Looks incredible!
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Looks great! Funny I never think to get any kind of sandwich other than a po-boy when I’m in New Orleans - I eat one every day I’m there lol.
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About par for the course these days
Yeah there was a serious deficiency of po-boys this trip.
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Saint-Germain
Before a late dinner on Sunday I hung out a bit at Bacchanal in the Bywater. Love this place.
Dinner was at Saint-Germain, also in the Bywater and within walking distance of Bacchanal. Saint-Germain is from chefs Blake Aguillard and Trey Smith, formerly of MoPho and Maypop. They offer a seasonal tasting menu and like Mosquito Supper Club requires a prepaid reservation ($175 + service fee and tax on Resy).
The restaurant appears to be a former residence. The neon “Sugar Park” sign is from a now closed pizza restaurant that was formerly in the space (thanks Google).
Dinner started at the bar.
There was a welcome cocktail, but I forgot to take any notes about it!
The cocktail menu.
L’Aperçu (our house martini) ($18)
Japanese Gin, Fortified Wine, Onion
I also had a good Martini variation to drink. The vermouth part was Cocchi Americano with a little bit of sherry.
Parmesan Broth
Dinner started with a delicious broth made of parmesan and roasted onions. It was like a concentrated parmesan essence with some sweetness from the onions. Tons of umami.
Kaluga Caviar & Potato
Next, a luxurious dollop of caviar along with a potato ice cream that had yuzu, maple syrup, and bacon if I wrote it down correctly. This was another delicious bite, with a hint of sweetness from the maple syrup.
Scallop, Spot Prawn, Roasted Pepper
The next dish had a pretty presentation in a scallop shell. This was yet another delicious bite - crunchy and sweet and accented with a bit of aged balsamic vinegar.
English Accent (wistful, comfy, rocks) ($13)
Earl Grey, Pineapple, Blackstrap Molasses, Vanilla, Whey
I also had a pleasantly tannic mocktail.
Wagyu Beef, Koshihikari Rice, Shiitake, Tarragon
Next, a beef course. There were a couple delicious pieces of A5 wagyu with wasabi, on top of a tarragon sauce, on top of some perfect rice that had some rehydrated shiitake mushrooms. This was so good. Loads of umami.
At this point I was moved to a table in the dining room.
Bread & Butter
The bread course was a delicious fresh cornbread. It had a light texture with some crunch on the exterior. There was cultured butter that had been aged around a year to go with the cornbread.
Striped Bass, White Asparagus, Mushroom
Next, striped bass on white asparagus, in a white asparagus sauce. It had lots of white asparagus flavor. There was a topping of shredded watercress and some nasturtium oil, which gave it a wasabi / horseradish like sinus clearing effect. This dish was like essence of white asparagus with meaty fish. So good!
Along with the fish there was a small mellow salad on the side with a gribiche sauce.
Fresh Pasta, Peppercorn
I added shaved Périgord black truffles to this pasta dish for an extra $40. This was basically a cacio e pepe using freshly made pasta and some tomato water. It was quite good but I thought the truffles didn’t add too much to the dish. It came with some milk bread, which was excellent - soft, warm, and fluffy with a slightly crisp crust.
Here’s a picture of the box of truffles from earlier.
Pork, Vadouvan, Greens
Next, a crispy pork schnitzel with vadouvan, which is a curry powder like seasoning. There was some sauce made of pork and fowl. To the right of the schnitzel was a dollop of buttery grits with mascarpone cheese. On the side was a dish of Swiss chard and apple with a sauce that contained Herbsaint. Sorry if I keep repeating myself, but this was so good!
Amazake and Roasted Lemon
The first dessert was a sweet and savory ice cream sandwich. The filling was flavored with Amazake, which is a Japanese drink made from fermented rice (thanks Google). There was some thyme in there too.
Cheese Soufflé
Second dessert was a soufflé that had Saint-André cheese with brûléed sugar on the outside rim and more cheese added on top. This was very good - sweet, savory, and fluffy.
Rice, Coconut, Sichuan
For the last dessert I was offered a selection of spoons to coose from. There was a little wafer with a paste that had a lot of numbing Sichuan peppercorn and some sort of citrus zest. The second part of the dish was jasmine rice, praline, toasted coconut, and a coconut granita.
You get a copy of the night’s menu.
This was an excellent dinner at Saint-Germain that had a lot of highlights.
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Atchafalaya
I had a brunch reservation at Atchafalaya (“New Orleans’ only five “A” restaurant”) in the Irish Channel neighborhood the next day, which was a very rainy Monday. There were thunderstorms and flooded streets and torrential downpours!
It was raining.
Menus
FIVE “A” BLOODY MARY ($12 + $5)
vodka, house bloody Mary mix, assorted pickled vegetables
I started with a Five “A” Bloody Mary, which is their classic Bloody Mary. I added absinthe for $5, which gave it an interesting herbal anise taste. It was a very nice Bloody Mary with a garnish of pickled vegetables.
Some warm freshly baked cornbread muffins arrived, with a savory butter with scallions.
GUMBO DU JOUR ($14)
chef’s seasonal creation, trinity, dark roux, Louisiana popcorn rice, green onions
To start, I had the gumbo of the day, which was a seafood gumbo. I love gumbo in all shapes and forms. This one was delicious, with a really flavorful seafood broth, shrimp, crabmeat, an oyster, and a little rice.
LOWCOUNTRY SHRIMP & GRITS ($32)
andouille, trinity, smoked tomatoes, Creole-spiced shrimp broth
For my main course, I was deciding between the crab cake Benedict and the shrimp and grits. I asked my waitress for a recommendation and she said it was a tough choice, but recommended the shrimp and grits because it was more iconic.
And it’s iconic for a reason. This was just delicious. There were creamy slightly cheesy grits with a broth that had a lot of shrimp / seafood flavor. There were bits of andouille sausage. Some cherry tomatoes provided acidity. The shrimp, which were pretty big and very fresh, were shelled but with tails and heads left on. There was lots of juicy shrimpy stuff in the shrimp heads. This was even better than the excellent shrimp and grits I had at Muriel’s a few nights prior.
No room for dessert, but I did have an espresso.
After brunch I took some shelter from the rain at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in Central City, which is worth visiting, especially if you are interested in regional Southern cuisines and of New Orleans in particular.
Some food related pictures of the Southern Food & Beverage Museum.
Popeye’s Chicken is from New Orleans. I’ve heard it’s better at its place of origin.
I love red beans and rice.
“Katrina Deli” with an unusual menu.
Some old restaurant signs.
Absinthe exhibit.
I also had tickets later for an early show at Preservation Hall. When getting to the French Quarter to get there I saw that many of the roads had flooded due to the rain.
Preservation Hall has recently completed some renovations. I’ve read that they will expand to 4x the size in the near future. The view’s a little better from the back now that they’ve removed the pillar in the middle of the room. Mark Braud and the band put on a fine show.
Non-food pictures of Preservation Hall.
The rain let up later that day.
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Great trip report. I assume @biondanonima is following along.
As they say: New Orleans — a thousand restaurants, one menu ;-D
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Most definitely - have also mined previous years’ reports for intel. What a fantastic resource!
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This looks interesting - adding to my list of possible activities for my trip at the end of the month!
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FYI they also offer cooking classes here from time to time. Might be a fun alternative to Mardi Gras World.
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Looks wonderful! Just curious: since it’s served family style with strangers, how do you decide how much everyone gets?
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Honor system 
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Yeah, with the exception of dessert dinner was self portioned, so I guess it’s up to the table, and your dining companions’ table manners 
Some of the dishes were naturally separated though for the five of us on our side of the table - e.g. the biscuits, the oysters, and the crab heads.
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Three Legged Dog
Dinner on Monday was a hodgepodge of snack-y bites in the French Quarter. I started at Three Legged Dog, a dive bar on a corner of Burgundy and Conti that has a daily crawfish boil.
I got there a bit after 6 p.m. Most people in the bar were eating crawfish and there was a friendly dog. Note the hole in one of the tables where crawfish shells go.
Three Legged Dog is open 24/7. They start serving crawfish at 6 p.m. when it’s in season. It’s $26 for as much crawfish as you can fit into a styrofoam box, as long as it can close. You scoop the mudbugs yourself out of a large cooler with a spider strainer.
I could have fit a few more in there, I need to work on my crawfish scooping technique.
The crawfish were delicious. They were pretty big, and the boiling liquid gave it a really nice spiciness and a little heat. I didn’t bother with corn but I did get a few pieces of nicely flavored andouille in there mostly by accident. I also had a Paradise Park lager from local brewery Urban South which was light and fizzy and great with the spicy crawfish.
Felix’s
My next stop was to get a dozen chargrilled oysters ($32) at the bar at the Felix’s on Iberville Street, which were as good as usual. Cheesy, buttery, and smoky.
Napoleon House
I walked over to Napoleon House on Chartres and St. Louis for stop #3 for a slightly more substantial snack. Napoleon House is in a historic 200+ year old building (the restaurant is only 100+ years old) that was purportedly once offered to Napoleon Bonaparte as a refuge during his exile. This was a repeat visit for me, though I’d only tried their famous Pimm’s Cup at the bar on my first visit.
Menu
Napoleon House is known for their Pimm’s Cups and Muffulettas, so I had one of each.
THE ORIGINAL ($10)
Pimm’s No. 1, housemade lemonade, lemon-lime soda, cucumber
Napoleon House has a few Pimm’s Cup variations, and even a Pimm’s Cup flight, but I stuck to the classic. It was fizzy, refreshing, and little spicy and herbal.
FAMOUS WARM ITALIAN MUFFULETTA (Quarter Muffuletta for $8.50)
Ham, Genoa Salami, Pastrami, Swiss and Provolone Cheese, Housemade Italian Olive Salad, served warm on our bakery’s fresh seeded Italian
I had a quarter of a muffuletta, which was a substantial snack. It was a very good sandwich in a round sesame topped loaf, layered with cold cuts, cheeses, and a vinegary olive giardiniera. It’s served heated up. The cheeses were melted and the bread was nice and soft and warm and saturated slightly with some of the vinegar and oil from the giardiniera. There were also some pickles on the side.
Cafe Du Monde
Finally for dessert I hit up Cafe Du Monde in the French Market and had some beignets with a black coffee and chicory.
After dessert I walked down Decatur to Frenchmen Street and caught a few sets at the Spotted Cat. I love that in New Orleans one can listen to good live music on a Monday night until early in the morning. I also loved that I had late checkout at my hotel the next day 
Picture of the Spotted Cat (from Friday, a few nights prior)
Amber Rachelle & The Sweet Potatoes
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Love everything about this, but especially the music 
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Pêche Seafood Grill
My flight back home was on Tuesday evening, so I had time to squeeze in a few more bites. For lunch, I made a return visit to Pêche. Pêche is a seafood focused restaurant in the CBD that is part of chef Donald Link’s restaurant group, which also includes Herbsaint, Cochon, and Cochon Butcher.
I sat at the bar.
Menus
To drink, a local beer - a Berliner Weisse from Parish Brewing. It was refreshing, not too sour, and not too sweet.
I started with some local oysters - a half dozen Brightside oysters ($3.45 each), which were good. They came with cocktail sauce, lemon, saltines, and mignonette in a dropper bottle.
I had a few small plates for lunch, starting another gumbo - the seafood gumbo ($12), which was great. The liquid was medium thick with lots of shrimpy seafood flavor, and there was oyster, crab, and shrimp along with some rice. I had quite a few bowls of gumbo on this trip and this may have been the best one.
I also had the steak tartare w/ oyster aioli ($12), which was very good. The tartare and aioli was on top of a piece of toasted and lightly charred bread. There was some celery on top for crunch.
And the shrimp toast w/ sesame + pickles ($12), also quite good. It was like the dim sum dish - fried bread with shrimp paste spread. There was a slight twist of some pickles on top for acidity. On the side was a thick sweet and sour dipping sauce.
Creole Creamery
For dessert I headed Uptown to the Prytania Street location of Creole Creamery, h/t to @linguafood for the recommendation from another trip report.
The building it’s in used to be a location of the now defunct McKenzie’s Bakery.
Lots of interesting flavors.
I had a 4 mini scoop sampler ($7.50). From left to right:
salted egg custard - an Asian inspired flavor that was just slightly savory and sweet
Thai basil coconut - refreshing and tropical
magnolia flower - this sounded interesting, it was a bit floral (natch), tasted a bit like rose water
nectar sorbet - New Orleans cream of nectar flavored, like a vanilla almond
Very good ice cream and sorbet, with just the right amount of sweetness.
Cochon Butcher
After dessert I headed back to the CBD to Cochon Butcher to stock up on some provisions to bring back home. I got some frozen andouille sausage and some frozen boudin.
Since I was there, I also had a small snack of a piece of delicious hot boudin ($8), which came with pickles, and a beer - a Double Jucifer double hazy IPA from local brewery Gnarly Barley, very nice.
And thats a wrap for another successful trip to New Orleans!
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Wow - you really went out with a bang - I especially love the post-ice cream boudin! So jealous…
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Fabulous! Glad you got to the creamery. Wish we could’ve tried more flavors when we went.
Great trip report!
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As always, fabulous trip report! So happy you travel a lot and eat so well, it makes for great vicarious adventures!!
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