While there will be eight days of posts for our New Orleans trip, day six really was our penultimate day here as we were due to depart New Orleans over the noon hour on our last day. Time just seems to slip away too quickly when on vacation, having a glorious time, but that didn’t stop us from fitting in as much as we could for our final two days!
Our morning began, naturally enough, with brunch, this time at a little place just down the street from our AirBnB in the Mid City neighborhood, the restaurant with a pun, Up and Adam. The short walk to the restaurant felt a little bit chilly as temperatures took a dive overnight, and we actually had to turn the heat on in the shotgun we were staying at (low 60s in October in New Oreans feel cold when you’ve been enjoying temperatures in the 80s, whereas low 60s in October in Minneapolis would feel positively tropical).
Up and Adam is a quaint little place with minimal fuss (“Save Your Tears” by The Weekend playing in the background), and it completes a trio of places—along with Katie’s and Vessel—in the Mid City neighborhood all within walking distance of each other where you can enjoy some pretty amazing Southern Creole fare. That said, at Up and Adam, it seemed they were still figuring out a cadence to their wait staff’s workload, and I couldn’t decide if it was because they were still figuring out how to run a restaurant (they just opened in July 2021) or if they were short staffed the day we arrived. Apologetically, the host who seated us acknowledged the delay in getting a waiter to us as she admitted to seating us too soon, and then—to fix the error—they asked the bartender to wait on us instead so we didn’t have to wait any longer. It was an all-too-rare honest admission to a faulty process that made me adore this place for its sincerity and delicate care for its diners. Own up to your mistakes, apologize for them, do what you can to make things right, and then carry on. It’s really very simple.
As with Katie’s, Up and Adam also had mimosa service by the bottle, but we could choose from a variety of juices (our server was particularly excited as she listed off the possibilities), and we elected to have orange and pineapple for this brunch stand-by. For our mains, Amy had a crawfish omelet, Aaron fried catfish and grits, and a chicken biscuit for me. Everything, as you might expect, was exceptionally tasty and satisfyingly filling, my only complaint that I should’ve gotten the full chicken and waffles as the chicken biscuit was just that: fried chicken on a biscuit and nothing else. It just was a little boring. These small quibbles to trivialities aside, Up and Adam was a real delight and I highly recommend a visit.
We soon had to make our way via streetcar towards the French Quarter to Sazarac House, a whiskey tasting experience and museum that just opened in 2019 in a renovated, stately, historic building at the corner of Canal and Magazine, five stories tall and standing majestically, each floor adorned with great, elegant, split pane windows. I recommend buying your tickets ahead of time to save time standing in line when you arrive and to also ensure that they’ll fit you in for a tasting at a time that works for you. We partook in their Whiskey Grid Tasting experience, which seems to only happen on Tuesdays at 1:00.
After we checked in and having a few minutes to spare, it was quite lovely to admire the centerpiece of the wide open space of the main entrance: a soaring collection of shelves stretching three stories tall, all the shelves containing bottles of whiskey, back-lit in classic white and organized like rows of soldiers. And standing before this astonishing sight stood an impressive, open staircase with wrought iron railings, bringing guests all the way to the third floor.
Soon, we were off to start our whiskey tasting, an elevator taking us to—I believe—the fifth floor, where we were led into a tasting room. Doors closing behind us, we all sat at tables (or, in my case, right at the bar) dressed with four simple yet elegant glasses resting upon a wooden tray, each glass filled enticingly with a different variety of whiskey, each shining golden in the warm lights. The facilitator of our tasting—whimsically named Cookie, a self-professed Star Wars fan, his arms stained with dark, bold tattoos that complemented his equally dark five o’clock shadow, a voice like James Cromwell resonating deeply—guided us through each of the whiskeys, referring us to an informative tasting wheel printed on cardstock to help us describe the sensations: clove and black pepper, wheat and corn, oak and pine, prunes and blackberries, vanilla and toffee, and so many other descriptors. Whenever I attend tastings, I must admit, I always find myself rolling my eyes a bit, especially when there are people about remarking in a fake fancy accent as they taste, “Mmmm, yes, I’m getting raspberry and cinnamon at the front, butter and caramel throughout, and at the end lemon and orange,” as if they’re issuing lawful pronouncements about something deeply important, so it was refreshing when Cookie declared, impassively, “You taste what you taste. There are no wrong answers.”
One of our number in the tasting, a hopelessly irritating mansplainer by the name of Ryan, might’ve disagreed with Cookie, as his frequently loud interruptions that included pompous declarations prefaced with, “When I do tastings…” and “This master blender I met once…” revealed a man insecure in his beliefs, masked by a facade of confidence with an assurance as powerful and intimidating as a paper tiger.
Ignoring Ryan as much as we could, we made our way through each of the four whiskeys, taking turns describing what we were tasting: the Sazarak rye was spicy; the Buffalo Trace sweet and buttery; the E.H. Taylor quite woody; and the Eagle Rare delicate and spicy, a whiskey fit for a finest Christmastime hot toddy. At the end of it all, we got to have one last extra pour of our favorite whiskey (a “lagniappe,” Cookie called the extra bonus, a word he didn’t know how to spell when I asked him), and I elected to enjoy another Eagle Rare before we were off on our way to enjoy the museum.
The museum was state-of-the-art and quite expertly curated, complete with glass cases containing artifacts of bottles and serving glasses counterpointed with informative placards, drawers filled with various grains to allow us to catch whiffs of whiskey’s progenitors, and interactive screens to witness bartenders making various drinks like the sazerac itself. As I’ve remarked countless times throughout all my meandering writings about my travels, my attention span for museums is about 38 minutes or so, and so I found myself rushing to each of the three stations in the museum where we got to enjoy a tiny sampling of a cocktail: a classic sazerac (slightly sweet with black licorice remaining at bay as to not overpower the whiskey), a guillotine joe no. 2 (an autumnal concoction with flavors of pumpkin spice and orange), and a maple leaf (a syrupy sweetness tempered with a zesty lemon). It was all quite lovely and gave us all ideas of what to serve as a signature cocktail at a party.
My attention span for museums exhausted (but my eyes, nose, and mouth salivating with anticipation for more tasty sins), we next made our way to Cafe Beignet on Royal Street to correct an error from our third day in New Orleans when we inexplicably choked down beignets from Cafe du Monde if only to say we’ve been to Cafe du Monde (we very nearly didn’t survive, so enter at your own risk). Cafe Beignet, unlike its baffling competitor, knows how to make beignets superbly perfect: piping hot rectangular pastries, wide and fluffy, deep fried to a mesmerizingly golden brown, lavishly dusted in snow banks of powdered sugar. A triumph of the senses! A celebration in pastry! A positive delight for the mind and soul! Do skip Cafe du Monde, if you wouldn’t mind, and go only to Cafe Beignet, especially the one on Royal Street. You won’t be disappointed.
Our next stop brought us to Patrick’s Bar Vin, a delightful wine bar tucked away on Bienville Street, a wonderfully stylish place with leather arm chairs, exquisite floor rugs, a palette of wall colors in browns and burgundies, a place you might imagine boringly crusty and importantly dull old men from 1912 puffing on cigars, sipping whiskey, discussing the stock market and complaining about loud women. While we didn’t exactly have cigars nor gross, thick mustaches, we did enjoy sitting in the leather arm chairs enjoying a French 75 with cognac, that classic champagne cocktail normally dressed with gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup. It’s a sweeter drink and preferable for those of us who may not enjoy the more booze-forward sazerac.
Soon it was time to make our way to dinner for the evening, and it involved a leisurely 25 minute walk down Tchoupitoulas Street (it’s pronounced CHOP-i-TOO-las). Walking through this part of town reminded me somewhat of walking through parts of Saint Paul but with traffic patterns more like those found in Minneapolis: brick buildings with flat facades, young to slightly mature trees lining sidewalks, and open parking lots fenced in with chain links, all accompanied by sudden rushes of loud traffic. We eventually arrived at Cochon, a restaurant Amy and I remembered vividly from our last trip here in 2015 and which we both simply had to visit again so Aaron could also experience its wonder. Indeed, I had written previously that Cochon would “transport you to a world of decadent Southern cuisine, mouths watering and voices mmmmmmm-ing and eyes closing in deep imagination.” What could possibly be better but to revisit such an experience!
Sadly, somehow Cochon did not impress in the way I remembered nor in a way my writings from 2015 suggested it should. We started with an order of wood fired oysters in chili garlic butter, and this was the final nail in the coffin to confirm—without a doubt—that the only way to eat oysters in New Orleans is at Katie’s: chargrilled and drenched in butter, black pepper, and garlic. The oysters at Cochon, meanwhile, were lifeless and lacking any semblance of excited Southern flare, as boring as a drip, dopey and lethargic. For our mains we all decided to order the same thing, for some reason: something called Louisiana cochon with jalapeno cheddar grits, braised collard greens, and pork jus. And, apparently, this was something we ordered, apparently. And ate. But I have no memory of it. Honestly, I don’t. I don’t know what to say except that that’s what my notes said we ordered. I’m so sorry I can’t be more helpful.
I could also write about how we ordered a chocolate chess pie and had a drink called nouveau, but the very thought of re-tracing my memory of any of this sounds so utterly boring I’m going to stop myself now before I die a slow, painful death due to my imagination suddenly lacking any ability to navigate through a sea of apathy and indifference. So let’s just carry on with something else more exciting, shall we?
We wanted to start making our way towards what would end up being our final stop for the night, the Maple Leaf Bar, but not before visiting a few places on the way. Our first diversion was to an amazing little dive called Ms Maes, which was accessible from Cochon via a short streetcar ride on the number 12 route accompanied by some more leisurely walking. Ms Maes was a lovely little treat for those of us who enjoy bars dimly lit with strings of Christmas lights, ratty old tiled ceilings that slowly are disappearing to time as they fall to pieces, paint peeling away to dry, lifeless chips of nothing, a bar stocked with third rate booze all arranged haphazardly in front of a giant mirror behind the bar, Halloween decorations strewn about with human skeletons sitting upright upon a high, wooden ledge, their legs crossed humorously. Ms Maes was the perfect place to enjoy gin and tonic drinks served with minimal fuss in plastic cups, and I would have it no other way!
Our next stop brought us ever closer to Maple Leaf, a chic, modern place called Cure, where we enjoyed seats at the bar to marvel at an impressive collection of bottles of booze arranged carefully upon long shelves extending five levels high, all the way to the ceiling while “Italove” played its incessantly repetitive electronica against the invitingly undramatic and calming vocals of singer Emmanuelle Seigner. While the atmosphere was quite memorable, I honestly don’t remember what we had to drink, but apparently we did order a plate of olives and cheese that was distractingly served with box standard saltine crackers, for some reason, taking us out of the slightly more upscale ambiance of the place.
A short Lyft ride later—our driver remarking about how much fun we’ll have at the Maple Leaf Bar, he himself telling us about all the great jazz he’s listened to there—we found ourselves at our final destination for the evening. Until I had walked through those doors, I honestly had no memory of what the place looked like from when Amy and I were there in 2015, but it all came flooding back in an instant. There was a full bar on one side of the establishment, and the other side featured a long, long hallway of a performance space: a slightly raised stage on one end; red, tin walls ornamenting an otherwise unassumingly dank place; uncomfortable church pews for seats standing starkly parallel to the walls; blue and purple lights aglow throughout.
Last time we were here, there was no live music, so make sure to plan ahead and check the bar’s performance schedule. I also recommend buying your tickets ahead of time to save time standing in line when you arrive. The music we got to enjoy this time around was incredible brass band music performed by the To Be Continued Brass Band, who also, incidentally, performed with us during the second line parade on Sunday, so it was absolutely lovely to listen to them again.
Indeed, I felt transported back to Sunday, recalling how much we enjoyed marching in the second line parade as we listened to the band play, except this time they were inside, arranged stationary on a stage, a row of trombones and trumpets blaring beautifully and loudly directly into microphones, amplifying an already loud sound into something altogether more ear-splittingly deafening, excited drums carrying the beat forward, a microphoned sousaphone in the back blasting the foundational bass, the brass players taking moments to sing, impassioned, “Glory, glory, hallelujah!” What a sound! What an ensemble! What a celebration of music and dance! What an experience to live! It was such a joy to experience the Maple Leaf Bar one more time and not for the last time, but this time with live music. I highly recommend you plan your visit accordingly so that you arrive when there’s a performance, as the evening will be memorably implanted in your mind’s eye, a moment never to forget.
And somehow, our day came to a close… just like that in an instant. But one more full day awaited us, and one more incredible musical experience was still to be had…
Stray observations:
- While at Cochon, I had also written down that we ordered a side of sea island peas and pancetta, and we were surprised when the peas came out looking more like a plate of lentils in a thick brown sauce. We quickly googled this variety of pea to discover that they are very different from the standard green variety.
- While at Ms Maes, there was a rather stumblingly drunk young man who had quite taken to me, calling me cute and asking me if I had a boyfriend. I merely let him dream up anything he wanted to about me, disallowing any likelihood of those dreams to become a realty. But what a sweetie he was if not a lost, wayward youth!
- At the Maple Leaf Bar, it was still possible to buy cigarettes. From a vending machine. Yes, cigarettes. From… a vending… machine. If that doesn’t tell you anything about New Orleans then I don’t know what will.
- Also while at Maple Leaf, I asked for a modest pour of Bulleit whiskey, sarcastically pronouncing it “bool-YAY,” as one does (or at least I do), to which the bartender exclaimed with a subtle New Orleans lilt, “Pretty sure they call it bullet in Kentucky!”