Drinking in New Orleans

I did a very odd thing this year for New Year’s Eve. I traveled. I have never gone anywhere for New Year’s, but this year, my better half and I went with friends to New Orleans. Besieged with college kids for the Sugar Bowl, New Orleans put on the mask of a college town, decorated with the plumage of Key West and the glitter of New York.

The French Quarter is a lovely, crass, elegant, over-indulgent, culturally refined and mysterious old lady.  In short, everything I want to be when I grow up. I walked her streets for four days, and each time I would make a turn, some wonderful new surprise lurking around the corner up and kissed me square on the mouth when I wasn’t expecting it.  In tribute to this majestic old Voodoo Priestess, I wanted to mention a couple of my favorite moments in the Vieux Carré.

Deanie’s was the first thing I got a good whiff of when I stepped out of the cab in New Orleans at the Chateau Bourbon.  I believe my exact words were, “Smell that?  Food.  Cooked in BUTTER!”  (What?  It wasn’t New Year’s Day yet.  I still had a few left before the resolutions would start.)  After a long afternoon of travel, the atmosphere was a bit noisy, but the cooks have the crawfish by the tail in that joint.  Yum.

Frank over at Evelyn’s Place demanded we view the 6-item menu on the chalk board above our heads and decide what to eat on the spot. Upon reaching a decision, he told us to park our “butts right there,” as he pointed to a table next to the juke box.  Frank’s sense of humor and irreverent temperament is enough of a reason to go, but the gumbo and freshly baked bread is enough of a reason to go back.  If you’re lucky, you’ll even get his permission to dip your bread into the gumbo.

Orleans Grapevine is amazing.  After three days of eating fried everything and indulging in some extremely questionable mixed drinks, stumbling upon Orleans Grapevine reminded me why I am glad to be a foodie.  And, that I was, in fact, in a foodie town.  If I was a songwriter, I’d write love songs to the crab cakes.  If I was a poet, I would describe the baked brie with roasted garlic cream in rhyming verse.  Upon leaving, a fellow patron admitted to us that he had just eaten the Prime Black Angus medallions and nearly cried.  Yeah, it’s that good, people.  Not to discount the wine, which our party of four drank 2 (or was it 3?) bottles of the house red.  The Orleans Grapevine is the restaurant that you close down after a night of luxurious red wines, magnificent conversation and astonishingly good food and wake up the next morning thinking it was all a dream.

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Tags: Glazer's, Julie Tijerina, New Orleans, Wine Tourism