Chances are pretty high that if you’re going to New Orleans and someone you know has already been there and you’re talking to them about New Orleans, they will say something to the effect of “OMG OMG G O JOMGOGMGOMG PO BOYS DDROOOOL.”  Sure enough, New Orleans is awash (hehehe) in Po Boys, their version of a Hoagie/Grinder/Sub/Whatever. From reading entirely too much on the matter, I came to find that the only functional difference between a Po Boy and any other sandwich/sub on Earth is the use of French bread – which is actually great, since the crust is nice and crisp while the inside is soft. Wonderful for sandwiches without a lot of runny toppings, but in the event that you throw on some gravy fries (as I did) onto your sandwich, you’re gonna end up with a really soggy mess on the bottom.

Case in point: the Ferdi. This rather famous sandwich prepared by Mother’s Restaurant comes on French bread with baked ham, roast beef, debris (in gravy), shredded cabbage, creole mustard and mayo. To be certain, it’s one of the best sandwiches ever and I’d eat an entire plate of debris by itself. But the gravy goes straight to the bottom of the bread and causes it to disintegrate, leaving you with a pile of stuff to eat.

Then again, if you’re like me you’ll eat the whole thing in 2 minutes flat and not have to worry about it. Yeaaaah buddy.

Furthermore, it also seems like the most popular thing to do for 99% of all restaurants serving Po Boys around town is to pile them to the ceiling with fried seafood. Fried oysters, fried shrimp, fried gator tails, fried catfish, fried crawdads, fried fries, it goes on like that for a while (but no fired clams, surprisingly!). It actually begs the question: Why doesn’t Baltimore do this? We’re pretty obsessed with seafood on the whole and I rarely see fried insert seafood here subs around town. Come to think of it, a lake trout Po Boy would be pretty awesome…

To the point, you can’t go anywhere in New Orleans without tripping over a Po Boy. They’re everywhere. Most places do a serviceable job of putting together a nice sandwich for you but real trick is finding the best ones – much like finding a decent deli pretty much anywhere, anymore. So if you go, try Domilese’s, Mother’s, or Sugar Shack. You won’t be disappointed!

…and for an honorable mention try Tomatillo’s for their “niño pobre,” which is basically just a wrap but they were pretty awesome folks and have live music (including a rockabilly version of “When The Saints go Marching In”) often times.

Breakfast in New Orleans

First and easiest of all, Cafe Du Monde. Every single tourist in the city can be found there every morning and it’s not hard to figure out why; they serve two things – coffee and doughnuts. I don’t know when the Cafe decided to start calling them beignets officially but I’m guessing it has something to do with the place being house within “The original French Market.” Regardless, I found photographic evidence that they did in fact used to just call them “Doughnuts.”

All this aside, realistically beignets are remarkably similar in every way imaginable to one food thing in particular: FUNNEL CAKE. They taste the exact same and have the exact same consistency. So from now on, I will refer to Cafe Du Monde as “That funnel cake place.” And so should you.

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Fortunately, if coffee and funnel cake isn’t your thing there are plenty of places to grab a full service breakfast in the Crescent City. My favorite place for a regular ol’ breakfast turned out to be Daisy Dukes, a 24/7 diner type place with a pretty awesome breakfast menu, including a cajun omelet (pictured, with sausage/onion/parsley/tomato/paprika/black pepper) with all the fixins for $8.95 – not too shabby.

And of course, the holy grail of all breakfast experiences in New Orleans is the vaunted Jazz Brunch. There are numerous, numerous places to enjoy a decent Sunday brunch with some hoppin’ jazz music, but after much deliberation I settled on a place called Buffa’s Lounge, a fairly low key locals bar with a Jazz Brunch featuring a special menu every week. The folks there are super friendly and make some fantastic home cooked meals. For more PR, check out their video for a bit of the experience!

So that’s some of what you can expect from breakfast in New Orleans. Stay tuned for part 2!!

INGREDIENTS : 6 slices chopped bacon 2 cups diced onions (about 2 large onions) 1 cup diced celery (about 2 stalks) 1 cup diced carrots (about 2 large carrots) 1 cup clam juice 2 cups diced tomatoes 2 cups tomato juice 1 teaspoon dried thyme 1 bay leaf 1 cup diced potatoes (about 2 medium potatoes) 28-ounce can of chopped clams Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS :

1. In a pan over medium-high heat, cook the bacon until it is crisp. Remove the bacon and drain the majority of the grease. Leave more or less, depending on how much you’re comfortable with (I usually leave a tablespoon or two at most).

2. Add the onions to the remaining grease and cook until golden. Add all of the
other ingredients except the clams and the potatoes and cook for
15 minutes, stirring frequently.

3. Add the potatoes and clams and simmer until the potatoes are tender. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper and taste.

(photo not by me coz my camera is horrible)

Nacho Quest 2009 is nothing short of genius.

Well stated, Jasmine, well stated.

BONUS PIC: Here are some nachos I made while on vacation. The best nachos in Baltimore are the ones you make yourselves, folks!

KICKASS NACHOS

READ THE ARTICLE FIRST OK

Bill Cole gets a phone call from some person from Marriott bitching about this lamb sandwich guy and immediately takes their side, simply because they have more money invested – not to mention the city money, tax breaks etc. involved in the creation of the Marriott in the first place. He’s simultaneously pulling a favor for someone with clout, blatantly stating that the little guy doesn’t matter, and even goes so far as to create a bill that is utterly unnecessary. Thanks Bill!

I just posted a response to your comments on the cart issue on Baltimore Brew. The way this has all played out certainly makes it look like the big guy versus the little guy. I’ve not contacted anybody at the city asking them to be moved. In fact, I’ve dealt solely through the Downtown Partnership as they handle these types of situations fairly regularly (and well).

This particular case does bring to light a problem: squatting on unused permits. I didn’t go into the gory details in the Brew article, but this first came to my attention about 9 months ago when the police ordered that all permits around Market Place be revoked. They were dealing with some crime situations on Lombard and Market Place and wanted all vendors out of the area. One of the vendors, a non-profit organization that keeps teens employed, contacted me asking for help in relocating. Every single intersection they picked was blocked by another vendor. Yet, when we’d go look at that intersection we’d never see anybody using it. Come to find out that many of ideal corners are blocked this way.

Jump ahead about 8 months and then I get the call from the GM at the hotel (that I don’t know) telling me that his restaurant (that I didn’t even know existed) was getting killed by a cart outside. I contact Downtown Partnership and ask them to see if they can move the cart to another corner at that intersection . . . a corner that may well generate more business. Guess what? That corner is blocked and nobody has seen the vendors in many, many months. Can’t move there. They then try the MECU building. Originally, that move was blocked by a property owner on that side. And therein lies the rub . . . a property owner blocked them from moving across the street, but the building that they are now in front of (which they hadn’t been in front of for nearly a decade) wants them to relocate and has no say.

It’s all so complicated and twisted . . . .

One final note, which you may or may not find interesting. I received a call from a restaurant owner less than a block from the cart in question. He said that the cart was killing his lunch business and he wanted them moved to another corner. As far as I could tell, he knew nothing about the flap with the Marriott.

Anyway, I’m not thrilled with the way this has played out. Looks ugly all the way around and I’m generally a champ for small business.

Thanks for your response. I comment pretty frequently on the machinations of the city council and to date I think the only other individual who has responded is Bill Henry – it shows at the very least that you guys are paying attention.

So to make this clear – say I want to sell hot dogs out of a cart. I apply for a vendor license, get my cart inspected by the health department, apply to sell on some sort of corner somewhere, and the corner is married to the cart license until someone complains and asks me to move? What I’m really wondering here is, why aren’t the cart licenses mutually exclusive from the use of the corners? It seems to me the whole reason that the hotel is in the situation that it’s in now is because Mr. Yiannouris “owns” the corner that he’s operating on and due to his previous success opened a restaurant and didn’t operate simply because he didn’t need to. If the license is separated from the corner use – as in, you pay your dues to the city and can hold onto the license, but if you don’t use the corner within a set period of time it goes up for grabs again to another license holder. Or am I simply describing what you’re proposing? The article doesn’t exactly make it terribly clear how the whole system works. 6 months is far too short in my opinion in the event of family and financial situations – those could easily put any operator out of commission for 6 months to a year. Obviously there would need to be special circumstances to consider I would hope.

And it’s a testament to Mr. Yiannouris’ shrewd business sense that he started operating again when he did; an overpriced hotel restaurant opens in a busy section of downtown, he has the rights to sell there and he’s making a killing. Last time I checked we still operate in a capitalist society and if the restaurant is getting killed by a pit beef vendor, it’s an issue of management on the part of the restaurants. Economics 101 – if they don’t want to get killed, they have to compete. But it would seem, it’s easier for them to give someone like you a call (no offense) rather than do the hard work of actually doing business. And I realize the city needs its money and watching these restaurants flounder is difficult to watch on the tax revenue end, but shuffling a wildly successful vendor from one corner to another until he can no longer do business is not the answer. Business owners need to learn how to be business owners, not whiners. (not even going to get into how it’s more than likely prohibitively expensive on the tax end to run a restaurant downtown)

Getting back to the issue of Mr. Yiannouris squatting on the license – again, if he owns the license and pays his dues on it and someone else wants to use that corner, then they should have to BUY the rights from him. At least, that’s how it currently seems to be. But if the licenses and the right to use the corners are separate, I see no issue with saying to someone like him “ok you haven’t used this corner in a year, it’s time to put it up and let someone else (bid to) use it.” He doesn’t lose his cart license, and if he decides he wants to get back on the street, he has to go out there and find one again. Makes sense to me at least.

You’ve nailed how it works. You ‘own’ the corner. Forever.

As long as you pay, you keep that location. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair given the fact nobody can set up shop in front of his establishment. No permits will be issued there. Why? Too close to a restaurant.

I see, I see. So he finds himself in a rather unique situation and is taking advantage of it. Shrewd indeed. But I would foresee a problem in the event that the ‘reverse’ were true – some other person sets up shop on a corner and is wildly successful for years on end without letting the license lapse, and one day a restaurant opens a block away from them. It basically puts the cart pusher at the bottom of the food service ladder since they’re the ones that will have to move. (getting back to that whole big vs. little guy argument)

Yes, that’s the challenge. The fix seems heavy handed as a result.

…..Isn’t local politics fascinating?

The previous winter Restaurant Week was extended an additional week, ending on February 8th rather than February 1st. Given this, the Downtown Partnership came to the conclusion that extending this summer’s event by a week was not enough, and should be extended at least 40 years more. While the exact turnout for this summer’s Restaurant Week is largely unknown, it is expected that patrons will enjoy eating 3 course meals for $30.09, incrementally increasing by a penny every year, for the next 1467 weeks at the very least.

THE NACHO MANIFESTO

1. The base of the nachos must be chips – it can be any kind of corn chip, soy chip, or god forbid root vegetable chip. Despite their high level of awesomeness, waffle fries with nacho toppings are still just cheese fries with vegetables.
2. The chips absolutely must have toppings other than just cheese – movie nachos are not real nachos.
3. If the establishment in question issues the practice of presenting a huge pile of nachos with a layer of toppings ONLY on the top with a core of untouched chips, more than likely they will not make the cut in terms of quality.
4. Despite the fact that meat is undoubtedly capable of making a plate of nachos truly special, it is not a necessity. Totally rockin’ nachos can stand on their own with the perfect blend of cheeses, jalapenos, pico and whatever other toppings the artisan deems worthy.

…more to come. like I said, living breathing work in process.

Truly this is a noble cause, as nachos are quite simply the raddest bar food imaginable. Cheesy, sloppy, piping hot nachos with jalapenos, meat, lettuce tomato and 76 kinds of cheese are the stuff that the most mouthwatering dreams are made of. And the internet may provide a few answers here and there, people may tell you anecdotes about how rockin’ the nachos were over at Holy Frijoles, but I’m a PhD in Nachoology and I am more than utterly qualified to decide which nachos served in Baltimore are the best.

Now, this is going to take some time. I cannot possible eat ten plates of nachos over the course of a single weekend, and I will require suggestions from you dear readers. So if you think you know where the best nachos in Baltimore are served, please feel free to suggest it via email or commentation. Otherwise, hold onto your butts kids. It’s NachoQuest 2009.