For today the schedule was to spend the day in New Orleans by starting off the morning with some beignets at Cafe Du Monde, take out some muffulettas at Central Grocery, and then have lunch at Willie Mae's Scotch House. The rest of the afternoon would be spent back in the French Quarter with dinner plans at either Mother's or Crabby Jack's.
But figuring that I didn't want to waste a lot of time looking for parking by making two trips to the French Quarter, I decided to start the day in New Orleans first by having lunch at Willie Mae's and then drive into the French Quarter to walk around.
After reading the reviews on Willie Mae's, I planned to get there just before they opened at 11am as I didn't want to wait a long time on line nor have them run out of fried chicken. But I was up by 8am and was wondering what to do for the next few hours when I looked at my GPS and saw that I had programmed Laplace, Louisiana in it. Laplace is the Andouille sausage capital and was only about 20 minutes west of where I was staying. I made a few phone calls and found out that the meat markets out there were already open so I changed plans again and decided to head to Laplace.
When I drove out there I was actually looking for Jacob's World Famous Andouille but I turned into the wrong parking lot next door of a small strip mall. There I saw a large sausage man sign which looked awfully familiar. The sign was for Bailey's, another butcher shop that makes andouille sausage. When I went in, I then figured out why it looked familiar. Food Network personality Alton Brown had been there when he taped a segment of Feasting On Asphalt, a show that I really liked. Well if the place was good enough for Alton, I would get some of their andouille too.
Andouille is a smoked sausage that is often used in Cajun recipes. Coming from the northeast, I was surprised to see what the real stuff looked like. You don't often see andouille sausage in the supermarkets back home and for that matter, I didn't see it in the supermarkets that I had been to on this trip. I thought the sausage would look similar to other Italian sausages or even a kielbasa but it was more darker and dense in texture. It kind of reminded me of those really good salami's you see in the specialty section of a grocery store. And even though they were shrink wrapped, the smell of garlic was just oozing out of the package. I bought one pound to bring back home with me, so I didn't get to try it yet. I had brought a cooler with me so I put the sausage in there as I made my trip back east to New Orleans and to Willie Mae's.I got to Willie Mae's by 10:30am and found a parking space right in front. The restaurant is in a run down neighborhood but there was hardly anyone outside. Across the street from the restaurant looked like an abandon school and on the other corner was an empty lot. Being a bit paranoid after reading one of the reviews, I called the restaurant to see what their hours were for today. Someone said that they had gotten to the restaurant early only to wait an hour outside before they opened up. Another review had mentioned that people start lining up about 15 minutes before they open but only one other person showed up at 11am. Needless to say I was the first one in the door at 11am.
Everyone has raved about the fried chicken so I had to get that. I had a choice of a side dish and asked the waiter whether the red beans and rice was better or the butter beans and rice. He said the butter beans and so I went with that choice. He also mentioned that since they just opened up, they just started cooking and it may take a little bit longer for my food.The restaurant is on the small side with 2 rooms and about 15 tables total in the place. It was a friday so I would have suspected that there would be a big lunch crowd but by 11:15am it was just me and another couple in the place. But by around 11:30am people just started pouring into the place and a line started forming by noon time.
As I waited for my meal, the waiter asked if I would like bread or a corn muffin. I chose the corn and he brought out a nice warm muffin. It looked like it was just baked and not just heated up. It had a nice grainy texture and was pretty good, but it didn't really have a strong corn flavor. I would even go as far to say it was kind of bland. I did enjoy eating it as I had to wait about 25 minutes for my fried chicken to come out.
When the fried chicken came out, it looked really good. It had a dark crispy coating on the outside and the chicken was juicy and moist on the inside and of course really hot just coming out of the oil. A lot of people liked the batter as it was different than other places I have had fried chicken like Stroud's in Kansas City or Price's in Charlotte. The batter kind of reminded me of tempura, light, crisp, and airy. It was nice and crunchy but did not have much seasoning. While it was tasty, I didn't get what all the fuss was about. If anything, the best part of the meal was the butter beans and rice. It had a nice creamy texture and complemented the fried chicken as the waiter had said.
People must really like it as the place was very busy and their prices are a little on the high side. The fried chicken was a little bit pricey considering the neighborhood, but what got me was that they charged for little things. They didn't mention it, but the corn muffin cost another 75 cents and the iced tea was $2 a glass, but they did not give you free refills. I thought charging for refills of iced tea in the deep South was sacrilege.I would assume that the place was more for tourist than for locals. The neighborhood looked predominately African-American and there were very few eating in the restaurant. In fact there were many more Asians eating there carrying little guide books with them. Overall it was an enjoyable meal and I would give them 3 stars out of 4 but in no way was that the best fried chicken I have ever eaten. The food was fine and the atmosphere was interesting and I would recommend someone to try it at least once, but I wouldn't be heading back there anytime soon. Especially when there are so many other places to eat in New Orleans.
After lunch, I headed to the French Quarter. The night before the NFL had their opening day in New Orleans when the Saints took on the Minnesota Vikings. They had a parade and concert in the French Quarter area that day but now they were busy breaking down the stage and seating from the festivities. This made for a congested drive through the Quarter and there were still plenty of Saints' fans walking around. I went to a parking lot and made my first stop at the Riverwalk.
The Riverwalk is a shopping mall right along the Mississippi river. The main reason I went there was to get out of the humid and heat of New Orleans but to also visit the Southern Food & Beverage Museum. The museum was kind of on the small side but had some interesting exhibits on the cuisines of New Orleans from Cajun to Creole to the po boy.
From there I walked around the Jackson Square and got an order of beignets at Cafe Du Monde. At first when they gave me the bag, I thought they had only given me one beignet and not an order of three. But I quickly opened up the bag and sure enough there were three but it looks like they had gotten smaller. I ate one and it was still great. Hot, light, chewy texture, and lots of powdered sugar on it make for a great treat.
I then walked across the street to Central Grocery to pick up 2 muffulettas to take home with me to New York. After spending a few hours in the French Quarter I headed back to the hotel. There I put the sandwiches away in my cooler and used the ice from the hotel to keep them chilled for the flight home tomorrow.
Later in the evening I went back to Crabby Jack's for dinner. This time they stayed open until their normal closing time of 5pm. I wanted to try their duck po boy. I like to eat duck and have never heard of a duck po boy before so this should be interesting. The place is a little on the run down side and is in an industrial area of New Orleans. The inside is decorated with all kinds of eclectic stuff. Like Bozo's, they had a sign on the wall saying that they did not have oysters. I guess the oyster problem was a lot bigger than you hear on the news.
It didn't take long before I got my duck po boy and I took it back to the hotel with me for my dinner. I had that and the rest of the beignets for dessert. The duck po boy was dressed and had plenty of duck in it, but it was shredded. The sandwich was good but the texture was more like pulled pork and I would have preferred chunks of duck meat. Also it was kind of messy as the meat would come oozing out of the bread. I would definitely go back but probably try another kind of po boy.
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