralines for the whole group, a very nice gesture.  He also bought tamales for Mario and Dave.  As we continued our wandering around the market, we came upon lots of fresh fruit.  I got some excellent strawberries to share with everyone.  And then we came to the pesto guy.  He had all these samples of pesto to try.  Holy crap, they were good.  Steph 1 and Rebecca picked up a couple different flavors (hello Habitat discount!!) and it was then on to the cheese guy.  He was selling homemade cheese.  After much deliberation (and taste testing), we settled on a goat cheese and a harder cow-goat cheese mix.  Lunch after the museum was going to be good. 

It was also at this point that my exhaustion began to take its toll.  For example, Steph 2 tied my shoe for me because I was about to tip over.  I pretty much brought up the rear of the group as we made our way to the museum.  It was also at this point that I discovered that my camera was missing.  This put me in an overly cranky mood since I thought it was stolen (I did discover it in the hotel room later that night.  Phew).  We went on the museum tour (it was fine), and then decided it was time for lunch.  At 3:00.  The pesto and cheese needed bread and meats, so we made the lengthy walk to the grocery store.  I was really dragging at this point and the whole group was way ahead of me on what felt like a power walk to the store. 

The store itself was a bit of a upscale grocery store - not quite Whole Foods, but excellent deli, cheese, pastry, bakery, etc. departments.  We got a selection of salamis and hams (after the deli lady gave us all samples), crusty breads, grapes, and olives.  I was under the impression we were going to take our picnic with us to eat somewhere else (the park perhaps?) but apparently we were eating it at the little dining area in the store.  I guess this was decided among everyone else as I was walking behind the group.

Perfect picnic lunch

I admit to not being super excited by the meal, but I was very pleasantly surprised.  Aside from the olives, which are not my thing, everything was fantastic.  We had both cilantro and arugula pestos - the cilantro was much better, in my opinion.  We downed nearly everything we bought in record time.  It was just the pick-me-up that I needed.  One funny story - I was passing pieces of cheese across the table when one chunk somehow fell into Dave's cup of coffee.  He didn't notice, but all the women at the table did and we burst into fits of hysterical laughter.  He eventually caught on.  Oops.

We went on a trolley ride after our late lunch.  We met some, um, very unique individuals who were riding with us, including one woman whose orange daquiri spilled everywhere.  In her VERY drunk state, she was quite concerned with cleaning it up by containing the spill with her shoe.  She was unsuccessful.  She and her husband eventually got off so they could purchase more drinks before continuing their ride.  Priorities people!  We took the trolley to the end of the line - the big city park.  That was an awesome and unexpected find.  It would have been the perfect place to have our picnic.  We took the trolley to the cemeteries (which were sadly closed already) and then back into the city to go to VooDoo BBQ for a later dinner.

Last year, Dave and I took a small group to VooDoo and had an excellent experience, so we decided to take everyone this year.  It didn't disappoint.  The pulled pork sandwich was excellent.  I just got a sandwich and drink and regret not getting the sides.  I tried the sweet potato souffle (sooooo good) and macaroni and cheese (mmm, cheesy!).  Mario ordered a couple sides of loaded fries for the chaperone table.  It was an amusing sight with all of us eating and watching the UConn basketball game on the television.  Fully fed and stuffed, we made our way back to the hotel.

Good barbeque and basketball

 No Cafe du Monde for us today, way too much walking...

Sunday 2/26
We returned to Daisy Dukes for breakfast, this time with everyone.  I had the same thing as the day before.  The only change today was that the hash browns weren't particularly warm.  Other than that, another filling breakfast.

After breakfast, we made our way down Bourbon Street.  You can't go to New Orleans and skip Bourbon Street, but with a school group, we took them down at 9:30 am on the way to church.  Hee.  Fortunately, they didn't seem to really notice the pictures of scantily clad women in compromising positions covering the windows of the local establishments.  We then went on a tour of the St. Louis Cathedral and sat through Mass (not really my thing, but I digress...).

After church, the kids were given an hour of free reign in a large flea/farmers market.  While they shopped, the chaperones had a sit down lunch at the Market Cafe.  We got a lot of food.  A few of us ordered jambalaya.  It was excellent.  The boys ordered muffaletta (a gigantic sandwich, as big as the plate it was served on) and big bowls of gumbo.  The muffaletta was so large that for once, they gave us some of their food.  Someone else had the crawfish etoufee and said that was quite good.  After that meal, we were stuffed.  That didn't stop us from peaking into the chocolate shop right next door.  Rebecca treated us to chocolate covered Ritz cracker and peanut butter sandwiches.  It was 2 inches of gooey peanut butter.  Heavenly!!

Muffuletta and gumbo!

We spent the afternoon driving around the 9th ward looking at the damage from the hurricane 6 years ago and visiting the site of a previous Habitat trip.  After that we changed up the traditional last night pizza plans.  Normally, the night before leaving we pick up Dominos pizza and eat at the hotel.  However, after seeing the sketchiest looking Dominos guy hanging around outside their store the day before, Mario decided there was no way in hell we'd be ordering any pizza from them.  The dude was creepy (and drunk, stoned, or both) at 9 am.  So we went to a local pizza place (Reginelli's) and had a large assortment of appetizers and specialty pizzas instead.  These were far superior to Dominos.

And since it was our last night, we needed one final trip to Cafe du Monde.  I could really use a beignet right about now...

Monday 2/27
Travel day home, so nothing special.  We brought our left over food to the airport (mini bagels, fruit, goldfish, granola bars) and had a little picnic in the boarding area. 

Airport picnic

 And that was that.  In all, no meal was a failure and new, delicious places were discovered for future visits.  In all, it was a great success and I look forward to returning!

Eating our way through New Orleans (part 1)

I got back from the RHHS Habitat for Humanity trip to New Orleans a few days ago and all I can think about is the food.  Almost every single thing we ate was delicious.  Let's take a look...

Tuesday 2/21
I hesitate to include the meals from our travel day because they were certainly the low point, but I decided everything must be included.  On this day, I had very bad luck at several fast food establishments.

Lunch was purchased from the Bradley Airport McDonalds.  You would think that Chicken McNuggets would not be a complicated order but you would be quite incorrect.  It took, no joke, 10 minutes for my nuggets.  And I paid something like $9 for that honor.  Southwest Airlines generously gave us one bag each of peanuts and some snack mix.  We all had to turn our peanuts over to Mario and Dave.  God forbid growing boys go hungry.  Dinner was Wendy's at a place near the airport since we arrived on the late side (and it was Mardi Gras, a whole 'nother problem to deal with).  All I ordered was a baked potato and drink.  After waiting in line for more than 20 minutes (only one person was working the register for the 19 of us) and then waiting for my potato for more than 5, I was informed that they only just put the potatoes in the oven and it would be at least 30 more minutes.  I was offered fries instead.  Great, I paid $4 for a small thing of fries.  I still want my baked potato.

Wednesday 2/22
We provided very low key breakfast and lunch to the kids on the work days, so breakfast was cereal, fruit, and mini bagels - nothing exciting but perfectly satisfactory.  Lunch was sandwiches (turkey or peanut butter and jelly) with chips and more fruits.  This doesn't sound exciting either, but after a long morning of constant work, those sandwiches really hit the spot.  We also went and got ice cream for the kids as a treat.

Dinner was fabulous, however.  Originally we had planned to go to the BBQ place but because it was Ash Wednesday and the place was closed, we needed to change our plans.  We ended up at Frankie & Johnny's, a place we went to last year.  The portions are huge and delicious.  All the other chaperones started with the 2 pound crawfish platter (ew), so I got some lovely pictures of them eating those.  Like last year, I ordered the fried chicken.  Last year, on a dare, I ate the enormous meal so I knew that I had to do the same this year.  Imagine my shock when the meal came and it was even more chicken than last year.  I really didn't think I'd be able to finish, especially after the breast piece I started on was kind of dry, but I persevered and the chicken got more moist as I moved to other pieces and I finished every last bite.  I was not able to eat all of the sweet potato fries, but that was more because I was one of the last to finish my meal and didn't want to keep everyone waiting.  I wasn't feeling nearly as full as I did last year.

crawfish

fried chicken!!

After dinner, we all headed over to Cafe du Monde for some hot chocolate and beignets.  Delicious!!!  There were 6 chaperones and 6 beignets but one chaperone was trying to be healthy (ha ha ha, that didn't last) so she just had a bite.  I finished hers, can't let it go to waste.  That was a perfect way to end our first full day in New Orleans.

Thursday 2/23
Breakfast and lunch were the same as yesterday, only this time we had real deli meat (the deli was closed when we arrived on Tuesday night, so we got that prepackaged stuff that wasn't as good).  We got popsicles for the kids again, as well.

worksite buffet lunch

Dinner was at Serio's, a place the NOLA group has been going every year.  It's across the street from the hotel and the owner opens up just for us for dinner (and doesn't charge us, how awesome is that?!).  The restaurant normally serves Po-boys, but we eat whatever he makes us.  Last year it was a pasta jambalaya.  This year it was rice and beans.  I'm not a huge rice and beans fan, but he also included some of the very best smoked sausage I've ever had.  It was absolutely delicious.  Fortunately, the kids weren't as crazy about the sausage and shared.  We are never ones to let food go to waste, so someone else got my rice and beans and I got some another serving of the sausage.  (No matter how I write that, it sounds dirty...)

Of course, we had to go back to Cafe du Monde again.  Who am I to complain?  It was Dave's birthday, so after we noticed the waitstaff singing to another table, our whole group broke out in song for Dave.  Another table then started to singing to one of their group.  It was entertaining.

Friday, 2/24
The last work day had the same breakfast and lunch (and popsicles).  It was a lot colder this day so we didn't eat all of them.

Dinner was at the Trolley Stop Cafe.  We walked in and were the only people in the place.  We've been previous years and it's the kind of place that serves 24 hour breakfest, so of course that's what we had to get.  Everyone else in the group actually started with a cup of gumbo.  They were all gushing over how good it was when a student who also ordered it discovered it had pork in it and thus he couldn't eat it (religious reasons).  I was happy to have it for him.  Wow, it was fantastic.  I wish the cup had been a bowl.  Really flavorful.  For dinner, I got the French Special - french toast, eggs, and bacon.  It was excellent. 

It should be no shock we returned to Cafe du Monde for the third night in a row...  After we returned to the hotel (for game night!), we gave Dave a belated birthday cake.  Yummy!

beignets at Cafe du Monde

I'll do another post in the next few days with the remaining meals from our trip...

delicious food, the vacation edition, featuring remy

so, a week or so ago, we went on vacation. we visited disney world for a few days, and we went on a cruise on the disney dream. aside from certain issues with a certain 3 year old, the trip was lovely. it was my birthday, so i demanded a lot of yummy food, as is my habit. we ate all sorts of tasty stuff:

beaches & cream:




dole whips:


surprisingly good (and huge) waffle sandwiches in the magic kingdom:


a fabulous birthday dinner at le cellier (cheddar cheese soup! pretzel bread! really awesome steak! some kind of dessert i can't remember, but whatever it was, it had a salted caramel sauce i wanted a bowl of! and a chocolate moose for sophie!):




'ohana:


and some snacks we picked up for the plane:


we also ate a giant heap of delicious things on the cruise ship, most of which i failed to photograph. but the real culinary highlight of the trip was the dinner that steve & i went to at remy, the ultra-fancy restaurant on the disney dream. this is the sort of restaurant that has one seating per night, and you take three hours to eat the meal. special thanks to grandpa ben & grandma, who took care of sophie for the evening, so we could enjoy our three hour meal (a three hour meal...)! remy is named after the rat-who-is-a-chef in the pixar movie, ratatouille. i know, questionable to name a restaurant after a rat, but...for a company whose mascot is a mouse, why not? there are some (mostly) subtle nods to the restaurant's namesake throughout the restaurant - consider them a variation on the hidden mickey...




when you arrive, assuming you are more or less on time, they know who you are, because they only seat one table every 10 minutes or so. you are escorted through the fancy wine area (they make a point of showing you some of the wines mentioned in the movie, valued at $25,000 or so each - needless to say, we didn't order those. of course, i took a picture of the light fixture, not the wine), to your table, where you meet your serving team for the evening. our waiter was yvan, and it was his first night as a main waiter - but he did just fine. we also met the various other folks who would be helping us for the evening. one guy did bread & water, one guy helped serve, there was the head waiter for the whole restaurant, etc. it is a very small restaurant, and with the staggered seatings, it was very quiet. we had the 2nd seating of the night, so it was virtually empty when we arrived.


you are greeted by some lovely show plates (that, astonishingly, were not immediately removed), and a complimentary champagne cocktail, the colette, named for the female chef in ratatouille. it consisted of champagne, pear vodka, and some fresh berries & bits of dried apricot, i think - it was quite tasty...



right off the bat, you are brought an amuse bouche course, consisted of a little grape-sized breaded & fried item. you are instructed to put the whole thing in your mouth at once, and when you do, it is immediately obvious why. it is basically a fried ball of tomato soup. i don't know how you fry soup, but they do. it was quite yummy - i don't have a picture of it, because, well, i ate it too fast, but imagine a little fried ball looking thing, and there you go.

i think that's when we got the menu, as well. the menu was created by two chefs, scott hunnell (the head chef at victoria & albert's, where we went a couple years ago), and some 2 michelin star french chef. there are basically two preset menus, the "gout" and "saveur" menus (i am sure there are weird french accents in there, but i don't feel like finding them on my keyboard today), or you can mix & match among those courses & some alternate courses. i went with the saveur & steve went with the gout, but we traded courses - he didn't want jamon wrapped shrimp, so he swapped in my asperge verte, and i got the shrimp. we could have had repeat courses, but i hate repeating, plus jamon wrapped shrimp sounded divine to me ;)

about then, the bread started coming, as well - there were three types we could select from, and we were given a plate of (really good) butter & a little crock of sea salt, as well. yummy. my favorite was the truffled brioche bread, which was divine. the other two options were multigrain (shown, with bonus hidden remy!) & little mini sourdough baguettes. they were also quite yummy. bread showed up throughout the meal, between each of the courses. at this point, we were served another amuse bouche course - it was, i believe, watercress soup, with a crunchy crouton & some kind of herbed cream cheese stuff. it was served in a martini glass, with the soup on the bottom, then the round crouton up a bit with the cream on top of it. it tasted green, that's the best way i can describe it. not my favorite course of the night, but not bad :)

now the food started in earnest - steve started with the aforementioned asperge verte - there were a 3 fat little asparagus stems (asparagi?)), on a truffle sauce, with an additional creamy sauce on top. in a bowl on the side, he was served a poached egg, with shaved asparagus & more of the truffle sauce. i'm not sure if the egg was standard, or just something they added for him to make it more equivalent to the shrimp course, but either way, it was quite tasty.

i started with the langoustines royale, which was lobster served two ways. i have no idea what those ways were, only that they were quite tasty. underneath the lobster was a rectangle of what tasted just like thick lobster bisque to me, and the off white blob on the side, also seemed to be the same thing. hilariously, they called the single itty bitty piece of romaine in the middle "salad" - must be a french thing ;)

for the second course, steve had the ratatouille - of course they serve ratatouille at a remy restaurant. it wasn't quite like the ratatouille in the movie, but it was SO GOOD. it was three round tubes of pasta that contained a fine dice of all the traditional ratatouille ingredients - tomato, pepper, i think eggplant, probably something else i am forgetting. then it was topped with, of all things, cuttlefish. not a traditional ratatouille ingredient, but apparently it worked. it also had some drizzles of aged balsamic, which are always a nice addition. sorry the picture isn't great, but i was avoiding the flash...

i had the jamon wrapped shrimp for this course. it was both beautiful and delicious. the shrimp was wrapped in spanish iberico ham, then cooked up, and served with a fine dice of melon & a crazy delicious melon sauce. i know it sounds odd, but it was an excellent balance of salty & sweet, with just a bit of acid to help balance things out, too. it was an excellent substitution, i thought - the asparagus was great, but this was even better, at least for me.

somewhere in here, we also each ordered a glass of champagne, having finished our lovely complimentary cocktail. the disney dream has her own special labling of taittinger champagne, which i actually quite liked - even more than the iron horse fairy tale cuvee that we usually get. they used it in the cocktail, and we both liked it, so that's what we opted for here.

next, steve had the duck breast, which was actually duck served three ways - a piece of breast, a sausage, and some duck confit. he really, really liked the confit. the other parts were good too, but the confit was the best. it had some kind of strawberry-rhubarb sauce & some freeze-dried strawberries with it.

i had atlantic sea bass with thai sweet & sour sauce. it was fine. it was my most unremarkable course - it was fine, but nothing too exciting. the sauce was quite tasty, but honestly, i don't remember anything else about it.

now, for main courses. steve's was amazing - he had some amazing steak: australian wagyu tenderloin. it was really, really, really good beef. it also had some nice seasonal vegetables on the side, and some kind of sauce - but the most amazing part of this course was the pureed potatoes (aka, super creamy, buttery mashed potatoes) topped with braised short rib - holy cow, this was delicious. the potatoes were awesome on their own, but add short ribs, and you get something amazing. i am drooling thinking about those potatoes...

i had the poularde rotie, which is chicken, and doesn't sound terribly exciting, but it was possibly the best piece of chicken i have ever had in my entire life. steve's steak was delicious, but i have had lots of good steak in my life. this chicken was *amazing* - it was super juicy & flavorful, but it had phenomenal crispy skin on top. it had sauce albufera. i have no idea what that is. it was tasty, though, whatever it was. i also recall some foam. and some veggies on a separate plate on the side, with more of the sauce. they were fine. but that chicken, oh boy. i never thought i'd be this effusive about a piece of chicken, but i would *love* to know how it was made. again, sorry about the crappy picture...it was really dark in there...

then came the highlight of the meal for me. not so much for steve, though, but it was something i had been looking forward to since i spotted it on the way into the restaurant: the cheese course! they had a cart with, um, 10 different kinds of fancy cheese, and you could have as many or as few as you wanted. needless to say, i wanted all ten. i think i may have given the impression that steve would be eating some too, which, perhaps, wasn't entirely the case - but oh man, did i eat a lot of good cheese. hard cheese, soft cheese, stinky cheese, mild cheese. steve had some little nibbles of some of the milder ones, and i gorged myself on the rest. seriously, i could have just eaten cheese that evening, and still been full. so, so, good. i only remember a few of the specific cheeses - there was a comte, fourme d'ambert (a really good blue cheese), saint marcellin (my favorite, a cheese so runny it was served from a bowl - it's the gooey one in the center of the plate), a mild goat's milk cheese that was the only one steve would eat...mmm...again, my stomach is rumbling just thinking about it.



after that, i was really, really, full, but we were not done yet - it was time for dessert! my menu came with a vacherin framboise, which was a layered concoction of meringue, vanilla ice cream & raspberry sorbet, with raspberry sauce & fresh raspberries. it also came with extra sorbet on the side with sauce & little meringue kisses, for sharing (or not, depending on how generous you were feeling). steve's menu came with the tanzanie chocolate pyramid with white chocolate gelato - this may be familiar, as it is very, very similar to the dessert i had at victoria & albert's (and conceived by the same pastry chef) - it was super chocolate mousse in an inverted cone shape, with some gold leaf on the tip & some loopy chocolate surround thingies, and with fresh berries, and white chocolate gelato in a chocolate cup on the side. if you know me and/or steve, you know that these desserts are backwards, so, for all intents & purposes, we traded - i gave him the main serving of mine, and he gave me the chocolate pyramid part of his. he kept the little chocolate cup with the white chocolate gelato, and i kept the extra serving of raspberry gelato from mine. they were delicious. so, so, so delicious.


You would think we were done now, but no...it was time for tea, coffee & mingiardises - that's right, more surprise food. it's like the amuse bouches of dessert. steve had decaf, i had jasmine tea, and we both had a pile of sweets. literally, a pile: they brought out two serving pieces, upon which were served: two lollipops (we brought those back for sophie), two shortbread cookies with lemon curd, two strawberry marshmallows (these were steve's favorite - the strawberry flavor was very pronounced, in a good way), two chocolate bars (one dark, one milk), two canelles, two salted caramels (there were my favorite - clearly, i have a weakness for salted caramel), two nougats (that almost pulled out one of my fillings), and two pastry cookie things. after a proper dessert. i almost exploded. also, drinking three cups of tea was, perhaps, a mistake.



as we finished, we were presented with the bill (which they gave to steve, even though they had my room card, sigh), along with a fancy pen in a wooden box. and they also brought me a rose. of course, when we got back to our room, sophie immediately took possession, but it was nice while it lasted :) also, when we got back, there was a nice thank you note & a box of chocolates from remy waiting for us. as if they didn't feed us enough already...

to sum up, the meal was phenomenal. i felt well fed & well pampered. steve says: everything should be topped with short rib. so i guess he liked it, too. all in all, yum. i'd definitely do it again, in a couple years. and i think some of that cheese is still in my stomach.