Category: New Orleans

Cochon is French for my favorite animal in the world and its menu–and decor–had my name all over it, but sadly, I too have my limits when it comes to fatty foods.

We had a couple of martinis at the bar while we waited to be seated. It’s a huge space but uncomfortably humid. By the time we started eating, we had stripped down to the T-shirts we wore under our light sweaters. The service is very brisk, and a few times, our waitress spilled water on our table and on the floor while refilling our glasses and of those around us. Busboys served the dishes without a word and no one ever came back to remind us of what we ordered. The entire time we were there, we chuckled at how the service is up to par with a trendy New York City restaurant on death watch.

The Louisiana cochon is a large chunk of pulled pork stewed with turnips and cabbage. I wish the taste of the stewed vegetables penetrated the meat a little bit more inside. A piece of crackling sat on top and was fought over and eventually split between the Dr. and I. The gumbo was absolute perfection with a little bit of tang and spice. It was made the way I like it: watery and a little light on the rice and heavy-handed on the okra stubs. I could not say the same about the boring alligator meat that, not surprisingly, tasted like chicken. It was a little gamier than regular white meat, but without the chili garlic aioli, it would have been just a chewy and bland beer food.

I made a huge mistake by booking our table at Cochon during our last night together in New Orleans. I was up to here with rich and buttery stews so I feel like I didn’t appreciate Cochon as much as I normally would. If there is a reason to return to New Orleans, mine would be to eat again at Cochon to do it some justice.

Cochon is at 930 Tchoupitoulas Street. Call 504/588.2123 for reservations and get ready to be engulfed by smoke and heat from the kitchen.

Related post/s:
Cochon photos on Flickr

MiLa was a breathe of fresh air after inhaling smog all weekend. MiLa was like a clean bath after being submerged in lard and butter. I know those comparisons are preposterous, but I can’t stress enough how clean my palate was after our lunch at MiLa. For several days in New Orleans, I’ve been treated to a barrage of heavy foods and MiLa was actually the first restaurant among the nine–count them: nine–I visited during my four-day stay that had a fresh, and uncooked, salad on the menu. Needless to say, I devoured those greens like a hungry goat on green pasture. It barely had anything in it but a light lemon vinaigrette dressing with sunflower seeds and I ate it like I was Popeye deprived of Spinach.

The dishes that were cooked equally stood on their own feet. The curried squash soup was thin and light topped with chopped scallops and chives. The shrimp were served with micro greens, frisée, cherry tomatoes and thinly-sliced eggplants tossed in red wine dressing–the best dish among our five dishes. The monkfish was tasty and perfectly seared and was served with a potato purée and sauteed leeks. I wasn’t crazy about the persimmon ice cream, but I allowed myself something creamy and rich after that cathartic meal.

MiLa has one of the best deals in the city. The three-course lunch prix fixe costs $20 without drinks and a la carte entrees do not surpass the $19 mark unless you order a steak for $22. I rewarded myself for such a good find by ordering a bottle of sparkling water for a couple more dollars extra.

MiLa Restaurant is at 817 Common Street. It wasn’t crowded when I went for the three-course lunch prix fixe, but call 504/412.2580 for a reservation anyway to beat the power lunchers.

Related post/s:
MiLa Restaurant photos on Flickr

One of the Dr.’s colleagues who is also a Tulane graduate wanted to show me the best po-boy in New Orleans. I couldn’t refuse his offer; the Dr. was going to be occupied with work anyway. The colleague considers himself a local, but we got lost a couple of times and ended walking up and down Magazine Street to try and find it. Not surprisingly, people we asked in cabs and on the streets had no idea which place we were talking about. When we finally got the correct directions, we had to take the sad public bus to the other end of town because there were no cabs picking up passengers. I had just eaten lunch but the shenanigans we had to go through to get po-boys made me hungry again.

The most common story I’ve read about po-boys is that the term comes from the term “poor boys” because the traditional sandwich was meatless and only dipped in meat juices to remain affordable for the blue-collar working men of the 20s and 30s. Ask any Southerner and they will tell you that the secret to a good po-boy is the bread: flaky and crusty outside but light and airy inside. The more crumbs you leave after eating a po-boy, the better.

Domilise’s is one of those hole-in-the-walls left by time to rot. The thin wooden walls are covered with old-school photographs and outdated signs. The stained ceilings hover above the bar that looks like it could be found in someone’s dank basement. Except for the young hipster guy behind the counter, Domilise’s looks and smells like what I imagined the old days looked and smelled like.

Domilise’s is at 5240 Annunciation Street. The area is a sleeper town so call 504/899.9126 before you drag yourself over there to make sure it’s even open.

Related post/s:
Domilise’s and po-boy photos on Flickr

Delmonico changed my erroneously-informed impression of Emeril Lagasse and of New Orleans cooking in general. I’ve never been a fan of the man but I realized later, while attending a cooking demonstration at the New Orleans School of Cooking, how much he has contributed to the food and culture of the city. Throughout our stay in New Orleans, we had a lot of rich and fatty foods. It was at Delmonico’s where we had the right balance of good food, drinks and ambiance.

I was in the city crashing the Dr.’s appointed time at the annual anesthesiology conference. Wherever we went, we would run across some of his colleagues. At Delmonico, there was a big table of them, so even though we had reserved seats, we opted to stay at the bar for dinner because it was more casual sitting by the piano man in the middle of the room than being surrounded by other doctors. (Can you blame me? I can only take a few of them at a time!)

After a round of sparkling wine and cocktails, we started with the sausage served with shiitake mushrooms. Delmonico has a whole menu of house-made charcuterie and artisanal cheeses but we controlled ourselves to leave room for the rabbit, the crab and the pork cheeks. The rabbit itself was pretty bland like chicken, but the broth surrounding it was well-seasoned. I couldn’t stop myself from clearing everything off with the freshly baked bread that kept coming in from the kitchen. The soft-shell crab was great with our drinks. The tartar sauce was thick, but light in taste and did not overwhelm the crispiness of the fried crab.

Dirty rice has never tasted this good. True to its Creole roots, the rice was cooked in the juices of the meat it was served with and it shared the rich brown color of the crispy pork cheeks. The golden beets salad was awesome in data molasses, pine nuts and homemade yogurt underneath, but we still needed a side of green beans tossed in garlic and some lemon juice to cut through the richness of our entire meal. Now if only they weren’t cooked in butter…

The dessert choices were not afterthoughts. We ended up going for the earl grey panna cotta with poached Seckel pear sprinkled with pine nut streusel. For my first visit at an Emeril Lagasse restaurant, I have to say that Bam!, I’m now a fan.

Emeril’s Delmonico Restaurant and Bar is at 1300 St. Charles Avenue. Reservations are essential, but walk-ins are accommodated. Call 504/525.4937 anyway so you know how long the wait is. Drink and eat at the bar–it’s perfect.

Related post/s:
Emeril’s Delmonico Restaurant and Bar photos on Flickr

The Dr. and I both woke up with a hangover. We have been in New Orleans for less than two days and we’re already learning what it’s like to legally walk the streets with drinks in hand at all times of the day. Hangovers like this one call for a hot bowl of pho to calm our stomachs down and stop the pounding in our heads. Enter the town of Gretna, one of the largest enclaves of Vietnamese agricultural workers southeast of the city, on the other side of the Mississippi River.

It was the day of the Giants-Saints football game and none of the cabs we stopped were willing to cross the bridge for less than $40 round-trip. Eli Manning, who plays for the New York Giants, is a New Orleans hometown boy, so whatever the outcome was, the locals were meant to celebrate. (The Saints later destroyed the Giants.) It’s more difficult to get a return fare from small town Gretna so our grouchy cab driver tacked on a few extra dollars to our fare for disrupting his football time.

The cha gio here, or crispy spring rolls, were unlike what we usually eat in Vietnamese restaurants in New York City. They use a different kind of rice wrap that’s more thin and they bubbled up after frying. They weren’t cheap on the filling either. They were excellent wrapped in lettuce leaves and then dipped in nuoc mam, or the sweet and sour fish sauce that’s always on the table. My mouth is watering just thinking about them.

We ordered two kinds of pho to compare, one with a clear broth, and another–the Dr.’s preference–with a thick and stewy soup. Both hit the spot for sure because we nearly had to roll ourselves back to the city after eating. Of course, my eyes were hungrier than my stomach, so I ordered a plate of pork chops with rice that I ended up packing to go and eating in our hotel room later that night. The $40 ended up being worth the trip because we had the best Vietnamese food we’ve ever had outside of the island of Palawan, a Vietnamese refugee enclave in the Philippines.

Tan Dinh is at 1705 Lafayette Street right off the Belle Chasse Highway in Gretna, Louisiana. Call 504/361.8008 before you spend a hefty fare from New Orleans just to make sure they’re open.

Related post/s:
Tan Dinh Restaurant photos on Flickr