Food & DINK
We travel. We eat. And we travel to eat.
New Orleans Day 3: Another Walking Tour, a Repeat Performance, and Jazz on Bourbon
We decided to forego breakfast at Café Du Monde (stupid move, I know) for the free hotel breakfast. Tip: don’t do this.
Our first activity for the day was to be a French Quarter history tour. This tour was provided by Free Tours By Foot. Instead of a set price for the tour, FTBF allows guests to pay based on what they believe the tour was worth. Most people seemed to pay between $10 and $20 per person, to give you a rough idea of what’s typical.
We enjoyed the tour, though after our previous epic day of walking, another 2 hour tour seemed a little more like torture than vacation. We had walked enough around the Quarter by this point that we had already learned a fair bit of what our guide covered. If you are considering doing multiple FQ tours, I would suggest starting with the more general, followed by the more specific (haunted history, food tour, voodoo, etc.).
By noon we were all pretty hungry, so we walked a couple blocks over to the French Market to grab a quick lunch. The fried alligator bites we had were delicious and I would definitely recommend trying some if you’ve never had gator before.
Since we were back at the French Market, we decided to go pick up the items we eyeballed the day before. In addition to the cool retro ad wall hangings we picked out, we grabbed some Pat O’Briens hurricane mix and a New Orleans shot glass for my collection. MIL and FIL picked up various items as well, like jambalaya and etouffe mixes, Café Du Monde coffee, and some gift items for relatives back home.
Because of our aching feet and legs, we decided to take an early afternoon break. A couple hours of relaxation at the hotel, while not a complete cure, did help us get our energy up before heading to dinner.
You might think that, with all the amazing restaurants in New Orleans at our disposal, we wouldn’t have a hard time deciding what to eat for dinner. Well, it turned out to be a little tougher of a decision this particular evening. We wanted to stay in the French Quarter and we ruled out a lot of the pricier options in a seemingly futile attempt to go easier on the wallet. With po’boys on tap for tomorrow, we ended up deciding to head back for another round at Acme Oyster House. It may seem insane to eat two meals at the same place in New Orleans, but in our defense, that place is really freaking good.
One of our goals for New Orleans was to find some good live jazz. We considered walking down to Frenchman Street, which is where you’ll find many live jazz options. From reading reviews though, it seemed like many of the jazz clubs on Frenchman were standing room only or charged a cover, both of which we were hoping to avoid.
We ended up stopping at Maison Bourbon, a live jazz club right on Bourbon Street (near the intersection of Bourbon and St. Peters). This place is quite the welcome change from the average Bourbon Street bar. There was no cover, the drinks were delicious, and the jazz was excellent.
After enjoying a couple sets of jazz, we took a stroll across the street and checked out the famed Pat O’Brien’s courtyard, complete with fountains with fire shooting from their tops. We stopped in the piano bar for a quick hurricane and then set off for the hotel, and sleep.
Up next in day 4: our last day in New Orleans. One last epic night of drinks? You bet!
Food & DINK 