No surprise I wanted food the minute I settled into my hotel room. I called up my friend Daphne (my New Orleans food partner in crime) and joined up with her crew. We walked around the French Quarter and the River Walk before eventually deciding to find a place to: watch the Penguins game (I wasn’t the only hockey fan in the group), enjoy some adult beverages and chow down.
We stumbled upon Felix’s Seafood, a stalwart tradition known for its oysters and local beers. Considering I am not a fan of oysters or beer, I was more interested in sampling other dishes indigenous to New Orleans. So I opted for the red beans and rice with sausage and, at first, passed on a beer the waitress recommended. As many of my friend know, I hate beer…if this shocks or offends beer connoisseurs, oh well. To me, it smells like moldy bread and looks like someone pissed in a cup and handed it to me. But when the beer, called Abita Amber, arrived for my other dining companions (and let me point out Moses chiseled the Ten Commandments into stone faster than we got our drinks), I was impressed by it’s rich, amber color…and the fact that it didn’t smell like a science experiment gone horribly wrong. Before I go any further, let me say that I am the most forgiving diner when it comes to wait service. I hate nothing more than when a person is rude to a waitperson. So when I say the service was bad at Felix’s, trust me, it was abominable!
Daphne proffered up her cup for me to taste and that was it! I immediately asked our waiter for my own (and by immediately I mean as soon as I could find our disappearing waitress). It tasted nothing like beer to me but instead had a mellow, almost honey like flavor to it. I won’t even attempt to describe it because I don’t know enough about beer to do the job properly. Unfortunately, the beer was the best thing about the meal.
My red beans and rice was lukewarm and had no taste to it at all. No salt, no cayenne pepper, no slight punch of spice…not even a whiff of garlic. The beans tasted like they came from a can and the rice was a bit crunchy. One of my other dining companions had the same complaint about her etouffee. Daphne ordered a cheeseburger po boy, which seemed like nothing more than a cheese burger on a kaiser roll. However, the cheese fries we ordered were good…too bad you can get cheese fries anywhere.
I’m just chalking this up to a one off and moving on to the next restaurant! Next up, Cafe du Monde for beignets and Irene’s for dinner (if I can get in…apparently it’s really popular…and really good). Have fork, will travel!
Stumble It!
Adventures in Shaw 