I Heart NOLa, Part I: Food

Our 10:30 a.m. departure from Longview, Texas, was planned so we could hold out on food until we reached The Best Stop Supermarket just outside of Lafayette in Scott, Louisiana.

It was worth the wait.

A little over three hours into the New Orleans trip, a trek we anticipated would yield heavenly culinary experiences, we hit the jackpot at Best Stop. According to its Web site, Best Stop's boudin and cracklins have been voted No. 1 six consecutive years by The Times of Acadiana's reader poll. Best Stop sells approximately 2,000 pounds of boudin every day.

For those of you out of the loop, boudin can come in boudin noir (blood sausage) or boudin blanc (the regular, white kind). The version we bought two pounds of was boudin blanc, which consists of pork, pork liver, chicken, and rice.

By the way, it's cooked inside a pig intestine.

And it's good. Really good.

But not as good as the cracklins.

I could eat cracklins until my heart exploded. Best Stop's cracklins were otherwordly. We each ate a pound of boudin, then I ate most of the half-pound bag of cracklins. I love anything that comes from a pig. After all, the French were on to something lo those many years ago when they opted to base their cuisine around Good Ol' Porky.

There's nothing like cracklins, the crisp residue left by the rendering of hog lard. The definition even sounds glorious.

The only thing we regretted about the boudin and cracklins were the belches that began about 15 minutes after starting the feast. The guzzling of Coke didn't help.

For more on Best Stop, check it: http://www.thebeststopsupermarket.com/.

About three hours later, we arrived in New Orleans. First stop: Acme Oyster House.

Unfortunately, the boudin and cracklins were still with me, so I just ordered my usual, the Peacemaker Po-Boy - fried shrimp and fried oysters on French bread - and left it at that. It never disappoints, and it didn't this time, either. A couple of years back, Maxim Magazine named the Acme Peacemaker as the No. 4 sandwich in the country, a well-deserved honor.

Here's Acme's Web site, a fun, informative, and full-sensory experience in itself: http://www.acmeoyster.com/.

That was pretty much the extent of eating the first day. The boudin sat heavy. I wanted more cracklins. I savored the Peacemaker.

Day 2 rolled around, and after we checked out of our free room at La Quinta on Camp Street, we found a place to park near the old Jax Brewery along the riverfront and walked up Decatur to Central Grocery for what is supposed to be New Orleans' best muffaletta.

I had always been told to eat a muffuletta in previous trips to New Orleans, but never had, so I decided to go to the source, Central Grocery, for my first muffuletta experience.

It didn't disappoint.

I ordered half a sandwich and a bottle of Barq's, another local favorite, and dined inside Central Grocery, an outlet for Italian, Greek, and Creole sustenance since 1906. The muffuletta is somewhat of an acquired delight: It's loaded with olives and an olive oil-loaded olive salad that soaks into the thick sesame-seed muffuletta loaf. Throw in some provolone and assorted Italian deli meats, and you've got a genuine, Central Grocery muffuletta.

Talk about strong. I could only eat a quarter of the sandwich. The olive salad sat heavier in my gut than the boudin and cracklins, but that's probably because my internal organs are far more accustomed to dealing with pork fat than olive salad.

Verdict: pretty dang good. I prefer the Peacemaker, of course, but the Central Grocery muffuletta is a must during a trip to New Orleans. To learn more about the sandwich and the store, check these wikipedia references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muffuletta, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Grocery.

A trip to the new Southern Food and Beverage Museum, which is located at the south end of the Riverfront Marketplace mall, was informative and reflective. It was fun seeing exhibits on food items I've known since I was but a small, chubby, Southern hobbit, but also little-known facts about how some of those familiar foodstuffs came about in the rural Deep South.

After the educational stop, muffuletta was still sitting like a 12-pound ball inside my stomach. So instead of walking back to the original Cafe Du Monde location, I did the lazy thing and stopped at the mall location - indoors, not 92 degrees with 70 percent humidity, and plenty of comely ladies walking by as they shop.

For anyone who has never experienced the glory of a beignet, you have no clue what you're missing.

The beignet, or French doughnut, is the epitome of Southern and French food decadence (though they're politics in the modern-day world may greatly differ, the American South and France share an healthy obsession with great food. In fact, if you're a foodie in the United State, thank the Good Lord for the French and everything they've contributed to international cuisine).

Beignets are like high-quality funnel cake batter in a sopapilla shape, only solid ... and covered in powdered sugar. And when I say covered, I really mean it. When you finish an order of beignets (three), the pile of powdered sugar remaining is so disturbingly grand it appears that Tony Montana has sneezed all over your table.

For the record, I went to Cafe Du Monde's original location - across from Jackson Square, facing Decatur, the same place it's been since 1862 - three times after the mall trip during the remainder of my stay in New Orleans. Cafe Du Monde is as unique an experience as you'll find anyone.

Check the site for more info: http://www.cafedumonde.com/.

Since my first exposure to Cafe Du Monde, the romantic in me has always hoped that some day my courtship of a God-fearing, intelligent, funny, and pretty young lady would involve taking her to Cafe Du Monde and indulging in beignets and cafe au lait on a summer afternoon while watching the mule-drawn carriages haul people down Decatur in front of the wrought-iron boundaries of Jackson Square with the immaculate St. Louis Cathedral creating a memorable backdrop.

But I digress.

That evening, the Crescent City Brewhouse (http://www.crescentcitybrewhouse.com/index.html) provided supper. A baked oyster sampler was excellent, and the house pilsner was a pretty good complement. Crabmeat-stuffed shrimp was presented very well, and tasted just as good. The only drawback was the price for the amount of food you get, but I'm willing to pay decent dollar for good food in New Orleans, even if it is a little skimpy on the servings. Most places in New Orleans give you so much food you eat yourself into a coma.

Friday was the big day: reservation at New Orleans landmark, Commander's Palace, one of the most recognizable restaurants in the landscape of North American cuisine.

Previous executive chefs include Louisiana legend Paul Prudhomme and the current definition of celebrity chef, Emeril Lagasse. Reserving a table for lunch is the thing to do if you want to avoid a bill well over the century mark. Plus, jackets aren't required at lunch (they aren't technically required for supper, but they're "requested").

The cab fare from the hotel at the corner of Bourbon and Canal was just under $11, so reasonable. I knew if I was eating at Commander's Palace - a huge, old house on Washington Avenue just off the St. Charles streetcar line in New Orleans' Garden District - I had to try the trademark appetizer: Turtle soup.

It was unlike anything I'd eaten before. It was thick, but not quite a stew, with small chunks of turtle meat suspended in the dark, almost rouxy concoction. It was great, and it was quite filling for an appetizer soup. Its richness was exacted by the shot of sherry the waitress tossed in table-side.

My main course was gulf seafood cakes. I've had my fair share of crabcakes/seafood cakes at other restaurants, such as the crabcakes from Copeland's I love so dearly. The breading in your usual seafood cake is a key component.

That's what separated these from all else. There was no breading.

Lump crabmeat, shrimp, and couple of other seafood delights were molded into a puck-shaped cake that was so tender, moist, and seafood meaty, I can honestly say I've never eaten anything prepared so exquisitely. The cakes sat atop a bed of baby spinach with two probably-complicated sauces drizzled over the greens. A pineapple salsa accompanied the cakes and accented the sweet seafood perfectly.

For dessert, I selected the dish suggested to all patrons by executive chef Tory McPhail: Creole bread pudding souffle, which is topped table-side with a bourbon-based creme sauce. I'm not a dessert guy at all, but it was simply superb. White and purple raisins were embedded deep within the souffle and were so tender and un-raisin-like I could hardly believe they were raisins. It was rich, but not overpowering.

Overall, I can say I've never experienced dining like Commander's Palace. I dislike dress codes and stuffy, upper-crust schools of thought. I have strongly adverse feeling for all things upper class, such as country clubs.

But I can't emphasize enough how incredible Commander's Palace is. And the wait staff is unreal. You'll have to dole out a bigger tip, but that's because you've got half a dozen people taking care of you: Different person for water and tea, different person for menus and entree presentation, different person for appetizer and dessert presentation, different person for taking plates and utensils away. You're treated like royalty.

Simply put, if you visit New Orleans, you must go to Commander's Palace. Here's the link for easily the greatest restaurant I've ever experienced: http://www.commanderspalace.com/.

Hopefully Commander's Palace will be where I take that lady on the evening after our afternoon bliss at Cafe Du Monde.

After Commander's Palace, I really didn't expect much else out of the trip from a food standpoint. We're talking New Orleans, too.

After waiting a good while to recover from the Commander's Palace extravaganza, Coop's Place was the night-time destination for supper. Nestled in along the seemingly endless strip of Decatur Street, an absolute gem of a thoroughfare often overlooked by outsiders, Coop's Place was a dark, rustic bar with a full restaurant menu.

In other words, greatness.

After asking an attractive young brunette girl sitting near me at the bar what she was eating, I ordered what she was having: Jambalaya Supreme, the traditional Creole rice dish brimming with sausage, shrimp, crawfish, pork tasso, and rabbit. It was awesome, and borderline overwhelming spicy, but not quite too powerful that I couldn't eat every bite. Offbeat Magazine rated Coop's Place's Jambalaya Supreme as the No. 1 jambalaya in New Orleans. Check out Coop's Place, where you don't wanna cross the bartender, at this Web site: http://www.coopsplace.net/.

My final full day in New Orleans had me wanting to try something I hadn't come to the city knowing about. I had several suggestions, including Coop's Place, from others who were seasoned New Orleans veterans. Fortunately, the concierge at the Crowne Plaza pointed me to Oceana Grill at the corner of Bourbon and Conti.

A friendly, boisterous local implored people to come inside and eat, so and stopped, looked at the menu, asked him what to try, and went in.

He told me I had to try the barbecue shrimp. I'm glad I followed his advice.

It's not barbecue shrimp in the fashion you're probably thinking - overcooked shrimp wrapped in partially cooked bacon with some bottle sauce thrown on top. Nothing like that.

Instead, it was large, unpeeled boiled shrimp soaking in a thin, soupy, Worcestershire-based barbecue sauce full of unrecognizable fresh herbs and spices. The key was to not only peel the shrimp, dip them in the liquid, and consume, but to take the sliced french bread brought to the table and dip it enthusiastically into the liquid and herbs.

I ate two and a half baskets of the slice bread, which translates to 16 slices. That's how good the sauce was.

And the barbecue shrimp was only the appetizer. I got a fried shrimp po-boy to accompany its boiled shellfish brethren. Of course, I also dipped the sandwich into the sauce, too.

The meal was surprisingly good and just what I was looking for on my final night in the city. I was glad I had taken the gamble on a spot I hadn't heard of until about 20 minutes before going there. Learn more about the hidden gem at http://www.oceanagrill.com/.

That pretty much wraps up my food tour. I left out a few things - Abita Amber, Abita Turbo Dog, Hubig's Pies. All good stuff.

But what I've chronicled here should give a good idea of what I ate, how it tasted, and whether or not it should be tried during your next top in the Crescent City.

In summary: Try everything I just mentioned. It's New Orleans.

Bad meals don't happen.