WORDS Brent Rosen
All places in bold below are recommended. If you want to know more, Google.
About four years ago, on a trip to New Orleans, I visited my friend Alec Adamick’s house in Mid-City. The cab dropped me in front, just off North Broad Street, and I could see Alec had encased all of his 6 foot plus, 200 pound frame into a thin hammock suspended from two eyebolts, one drilled into his house and the other into one of the stocky columns supporting the wide front porch. Kermit Ruffins poured from a small alarm clock radio, just barely audible over the hammering and sawing coming from the house next door still under renovation after Katrina. Alec rolled over as I came up the steps, spilling a little bit of his beer in the process, and careful not to dislodge himself from the hammock, raised his hand and said, “welcome back to the Caribbean.” While I’d never thought of it before, he was right: New Orleans is not America’s most European city, and any self-respecting European would quickly back-track from the comparison. Instead, think of New Orleans as the Northernmost outpost of the Caribbean. When you think about the city that way, the place makes a lot more sense.
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If you asked me where to go for Po’ Boys in New Orleans, I couldn’t, in good conscience, recommend just one place. Instead, I’d need to know what kind of Po’ Boy you wanted. You want fried shrimp? Go to Domilese’s. For roast beef, you can’t do better than Parasol’s. Catfish? I’ve never had better than the catfish Po’ Boy at Parkway Tavern and Bakery; I like mine with lettuce, a bit of ketchup, mayo, creole mustard, and Crystal hot sauce. Putting Tobasco on a Po’ Boy should cost you a night in Orleans Parish Lockup. I hope you aren’t craving an oyster Po’ Boy, because they aren’t widely available anymore (thanks BP).
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Do you like Jazz? Rap? Funk? Soul? Are you good at dancing? Bad at dancing? Enjoy dancing with strangers? If you answered yes to any of these questions, put the Soul Rebels Brass Band on your itinerary. My first experience came in 2002, at their Thursday dance party at Le Bon Temps Roule. A friend handed me a Miller High Life -- $1 dollar on Thursday -- and we went to the back room stage/dance floor. The Soul Rebels play good high school marching band music, with drummers, saxophones, trumpets, tubas and trombones, except when you enclose a marching band in 400 square feet, the beat of the music replaces your pulse. They will go from an improvisational jam to a cover of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” to an original composition without pause, one song segues into the next. The Soul Rebels use their horns in place of vocals, harmonizing and rearranging the music, creating new compositions out of old songs and melodies. It doesn’t matter where they are playing, just find them.
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In 2006, Alan Richman, a food critic and likely asshole, wrote an article for GQ insulting New Orleans restaurants, wondering if they were worth saving after Katrina. The only interesting thing about that article was the recognition that the city of New Orleans, and New Orleans alone, has inspired a genre of food. You don’t go to New York to eat “New York” food, nor would you travel to Los Angeles to eat “LA” food. New Orleans, however, is probably best known for its “New Orleans” food, dishes like shrimp remoulade, trout meuniere, and crawfish etouffee, to be eaten in French Quarter restaurants like Galatoire’s, Arnaud’s, and Antoine’s. These places are tourist stand-by’s, but for a reason. You aren’t going for the food as much as the feel; tuxedoed staff, elegant dining rooms, all of the formality of a fine men’s club. But the elegance is pleasantly undercut, by the sassy staff who talk back, by the tired condition of the dining rooms upon closer inspection, by the copious number of martinis you’ve consumed. Conversations in these restaurants tend to rise louder and louder the longer a meal lasts. I love Galatoire’s during the day, but do it right. Take your time. Drink a lot. Wear a tie. It’s not lunch, it’s an experience.
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Magazine Street miraculously provides something for everyone. The street has excellent cheap bars: Miss Mae’s for cheap well drinks, Balcony Bar for cheap Rolling Rock, and The Bulldog for a variety of inexpensive pitchers of craft beer. For shopping, Hemline, Billy Reid, and awesome screen printed everything from Storyville, Dirty Coast, and Defend NOLA. Magazine has two “new school” Po’ Boy shops, Mahoney’s and Traceys, along with a classic oyster dive in Casamento’s. Try out Juan’s Flying Burrito if you’re interested in a punk rock Tex-Mex burrito bar, or Monkey Hill or St. Joe’s if you’ve seen enough hustle and bustle and just want a master-crafted cocktail. If you’ve brought your dog along (and who hasn’t?), Bridge Lounge will let your dog run around off the leash throughout the bar. The street is six miles long, so don’t try and walk it all. Pick a stretch, shop around, stop for a snack and a drink, then repeat.
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Another conversation about New Orleans restaurants currently simmering is whether newer restaurants that don’t have a “New Orleans” menu or feel are undermining New Orleans’ culture. This conversation, like any other that laments the forward march of progress, misses the point. Many of New Orleans’ newer restaurants are uniformly excellent. Domenica serves the best pizzas and pastas I’ve had in the South; Sylvain’s menu offers everything from braised beef cheeks to the “Chic-Sylvain,” a high-end take on the fast food chicken sandwich; a revamped Le Petit Grocery serves classics with flair; and there is nothing monosyllabic about the food at Pesche, Borgne, or Root. Rather than concerning yourself with whether these restaurants fit into the milieu of “New Orleans,” know that they are not only some of the best in New Orleans, but some of the best in America.
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My senior year in college, we made a commitment: visit the French Quarter once a week. Tulanians get jaded about the French Quarter quickly, failing to look past the bright lights, loud noises, and fanny packs, preferring instead the dark, cheap, and underage friendly spots closer to campus. But when the end is near, you start to see the Quarter with fresh eyes. You visit places like Chart House and realize there are smoky, cash-only dive bars that sell Schlitz. even in the Quarter. We learned about Coop’s a restaurant with the finest rabbit gumbo and excellent fried chicken, but where you can also play pool while you wait for a table. For more sophisticated moods, the W Hotel in the French Quarter (not the one on Canal) offers the best outdoor, courtyard drinking around. You can’t beat the burgers at Yo Mama’s or Port of Call, and if you like a late night bump-and-grind party, then Goldmine will be rocking until they run out of ingredients for flaming Dr. Pepper’s. If you’re the type that likes to wander aimlessly without destination or goal, then start at the Canal end of Royal Street, have a drink at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone to prepare for your journey, and then walk all the way down to Esplanade. Return via Chartres Street. There are antique shops, jewelry stores, book stores, boutiques, and other purveyors of miscellanea for days. Enjoy your journey.
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New Orleans, New Orleans, you shabby bastard of a city. At the end of every trip I end up fleeing from you like a crime scene -- bloodshot eyes, splitting headache, crippling heartburn, and a nagging sense that I might not ever be the same. I’ve formed more memories in your neighborhoods than in any other place, remarkable considering how many memories never quite made it out of your morass of smoke and sin. While I’m not a “local” anymore, a large part of me will always think of you as home. I’d ask you to please show the people of Alabama a good time when they come for the Sugar Bowl next month, but I already know you have no intention of doing anything but.
I asked some friends in New Orleans to send recommendations for places to go, or a particular story about a place that was worth telling strangers. I received this from my friend Andrew Ryba, and I am extremely pleased:
“The Kingpin is an excellent bar. The prices are decent, the jukebox diverse, the volume correct, the lighting just enough to make everyone look decent. The walls are mostly a tribute to hubcaps.
Several years ago, the ladies’ room at the back of the bar used to be a men’s room -- or at least bordered on unisex. A painting of Satan hung on the inside of the door. It was tremendous. Bright red Satan holding up his tail, taking a shit, smoking a cigarette, a small teardrop rolling down his cheek. Bloodied toilet paper littered around him, a look of sorrow on his face.
Last Mardi Gras, I was talking (ranting) to some strangers about the painting, mainly about how I missed it. At that moment someone walked by and said ‘I remember that painting,’ she then continued, ‘I remember that painting and I know where it is.’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘Come with me.’ My new soul mate walked behind the bar, got a key, then headed to a back store room. She emerged seconds later, and had the devil in her dress. ‘Show me to your car.’ We walked out the front door of the bar and to my car. She put the painting in my trunk. All I could offer her were Mardi Gras beads. She declined. ‘The thing about this painting,’ she sang, ‘is that someone tried to cover up the heroin needle that sits at his feet. But if you look close you can still see it.’
Also, Kingpin has shuffleboard and you can smoke cigarettes inside.”
