NOLA - Part 1!

A few months ago I spontaneously booked a flight to New Orleans -- NOLA has been on my "to travel to" list for a while now, and I wanted to give myself a special 27th birthday present. I emailed a few friends and let them know I booked it and they were welcome to join me if they were interested. To my surprise three of my besties booked their flights!

After a couple of rainy days in Boston, I was thrilled to see that the NOLA forecast looked like this:

!!!

Does it get any better? We left on Friday afternoon and boarded our flight at Logan. After a quick stopover in Atlanta, we arrived in New Orleans! Quick side note: my friend Sara had originally told us she was no longer going to make it because of a scheduling issue. We were really bummed, but I almost had a heart attack when she surprised us at the airport in NOLA! So exciting :-D

I booked an Air B&B ahead of time in the Frenchmen area. It seemed like the perfect location (it basically was) -- about a ten minute walk to Frenchmen Street and a fifteen minute walk to the French Quarter. Our host was there to greet us but we didn't see him after that. It was pretty nice -- we had a huge room with two beds, a private bathroom, access to the kitchen and two pets to play with!

BFFs

When we arrived we chatted with Byron (our host) for a little while, got changed, and the headed over to Frenchmen Street for our first taste of New Orleans! Frenchmen is super cool -- it's like the hipster, artistic litter sister to Bourbon Street. It has a ton of great bars, music, restaurants and art.

Street music

Amazing outdoor art market

We managed to sneak into Three Muses for a late dinner. We shared a bunch of awesome tapas including: seared scallops, bacon wrapped dates, lamb sliders, swiss chard fritters (AMAZING), mac n' cheese, and feta fries. I also had a couple of my first local beers!

We hung out on Frenchmen for a while and then walked home to get ready for our early wake up call in the morning.

One thing we all really wanted to do in NOLA was take an airboat swamp tour! When in the bayou, right?! We booked a tour ahead of time with Airboat Adventures and they planned to pick us up at 10:30 am downtown. But first, breakfast!

On our way!

Breakfast has never been my favorite meal (I'm a dinner girl), but I think New Orleans may have changed me. I've never had such delicious breakfasts in my life! Our first breakfast stop was The Ruby Slipper Cafe. We started with some brunch drinks and drooled over the menu.

Those spicy green beans were BOMB

I surprised myself by ordering the "eggs cochon" -- apple braised pork debris sitting on top of a homemade buttermilk biscuit, topped with two poached eggs and hollandaise.

It was even better than it looks.

My friends' meals weren't too shabby either...

After breakfast we got picked up by our bus to head out to the swamp! We were first on the bus and gladly welcomed the addition of two bachelor parties. Ha! Lucky for us that meant free beer for the ride -- even if it was Bud Light.

The swamp tour was amazing! It was two hours long and we saw a ton of alligators, and even got to hold a baby one! It squirmed around wildly when I held it so I basically threw it to the next person. Oops.

Alligators don't have taste buds! So they'll eat anything -- even marshmallows.

Gatorade the Gator!

Lurking

Pass the gator

After the swamp tour we got dropped off on Bourbon Street to do some wandering and drinking!

Eventually we had to head back to the apartment to get ready for dinner! Obviously I made us a reservation well in advance for Commander's Palace!! Among many, many awards, this place has been the #1 or #2 restaurant in New Orleans via Zagat for the past 18 years, and Chef Tory McPhail won the James Beard award for Best Chef in the South in 2013!

For such a great restaurant, the service was a little spotty. The waitstaff just seemed a bit frazzled and didn't even come close to the likes of Menton in Boston. That being said, it was an excellent meal and I'm so happy we went.

I started with the seafood gumbo, which was SO delicious. Definitely one of the best things I ate all weekend. I can't quite remember what I ordered for dinner, but it was an amazing white gulf fish with veggies and a rich sauce. So good.

Sorry for the crappy pictures!

For dessert we split the bread pudding and I was pretty disappointed by it. It was very tiny and seemed like they forgot to actually put the bread pudding in. Not sure what happened there. The few tastes we got were delicious -- I just wanted more! At least I got this special hat and birthday ice cream!

All dressed up after dinner!

We had originally planned to head back to Bourbon Street after dinner but were exhausted from a full day of eating, drinking and sunshine. Luckily we had two more full days in NOLA...

More to come soon!