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Published: August 31st 2017
Today we decided to have a more relaxing day, so we'd had a few busy ones. Our first stop was some brunch and I had found a place online that I had wanted to try. Atchafalaya is on the edge of the Garden District, so we drove over there. It didn't take too long to get there. This was our first time to visit the Garden District. The area seemed really residential. We headed over to the restaurant and got a table out on the deck, tucked away from the street. I liked this spot as you could people watch the goings on on the street, without being too close. The restaurant was in a really cute, wooden house. The building has been a restaurant since 1924, but has been through a few incarnations to become the restaurant it is today.
Our reservation was quite early, so there weren't many other people there. We had already looked at the menu online, so we just had to narrow down our choices. Boozy brunches must be a thing in New Orleans, like they are in other parts, as the waitress was encouraging us to get cocktails, but I stuck firmly with coffee.
Duck Hash
AtchafalayaI am far too old to drink alcohol this early, and I would probably suffer caffeine withdrawal if I didn't get some coffee into me. We picked three dishes to share, Korean Style Pork Belly, Duck Hash, and Eggs Atchafalaya. We also went with a side of alligator sausage as we were curious to see what it would taste like. I really enjoyed the food, it was all delicious. I think the Duck Hash was the best dish though. The alligator sausage was fine, it was decent but not amazing or that memorable.
After our brunch, we drove back to where we were staying and headed out for a wander around the French District. We'd had a little wander the other night, but today we got to explore more. The streets here are just so pretty. My and my friend commented again that it felt like we were in Europe or the Caribbean, the architecture was just so different to the rest of the US. We spent a couple of hours wandering the streets, looking in the shops and art galleries. If I ever come into money (very unlikely), I will be heading back to New Orleans to buy
some art. There were some really beautiful pieces on display. I really loved the work of one artist in particular, Tanner. He paints the most amazing woodland scenes. I want a house full of his work. We also stopped for a coffee and a sweet treat treat at a bakery in the French Quarter. We liked the look of the cannoli, which is a Sicilian pastry. Ours was filed with a ricotta cream, the ends were dotted with chocolate chips and dusted with icing sugar. I enjoyed it, but my friend wasn't impressed with it.
We headed over to the edge of the French Quarter, start of the CBD area. From here, we were going to take the streetcar to the Garden District. The streetcar ride was fun, not as fun as the cable car in San Francisco as it only goes along the flat. We got off in the Garden District and went for a wander. The streetcar drops you in a very residential area, near Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. We got there too late in the day as it was closed, there were a few walking tour groups around, I wished we'd had more time to do
a walking tour or two in New Orleans. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is the oldest municipal cemetery in New Orleans. We had a walk about the streets. They were full of very nice looking houses. We also spotted more of the horse head poles on the streets. We did some research into it later and found out that they were hitching posts used in the Victorian times. I don't think the one we saw were originals, but it is a nice reminder of the past.
We headed down to Magazine Street, the main shopping and eating street in the Garden District. We spent a while wandering around the shops. Most of the stuff was out of my price range. There were a few nice looking bars and restaurants. Since we were feeling a little peckish, we decided to stop at one place and get some food. There was a pizza place that looked good, so we opted for that. Reginelli's Pizzeria was a nice looking place and I'm glad we opted to eat there. i also got another food knocked of my list of American must eats -pizza! I know pizza isn't a traditionally American dish, but I still
wanted to have it here. We ordered a caramelised onion burrata pizza. Burrata is a fresh Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream. The pizza was delicious and I wished we had ordered more than one. After our pizza, we walked back to the streetcar station,taking in more of the beautiful houses. We also walked the perimeter of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, so that we could see some more of the tombs.
We had decided that we should go to Frenchman Street to hear some music, so later that evening we set off. We had typed Frenchman Street into the GPS and it had told us it was miles away, so we set off in the car. We drove for ages and ended up in a very quiet and slightly dodgy looking part of town. We has all the car doors locked, and it didn't help that we drove through a couple of potholes. Well, it turns out that Frenchman is a huge, long street and the GPS had told us to go completely the wrong part. We googled a name of a bar and to the GPS to redirect us. We had ended up in completely the wrong
directions. Ooops! When we got to the right place we knew instantly that we were there, it was so busy. We had a walk around the streets and found a nice outdoor market in some kind of courtyard. We wandered around all the bars were heaving and most seemed to have a cover charge. My inner tightwad didn't want to pay it, what if the music was crap. Also the thought of going in somewhere that was rammed didn't appeal, I did all that when I was younger. We were also getting hungry, so we decided to look for somewhere to eat.
We came across a place called The Praline Connection and since it looked busy we headed in there. The restaurant started out in 1990 as a home delivery service aimed at career women too busy to cook for their families and has evolved into a restaurant. I really liked the place, the waiters were all dressed in a jazz/blues theme and the place looked like the real deal. I also loved seeing all the huge plates of food being carried to the table. Gotta love a place that doesn't skimp on portion sizes. We ordered the meatloaf,
BBQ ribs and fried shrimp, I think we may have got some fried pickles, too, but I can't remember. The food was good, nothing fancy but tasty and filling. I really liked the cornbread. Feeling full, we headed off to listen to some music. We found a place that wasn't charging so we went in and ordered a drink. We soon found out why there wasn't a cover charge, the band literally finished the song and left the stage. Nevermind! I'm not the world's biggest music fan so it didn't disappoint me. We enjoyed our drinks and then headed home. We had to laugh on the drive home, it only took a few minutes. We were actually staying really close to Frenchman Street and probably could have walked it.
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