There are very few places in the world that captivatingly and resoundingly entrance me, enrapturing my mind and body in an eclectic celebration of the senses, enveloping my whole enjoyment of life in feasts of music and art and performances of food and drink, all while surrounded by a gorgeously colorful city and a warmly amicable people who are all just so terribly friendly to each other, in charming flavors and subtle nuances that exist only here in the South, in New Orleans, to be precise.
I first visited New Orleans nearly eight years ago with my best friend Amy, and we are both so excited to return, bringing along with us Amy’s partner, Aaron. What adventures we all will have together! We haven’t a moment to lose, so let’s dive right in!
We arrived in New Orleans by plane shortly before 11:30 in the morning, took a taxi into town (our Haitian driver tuning his radio to a talk station all in French, driving past the Greenwood and Metairie cemeteries on our way, both iconically cluttered with above-ground, stately vaults) to our AirBnB on Bienville Street in the Mid-City neighborhood, a quieter area of town located to the northwest of the famous French Quarter, a short streetcar jaunt on Canal Street seamlessly connecting the neighborhoods in classic New Orleans fashion.
Famished due to a mostly liquid breakfast, we decided to explore the area surrounding our temporary home away from home for some local fare. Google reviews highly recommended a place called Mandina’s, a charming place that began as a grocery store in 1898, opened by Sebastian Mandina, a native of Palermo, Italy, and is now an Italian and Creole restaurant.
I can best describe our experience at Mandina’s as one marked by promises fulfilled and expectations dashed. While the menus laminated in plastic felt like a portent of a disappointed future, the staff were nonetheless all terribly friendly and the bartender graciously attentive as he prepared our sazeracs and old fashioneds. Before long we were seated and our first course of turtle soup arrived, and it was delectably savory, its roux base satisfyingly thick and its flavors a perfect re-introduction to the zest and comfort of Southern cuisine. Our mains, however (calf liver for me and fried fish for Amy and Aaron) left much to be desired. Aaron described the peas on my plate best, “They look like they come from a school cafeteria,” lacking in any lively green freshness and instead appearing listlessly lifeless as parodies of peas, miniaturized and shriveled, while Amy and Aaron’s dishes wouldn’t look out of place at a fish and chips shop in London, except that it was all smothered in a brown gravy, depressing the fried batter into a soggy mass of pessimism and gloom. All of this said, the staff at Mandina’s was quite lovely, addressing us endearingly as y’all, and we remained hopeful that better fare was in our future.
We next jumped on the Canal Street streetcar to make our way to the French Quarter. I highly recommend you download the Le Pass app on your phone so you can buy your transit tickets in the palm of your hand. For $15, you can enjoy unlimited rides on all transit for a whole week (there are also daily, 3-day, and monthly passes). You also should just go out of your way to ride the streetcar anyway, even if you don’t need to, as the experience embodies a quaint charm of a bygone age.
Our next stop on our food and drinks tour brought us to Mr. B’s Bistro, a more upscale, fancier restaurant with smartly dressed bartenders and importantly suited men. However, the elegant aesthetics were betrayed by gruff service (which also betrayed my observation of Southern charm permeating the behaviors of all the locals) and a fully stocked bar that appeared disheveled and cluttered with disorganized wine glasses and bits of bric-a-brac strewn about in chaotic turmoil. Upon the recommendation of a friend, we were told to order a drink call the la louisiane, and when we did, the bartender bluntly retorted, abandoning any semblance of Southern hospitality, “Who told you that? We don’t have that.” So he angrily made us some vieux carre drinks (like the sazarac, another classic New Orleans imbibement).
We quickly retreated from Mr. B’s and made our way to the nearby Felix’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar. When I reviewed my writings of New Orleans from 2015, I raved and raved about the oysters here, but Amy’s memory was that gulf oysters were drearily disappointing, so we wanted to set the record straight.
I generally found the ambiance of Felix’s to be much more welcoming and charming than the misleading facade of Mr. B’s. Felix’s was decked with a sturdy bar of bricks painted white with a long row of classic, chrome bar stools. The service was also immeasurably better: “Wait outside, baby, and we’ll come get you,” “How y’all doing my darlings?” and “What can I get you my sweeties?” are sentences and questions you can expect to hear. Naturally, we ordered twelve oysters and three Pimm’s cups. “You’re making this easy for me! I’ll try to not mix your order up! But you never know, I might!” our server, Lynda, exclaimed, a lady long in her years who lived a colorfully full life, a wrinkled face that beamed with genuine sincerity and graceful joy.
Through no fault of Felix’s, however, the oysters confirmed Amy’s diagnosis. “Polluted with oil,” she remarked. Normally I enjoy oysters all by themselves, but I found myself needing to drown them in horseradish and lemon juice to hide the shades and hints of the abused waters of the gulf. The oysters down here also are thicker and mealier, resting on fatter shells, and requiring more chews than normal. So maybe we’ll skip oysters from here on out after all.
We decided to make two more stops before dinnertime, and I desperately wanted to visit Kingfish, a bar and restaurant I had fond memories of that served incredible Pimm’s cups. I felt I needed to be reminded of what I thought was spectacular last time around having struck out twice at Mandina’s and Mr. B’s, and Kingfish did not disappoint. It remained a classier joint—but not too classy—all the servers and bartenders dressed smartly in blacks slacks, white button-up shirts, and black suspenders. We took advantage of their happy hour and ordered two rounds of sazaracs, both rounds expertly prepared, the second order placed in at 5:01 (“We’ll fit it in just right under the wire,” our bartender mischievously whispered). We were also given some good suggestions for where to go next.
And our next stop was a little dive called B Macs, a place where you might be laughed out the door if you do order sazaracs. “Do you have a house speciality?” Amy asked the bartender. “No,” she responded deadpan, and we all laughed. So we ordered vodka tonics and gin and tonics and enjoyed them out on their large patio, decked out in gaudy but delightful Halloween decorations: fairy lights shaped like spiders in colors of orange and green, fake cobwebs, plastic skulls. They also played some really fun music (AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell,” Bow Wow Wow’s cover of “I Want Candy,” and “Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, to name a few), while another party next to us played a giant version of Connect Four while one of their friends snoozed, sitting straight up, undisturbed by all the commotion.
Evening was approaching fast, and it was time to enjoy a dinner, so we made our way to Gumbo Shop, an always busy establishment serving up not only gumbo but a variety of other Creole cuisine. I highly recommend ordering their complete Creole dinner, where you get to select dishes from four courses, and I elected to start with their seafood okra gumbo followed by macque choux corn, and then their combination platter of shrimp creole, jambalaya, and red beans and rice, and culminating in a celebration of the senses with warm bread pudding in whiskey sauce. Everything was just simply divine as our server brought out our meals and more sazaracs, all served up with characteristic exclamations of, “Thank you, my darlings!”
A long day under our belts (and belts the probably needed loosening following all our feasts), we made our way back to Mid-City to our Air BnB by way of the lovely streetcar that traces Canal Street. So much in one day, and so much more to come!
Stray observations:
- Also while at Mr. B. Bistro, there was this suspicious old man next to us eating spring rolls who asked if he could also have ice cream. And the frustratingly surly bartender remarked, “Only with cookies,” to which I would’ve sarcastically responded, “Er, I’ll have a cookie and ice cream, then, but hold the cookie.”
- On the way from B Macs to Gumbo Shop, we happened across two second line parades making their way through the French Quarter, complete with blazingly loud brass bands and impossibly spirited marchers throwing out Mardi Gras beads. Second lines generally happen on Sundays, but they can also happen spontaneously around town on other days of the week, usually to celebrate something special like a wedding.
- I usually try to find some gimmick to titling my blog posts, so feel free to try to guess what it is this time! Once you’ve figured out the theme of how I’m titling, then try to figure out the source of the whatever-it-is I’m drawing from.