What's good in New Orleans
QuantumTurk
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Taking advice both in and out of date, I'll be down there for work for about a week and just need stuff to do that isn't just drinking and eating (I will be doing a lot of both and will take those recommendations too)
Odd limits! My partner can't eat nitrates (so no cured meats, bye bye muffaletta) and neither of us drink a ton anymore. So a place specializing in cured meats is fine but ideally they'd have something else to eat too. Beyond that most anything is cool, and I've been before and had a hard time finding any bad food. Also cooter browns and the snooty cooter were highlights last time, love a good dive with good food. We'll be based pretty near the french quarter, and won't have a car, but are fine with transit and ubers.
Is a gator tour fun? Swamp boat worth doing? A haunted tour that is fun/spooky/funny ? We'd like to do one "nice" meal night, got a spot you and yours had a good time at?
So gimme them reccs and reminisces about NOLA trips past and present.
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also absolutely say candyman into a mirror a bunch it leads to adventures
The New Orleans Museum of Art has some great exhibits - there was one about how a lot of classic paintings of Louisiana were stealth propaganda paid for by logging companies to encourage settlers to come out, there's a room that demonstrates antebellum interior design while also explicitly discussing the slave labor that made such a lifestyle possible, there are some great photography exhibits, some wild furniture exhibits. Lotta good stuff.
Catching some jazz at Preservation Hall is a classic for a reason.
A walking tour of the French Quarter is a lot of fun. I don't really give a shit about ghost/haunting tours, but there are plenty of options for those. I prefer a more straightforward history tour. But anything that gets you walking off the beaten path and seeing interesting little corners is good.
I've never been to Commander's Palace but that is a historically fancy high end restaurant that once had Emeril as its executive chef as well as Paul Prudhomme, who is a local food legend
Cafe Du Monde is a coffee shop with famous pastry called a Beignet which is basically a donut with powdered sugar on it
crawfish are in season so that's worth a try
Obviously a beignet from Cafe du Monde has to be done.
We also went on New Years Eve so a lot of extra stuff was just happening like a parade before a bowl game and Fox has the NYE host there as well so we walked by and listened to the performances from there.
There's tons of advertising for different tours to take we passed on that this time, but they generally are clear about how long they last and a good idea of what you're going to see.
The aquarium there is right in that area and is okay. If you haven't gone to an aquarium in a while I'd recommend checking it out.
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I can't believe I forgot this. Yes, absolutely go to Cafe Du Monde. Beignets are incredible, and going to the place that invented them is required.
When my wife and I went a couple years ago, we wandered around the French Quarter until we saw a dive bar advertising a shot and a PBR tallboy for $5. We decided it simply had to be our first stop. We immediately befriended the dirtbag bartender, who started talking very colorful shit about her terrible ex and his terrible family, and then food she'd ordered from a nearby restaurant arrived. They'd accidentally given her an extra bacon cheeseburger, and she gave it to us. We'd been in the city for like half an hour, and I was immediately made to feel at home. I genuinely can't think of a warmer welcome I've received anywhere, I was so, so happy. Love Dirtbag Paris, it's the finest city in the land
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We have planned virtually nothing which is probably a mistake. Or we’ll just stumble into restaurants and stuff I dunno
New Orleans loves a chatty bartender, and so do I.
We spent one night at a gay bar in the Quarter, where the TVs were all playing a run of music videos for classic gay club tracks from the 70s and 80s. The bartender had recently gone on a roadtrip with a guy he was seeing, and the roadtrip was such a disaster that it broke them up, and he told us all the sordid details. The only light on the trip had been a stop at a novelty candy shop that sold all sorts of old/defunct candy brands, clove gums and that sort of thing, and he had a big bag of weird old candies that he shared with us in between stories and drinks.
Or there was the bartender at one of the less-busy back bars at a Bourbon Street joint, who educated us on the various sharks/con artists working the floor that night, told us what the angles are in the various cons, told us who had the knack and who just had persistence. Would make his predictions about which marks would spot the con and when, was right three times out of four. Never kicked any of the scammers out, never warned any of the marks, just narrated like a dive bar David Attenborough, it was fascinating.
Man I gotta get back.
Having a day or two with dedicated activities (a museum day, or a zoo day, or whatever) can be a nice way to have a little structure, to make sure you get some vegetables along with your candy, but New Orleans is a great fucking place to have no plan at all.
Beyond that, wander and take in what the city puts in front of you.
Take note of corner cafes during the day, they’ll probably have live music later in the evening.
7:00 wake up
7:45 breakfast
9:00 aquarium
12:00 lunch
1:30 zoo
3:45 rollercoaster
etc. etc.
Keep an eye out for any breweries or other establishments that are doing a crawfish boil out back. This may or may not be something you can find online, just keep an eye out.
Also the important thing was actually going to local restaurants and bars and not just hitting the franchises that you're familiar with.
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Feel free to go to the Cafe Du Monde on the River Walk if the Jackson Square location is packed. Not that far and you get a nice scenic walk down the Mississippi.
There's a good escape room down town, I recommend the inventors room.
Do go to the WW2 museum. Its expansion in the 2010s made it much more informative, especially in the Pacific theatre.
I'd stay off Bourbon St except to go visit Pat O'Brians (home of the hurricane) and Lafitte's (oldest bar on bourbon).
For live music go to Frenchman St. (northern edge of the French Quarter) You will likely have 6 different types of music venues available to suit your tastes.
South eastern corner of City Park is the home of the New Orleans Museum of Art as well as a sculpture park. There's also a lovely botanical garden in the center of the park.
I can give you an exhaustive list of restaurants if need be.
New Orleans is great for wandering around until you hear music you like and then going in and hanging out
Maybe it's live, maybe it's a playlist, but a ton of places use music to directly signal their vibe, and that's great. You just have to know what kind of mood you're in, and New Orleans will provide a place for that mood.
A very loosely structured vacation can be great, if you have someone who has ideas and agreeable people, other wise you can four or five people hanging around thinking instead of doing and that's it's own stress
Did you work out what con he was running on you?
My first guess would be "Just keeping us there running up a tab" but he kept giving us free drinks, so who knows
When we stayed their we got an air bnb on Algiers Point which is across the Mississippi from Jackson Square there's a ferry that runs throughout the day and it's like two dollars to get across the river and we could walk to the ferry and didn't have to worry about parking at all, it was nice.
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He became a legit landlord, evicting tenants and everything, and Twitter beefed with Bernie Samders about it. He’s since apologized for it and given money to rental assistance charities.
…unless there’s another milkshake duck skeleton in his closet…
It's caf- aye du monde
Found their website https://alwayssmokin.com/