Travel Recap: Morgan City and New Orleans

It's been a couple weeks now and I'm very much behind on my posts, but here is a recap of our trip to Morgan City and New Orleans, Louisiana.  It was both Brian's and I first time to this hot, humid southern state so we didn't know quite what to expect.  One of our first stops in New Orleans was Magazine Street, where we had some brunch and then walked around for some window shopping.  They had a lot of great stores with antiques and other vintage items.

And the local Alligator Museum.

My friend's wedding was about an hour or so away from New Orleans in Franklin, Louisiana.  We stayed in the neighboring town of Morgan City, where we were lucky enough to catch their one big event of the year: The Shrimp and Petroleum Festival.  It was a cute small town festival, located under a freeway.  There were some unique and home-made items for sale...

like a logging truck...

and alligator heads...

and instead of stuffed-animal prizes, you could win live bunnies.  It does seem a little irresponsible to be giving away live animals as prizes, especially to kids who might be unprepared to take care of them (that might be why the local park nearby has some "wild" bunnies on the loose).

And my friend's wedding was in the backyard of a family home, and it was gorgeous!  A dreamy wedding out near the bayou.

The next day we went on a plantation tour at Oak Alley Plantation, one of the many plantations that line the banks of the Mississippi River.  This particular plantation was named after the row of twenty-eight, 300-year-old oak trees planted out front.

And we ended our trip back in New Orleans where we wandered around the French Quarter.  Bourbon Street with all their strip clubs and public drunkenness was a little less appealing, but the rest of the French Quarter, especially Royal Street with their shops and characteristic architecture, were great places to browse.

And we also caught a very intimate performance by a New Orleans Jazz group at Preservation Hall.  If you ever have a chance, I would say this performance is a must-see in New Orleans.

What to eat: New Orleans, Louisiana

Hi y'all!  It's been awhile since my last post but I've been trying to catch up after almost a week in Louisiana.  I was there for a friend's wedding and we decided to stick around some extra days to explore New Orleans since my husband and I have never been there before.  I'm still working on putting up a recap post on the trip but in the meantime, here's another edition of "Where to Eat" though actually this time it's "What to Eat" since it's not so much about where you go but just enjoying the cuisine of Louisiana.

We got in late to New Orleans, so we decided to stay at a hotel near the airport the first night.  And one of the few places still open late was Harbor Seafood & Oyster Bar in Kenner, Louisiana.  This place was amazing and easily one of my favorite meals of the trip.  I decided to dive right into the local cuisine and so I order the Swamp Platter pictured above.  It included: fried alligator, fried crawfish tails, fried frog legs, turtle soup, crawfish étouffée, and cajun boiled alligator sausage.  My favorites were fried alligator {tasted like a moist and tender chicken but less dense.  They should call alligator meat "it's chicken, but better" or maybe "I can't believe it's not chicken"} and the crawfish étouffée.  The frog legs were also like chicken, but alligator was way better.  And I washed this all down with $2 pints of Abita draft beer.  If I'm ever back in the area,I'm definitely coming back to this place.

Having filled my quota for exotic meats, the next day was a welcome dinner hosted by the bride's lovely family: a cajun crab boil with fresh crab caught out on the bayou.  The crab had super hard shells and not a whole lot of meat.  But it was still super tasty.  And the locals here just use their butter knives to crack these suckers open.  I got the hang of it and ate about 4 of these crustaceans.

When in Louisiana, don't forget to try the mint juleps.  Here I have a "flight" of mint juleps: a lemon mint julep, the classic, and a blackberry frozen.  To be honest, all of it just tasted really sweet.

I was tempted to buy some of these cans to eat some alligator at home but decided against it.  Better to keep the memories of good alligator-eatin' in Louisiana instead of trying to recreate it at home.

Also, you can't miss out on Louisiana oysters.  These guys were huge, but so fresh and delicious!  And fairly cheap too.

For our last dinner in New Orleans, we decided to try fancy Cajun/Creole food and tried out a restaurant called R'evolution located in the French Quarter.

We ordered, a pasta, a steak, a bouillabaisse, and some crab beignets.  The crab beignets were phenomenal, they were probably the best thing I ate during the whole trip.  And I finished the meal with their "lemon ice box" cake.  It was like lemon ice cream cake and the perfect end to the meal.

Finally, we stopped off to get some regular square beignets on the way to the airport.  I forgot to take a picture of them, but here's an illustration below.  They tasted a lot like malasadas, which are Hawaii's version of donuts.  I guess fried dough is fried dough.

Anyways I hope you enjoyed this short recap and hope y'all have a great week!