FOOD TRAVELS - NOLA

Hi Y'all as the Southern folks would say here in the sunny USA! This year I have had the privilege of seeing loads of new places and learning a lot of new stuff. My favourite stop so far has to be New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA). Why? The food of course! NOLA is a culturally diverse area with Spanish, French, Creole and Native Americans. This makes for an interesting mix of flavours and influences on the cuisine found here. Before I went on this trip (because I'm super organised and all I do all day is research about food on the internet) I looked out the top foods to eat in this area and made a list of the ones I had to try. This was back in January, so I waited a long time to sample my research!  

First Stop - Beignets at Café Du Monde

The best place to eat Beignets are at Café Du Monde. The first Café Du Monde stand was established in 1862 in the French quarter and has been going strong ever since. It is always filled with people and their menu only has a few items, the most famous being the Beignet!

The best way to picture a Beignet is as a square doughnut. Although very similar to a donut, in that it is fried, it has a very different texture. They have a slightly crunchy exterior and a chewy, fluffy interior. Beignets are not very sweet, like churros, but with the mountain of icing sugar they dump on top of the beignets this isn't a problem! What I like best about the beignets is that they do them fresh when you order them, they haven't been sitting for long. Beignets are so popular that the souvenir shops were selling packet mix beignets! 

Second Stop - Fried Chicken at Willie Mae's Scotch House

This has to be the best fried chicken I have eaten in my life so far (not that I have had much exposure to fried chicken besides KFC!). The batter was golden brown with a beautiful crunchy and a slightly spicy flavour. The chicken inside was melt in your mouth, incredibly succulent and moist. I think this comes from them soaking the chicken in buttermilk. 

Each order of chicken came with one side. We got mac and cheese, French fries, beans and cornbread muffins. The cornbread muffins were my favourite because they were warm and they had a beautiful sweet, buttery taste! 

Willie Mae's is quite far from the French quarter, but the bus ride and walk there is totally worth it! We actually got caught in a thunder storm and we were pretty soaked by the time we reached the restaurant. The good news was that there wasn't an hour long queue outside, I don't know if this was to do with the rain or because we arrived after the busy lunch hour.  

Third Stop - Poboys at Tracey's 

(The poboys were more appetising in real life than in the picture...the lighting was terrible!) Poboys have an interesting history. They originated in the Great Depression when workers complained that they didn't have enough money to feed themselves. So some restaurants started making roast beef sandwiches to feed these workers. The name poboy comes from the "poor boys" who ate these sandwhiches during the Great Depression. Everyone says these are a staple of NOLA and they are nice but they aren't spectacular. You can get these kind of sandwiches anywhere in the world. If you've ever had a beef and Guiness pie, that's what the roast beef stew tastes like. We got our poboys dressed, this means they came with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and mayonnaise.