I had the chance to visit New Orleans for the first time this past week. I flew down on Saturday, arriving in the French Quarter about 4:30. Took the St. Charles street car for the full loop - riding out through the posh residential areas past Loyola and Tulane, then returning. By this point, I was getting a little thirsty, so I took an interesting stroll down Bourbon Street. Very interesting ... nice restaurants next to dive bars, strip clubs, and hotels.
I grabbed a plastic cup of Abita Andygator and took it all in. After walking the whole length of Bourbon, I headed south for a few streets to Decatur, where I took a left over to Frenchmen. Here, I had some nice crawfish etouffe at Snug Harbor, then popped into d.b.a to see what type of jazz was playing. From there, back down Decatur to see all the tourist places and bars.
4/11/08 clarification: though I was completely stuffed from dinner and did not have a beer at d.b.a - this bar, and possibly Cooter Brown's (across town) have the best beer selections in New Orleans. Several good Belgian offerings, and other European imports as well as a decent selection of U.S. micros.
On Sunday morning, I had breakfast at Cafe Beignet, enjoying some cajun homefries and fresh beignets. Afterwards, I hiked a good way across town to visit the World War II Museum - definitely worth a trip!
After lunch at Gordon Biersch and a quick hotel stop, I headed over to the Convention Center for the reason I was in town to begin with ... the 235th American Chemical Society Meeting. I spent all Sunday afternoon listening to seminars, then attended a reception for the CINF (Chemical Information) Division..
On Monday, I spent most of day again at the Convention Center for talks. I did get a nice lunch break in, and had a shrimp po'boy from Johnny Po'Boys. In the afternoon, I gave my presentation in a special symposium honoring my former grad school advisor.
After business, a couple of us went to a nice reception on the top floor of the Sheraton (Harry's party) before meeting others for dinner over in the Quarter. There were a lot of presentations to see on Tuesday-Thursday, but unfortunately I'm still in the middle of the semester and had to head home.
All in all, it was a nice trip to New Orleans - and it beat my last experience with Louisiana ... 7 weeks of Army basic training upstate at Fort Polk :(
I did try a few Abita beers, along with Gordon Biersch and Crescent City ... New Orleans is not really a beer town. Though I will recommend if you fly through Atlanta to get there, have a pint at the Sweetwater pub in Terminal B.
4 comments:
You went to dba to check out the jazz and didn't have a beer?
This was (recently) the place with the best beer selection in town?
Stan,
Thanks for reading (I enjoy your blog a lot). Yes, I did not have a beer - was stuffed from dinner. I agree with you that they had a great selection, and if I had had more time during my trip, I would have gone back for some beers and listened to more live music.
Next time, I hope!
Cheers,
Nate
Great post. It looks like you hit the right locations, but what beers would you recommend? I will only have a weekend and I'm trying to get away from doing 6 beer flights in one session.
I have been to New Orleans many times over the last 5 years, but have just started beering late last year, the wasted TIME!
Hey American Don!
The local beer is alright, but not the real specialty of the town. Gordon Biersch was fine, but the other brewpub was sub-par. You're better off finding a good beer bar, like d.b.a, and getting some of those tasty Belgian beers that you may have missed on your Paris trip.
Cheers!
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