Dining ain’t easy when it comes to being a vegetarian in New Orleans. Daniele, NOLA-Eats.com vegetarian correspondent, shares a positive experience with us at one of our city’s most famous restaurants. -Leslie
As a vegetarian in New Orleans (and I suspect the same is true of most cities), it is very difficult to find a fine dining experience that measures up to the experience a meat-eater would have at the same place. Too often my dining companions are enjoying interesting, well-executed meals while I am at the same table staring at a plate full of limp, steamed vegetables with a balsamic reduction thrown on them as an afterthought. Such an experience is sure to make me a one-time customer. If a well-trained kitchen staff at a reputable establishment can’t be bothered to make a veggie dish that is on par with the rest of their offerings, then I can’t be bothered to give them anymore of my hard-earned money.
Okay, enough of my crabbiness. I actually do have something positive (and tasty!) to share with you with regard to fine dining in NOLA: brunch at Brennan’s. Perhaps it is cliché and it’s certainly not cutting-edge. But you know what else I can say about brunch at Brennan’s? It is vegetarian-friendly and it is delicious.
If you are a regular reader of my columns, you know I am a great lover of brunch. So when my boyfriend asked where I’d like to go for my birthday dinner, I told him I’d rather have brunch at Brennan’s. This is how it went down:
I got the prix fixe menu which included an appetizer, a main, and a dessert. A three-course brunch, don’t you love it?
I started things off with strawberries in sweet cream. It was basically like eating strawberry shortcake without the shortcake. Wonderful.
For my main dish I got eggs sardou: poached eggs on artichoke bottoms in a bed of creamed spinach topped with hollandaise sauce. This is perhaps my idea of the perfect brunch dish because it incorporates my favorite way to prepare eggs with two of my favorite vegetables.
As if I wasn’t stuffed enough from all that I still had a dessert to eat. I opted for the Crepes Fitzgerald, since Alex was getting Bananas Foster. The crepes were filled with cream cheese and topped with marinated, flambéed strawberries. These were also great and actually lighter than I expected them to be.
See? My story has a happy ending – I had a great experience at a New Orleans culinary institution and didn’t have to contend with one bland vegetable.
Brennan’s
417 Royal St
New Orleans, LA 70130
(504) 525-9711 Get Directions
Before we get to the winner of the NOLA Eats Second Annual King Cake Tasting Party, I would like to thank everyone that donated, helped out, promoted, chipped in and attended the party. As I said at the event, we had twelve people in attendance at last year’s party, so I was excited (and a little nervous) about this year’s event. I am so pleased with the turn-out and couldn’t have asked for a better group. If you are curious about our fantastic donors, I will list them all at the end. Now, on to the winner!
I made up score sheets for guests to select their favorite cake and encouraged note-taking. After counting all the votes, the winner was clear; This crowd’s favorite king cake was the cake from Sucré.
Photo Courtesy shopsucre.com
The most common reason stated for voters choosing Sucré was the cake’s moist texture, which I am sure is in part from the whipped cream cheese filling that was initially undetected by some tasters. The cream cheese is almost absorbed by the bread, rather than being stuffed or filled to capacity. While I usually have a preference for traditional king cakes, I quite enjoyed the subtlety of the filling. It seems like many bakeries go overboard with their fillings and toppings, but Sucré changes one’s perception of what a king cake can and should be.
The first runner-up — again, by quite a few votes — were the king cakes from Cake Café. The traditional and the goat cheese and apple-filled cakes were counted as one selection, since the filled cake was either loved or loathed, depending on the taster’s palate. Most tasters, it seemed, factored in both cakes and made their decision based on their overall opinion. As for my two cents, the goat cheese and apple is purely a mind-blowing combo, especially inside a cinnamon-y king cake. Again, I prefer a more traditional approach to king cakes, but I would purchase this pastry any time of the year as a dessert. I love the bread’s texture of their king cakes.
I think it is interesting and perhaps important to note that a large percentage of our tasters are not from Louisiana. NOLA Eats, as a social dining group, attracts newly transplanted young professionals who are interested in meeting people and discovering new restaurants. I think that those that grew up here probably have a strong preference for whatever cake their family favored. New residents do not have this association, so their basis for judging is quite different. Voting was anonymous, but I wish I would have had a spot for tasters to tell me if they were new or long-time residents. This is something I might document for next year. Eating king cakes is scientific!
Regardless of the results, I believe it just goes to show that there really is no definitive “best king cake” with so many factors that play into making these pastries. We all have our favorites, and well, that’s just fine…even if you are the one person that voted for McKenzie’s.
There were a couple of bakeries omitted that I would have liked to have represented, but since NOLA Eats is a social group, not a business or non-profit, items that were not generously donated were purchased with my own hard-earned pennies. Costs for events like this have been evenly split in the past, but since our group keeps growing, I am having to be a little more creative and resourceful…but I love a challenge! We did have a “tip cup” for the king cake tasting party, so many thanks to those that chipped in. It certainly helped.
We got a ton of great pictures of our guests, so please check out the slideshow below. If you have any you would like to add, please send them over to me: Leslie (at) nola-eats (dot) com.
Again, this party couldn’t have been so awesome without the generous support of our donors:
*sigh* I have been sitting on this blog entry for almost two weeks now. I have been super busy planning the NOLA Eats king cake party, and then I got sick, blah blah blah…so, here we are. I’m still backed up from taking time off to get well, so I apologize for the lack of detailed commentary on the food. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment or email me. Thanks!
Ahhh, Sunday. Universally the laziest day of the week. Us New Orleanians know how to make the most of a lazy Sunday, and it’s called brunch. My husband and I took our children to Stanley, a smart soda fountain/diner mash-up for brunch a couple of weeks ago, and while the atmosphere is more casual than Chef/Owner Scott Boswell’s Stella!, the dishes remain creative and thoughtfully put together.
As you can see from the photos, the dishes are obviously beautiful. I am pleased as punch to report that they were as delicious as they were pleasing to the eye. Stanley is a great spot for lunch, brunch or an early dinner (they close at 7:00 pm daily), and excellent for people-watching in the Quarter.
If you are interested in a more in-depth review of the ice cream, check out Lindsay’s review over at her blog ScoopAdventures.com. Unfortunately, I share her opinion of the frozen confections served at Stanley. It was the one thing I felt was a tad disappointing.
One more thing I wanted to add: My daughter had just turned the big “1-0″, so I wanted a candle to stick in her banana split. Our server told us that they did not carry candles for birthdays, so I ran — literally — all over the Quarter searching for a pack. None of the stores carried them for sale, so I followed my instincts and went to Muriel’s Jackson Square right across the street from Stanley. The server that assisted me was happy to give me one of theirs and refused a tip. Bonus points for Muriel’s!
RSVP is not necessary, but if you’re pretty certain you will be attending, give me a little wave in the comments section to help me plan accordingly. I want to make sure there’s enough sweets to go around. Hope to see you there!
Graphic design by long-time member, friend and artist/designer Windi Sebren
tid·bit (tid′bit′)
noun
a pleasing or choice bit of food, news, gossip, etc.
Show Me Your Tidbits is a new feature here at NOLA-Eats.com that I hope you enjoy. I will be presenting some of the latest bites of information in the New Orleans area restaurant and dining scene, and highlighting some of the week’s upcoming events. If you have a tidbit you would like to share, send it in to me at Leslie@nola-eats.com for consideration.
Our first Tidbit is a recipe from The Rib Room‘s Chef Anthony Spizale. For visitors or those new to New Orleans, The Rib Room is housed in the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel in the French Quarter. His braised short ribs with satsuma gremolata is featured on this year’s four-course Reveillon menu. I love elegant hotel restaurants that remain warm and inviting, and The Rib Room is no exception. Be sure to sign up for the restaurant’s emails to be kept up-to-date on when new recipes are posted.
Daniele prefaces her latest contribution to NOLA-Eats.com with this: “What kind of a blogger about New Orleans vegetarian food would I be if I didn’t dedicate a post to our city’s one and only exclusively vegetarian restaurant?” I concur. Veg*n visitors and new transplants might be surprised that the city only has one restaurant that caters to their dietary preferences. Today, Daniele gives us her opinion. -Leslie
Like most vegetarians/vegans/etc. in New Orleans, I was thrilled when I heard that we would be getting a vegetarian restaurant in town again. I moved here just after Old Dog, New Trick closed, so having a veggie restaurant option in New Orleans is a novel thing for me and oh so very welcome. I can’t describe what it’s like to finally be able to go to a restaurant where I can have anything on the menu. Usually I consider myself lucky to have two or three things to choose from, so it can get down right overwhelming when the whole menu is open to me. Being a Gemini doesn’t help in the decision making process either. Heh. I’m glad that my dining companions have been patient with me.
So, is Café Bamboo the best vegetarian restaurant that I’ve ever been to? No, probably not. But is it a good restaurant? Yes, definitely. I know that this place has gotten mixed reviews on various social networking food websites, but most of the things that others have complained about were things that I either did not experience or that did not bother me. I know that Café Bamboo had a change of chefs in recent months, so I’ll just talk about my most recent experience there.
My friends and I braved the cold and the rain to have dinner there last Friday. I had the Bourbon Chick’n, which was phenomenal. I am not sure if the “chicken” was made of soy or gluten. What I am sure is that it was crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and slathered with a great sweet and spicy sauce. The sides that it came with were good for the most part as well: wilted spinach cooked with plenty of garlic and amazing mashed sweet potatoes that had coconut milk in them. The super-dry cornbread wasn’t as impressive, but it served its purpose as a conduit for the extra sauce left on my plate.
So, if you are a vegetarian or a vegan, you should definitely check out Café Bamboo. And if you are the friend of a vegetarian or vegan, humor them by tagging along. They (We) put up with the paltry veggie offerings at your favorite meat restaurants all the time. I am going to go out on a limb here and recommend that even if you are a meat-eater and all of your friends are meat-eaters you might enjoy a visit to Café Bamboo when you are in an adventurous mood.
Cafe Bamboo
Downstairs @ The Dragon’s Den
435 Esplanade Ave., New Orleans, 70116
(504) 940-5546 Get directions
This week I got some flack from other NOLA Tweeters when I criticized the New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival for not having many veggie options. According to the menu published online there will be one veggie-friendly po-boy on offer at the festival this weekend. Compare that to the nine vendors offering their version (or versions) of the roast beef po-boy.
So today I’d like to sing the praises of a vegetarian po-boy that is as uniquely New Orleans as anything else on offer at the Po-Boy Fest: the French fry po-boy. I know you natives will stop me right here and yell “French fry po-boys aren’t vegetarian! They’re covered in roast beef gravy!” Yes. I know. That’s the traditional way to make a French fry po-boy. But it’s been my experience that most places will ask if you want gravy or not even bother unless you specifically ask for it. Chalk it up to cost-cutting, I guess.
French fry po-boy from Vert Marte
By now I’ve had many French fry po-boys throughout the city, and I have to say that my favorite is from Verti Marte, the dingy little deli on the Downtown end of the Quarter. Perhaps it’s because it was where I first made the acquaintance of the French fry po-boy, thanks to a tip from a vegan co-worker. But there is something else that sets Verti Marte’s French fry po-boys apart from the others that I’ve had: the French fries! Instead of the shoe-string style fries, Verti Marte uses the more substantial, thick-cut steak fries. This makes for a more substantial sandwich that is easier to eat because you don’t have to worry about dropping skinny little fries all over the place.
It’s no wonder I love French fry po-boys. They remind me very much of the style of cheese fries I spent my youth eating in various diners throughout New Jersey. By which I mean the style that melts real cheese on top of the fries rather than serving fries drowned in a mysterious orange cheese-product sauce. Back in NJ I got/get my cheese fries with mozzarella melted on top, while here in NOLA I go for the classic cheddar as I find it goes better with the traditional mayo, lettuce, and tomato one gets with a po-boy.
Let me be perfectly clear about something: French fry po-boys are a sometimes food. I only ever eat them when I’m entertaining visitors or after consuming many alcoholic beverages on Decatur St. The human body is not built to withstand such an assault of carbs and grease on a regular basis. But if you think a French fry po-boy is artery-curdling, you should have seen the mac ’n cheese po-boy they used to serve at the short-lived Nighthawk diner on Franklin Ave. in the Marigny.
Verti Marte
1201 Royal St
New Orleans, LA 70116-2512
(504) 525-4767
Combine new media & social networking with food & libations and you get NOLA Eats, a New Orleans-based social dining group and blog. Founder, Event Coordinator and habitual socializer Leslie J. Almeida writes about her favorites in New Orleans restaurants and nightlife while promoting a "live local" lifestyle.
You can follow more of Leslie's NOLA adventures by connecting with her on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.
