The Rest of our NOLA Trip

The rest of our trip to New Orleans was full of a lot of wandering, exploring, and of course eats - some good, and some not good.

We love District: Donuts, Sliders, Brew:

It a really trendy, cool place that sells specialty, creative donuts and sliders, as well as amazing coffee.  They have different types of cold-brew coffee on tap!

It was so hard to decide between all the delicious kinds of donuts:

We ended up getting a cereal and milk donut, and it was sooooo good!  It actually did taste like cereal and milk - craziness!

We went back later on the same day to buy donuts to-go:

And then a few days later to get a cinnamon bun with a brulee top:

Before our last trip to New Orleans, three years ago, we did a lot of research.  We found out that Commander's Palace tops a lot of lists, and was considered the best restaurant in NOLA.  We didn't visit this place on our last trip, but we did on this trip ... and boy, were we disappointed. 

Commander's Palace is a fine dining restaurant.  It has a very strict dress code, and a pricier menu.  The service is impeccable. 

Unfortunately, the food was bad.  Very bad.  The bread that they brought out was okay, but it was basically day old, store-bought garlic bread:

We tried the famous turtle soup, but it tasted like boring, one-dimensional chili:

We had the shrimp appetizer which was almost inedible.  It had a strong chemical taste that was absolutely terrible:

Christopher had a steak salad which he described as bland and boring:

And then I had a halibut dish with the most terrible, unseasoned sauce I've ever had:

The fish was well cooked, but nothing on the plate tasted good, so that kind of ruined it.  We were so incredibly disappointed, and don't know how this restaurant is still open, let alone popular.  On the bright side, they do have 25 cent martinis:

We talked to a chef at another restaurant who used to work at Commander's and he agreed with us, saying that they survive on their name (still doesn't explain the awards!?).  This food is perfect for people who don't like flavour ... and that's all I'm going to say about that.

If you're ever in New Orleans, you absolutely have to walk around the Garden District.  It is so beautiful, and the homes are out-of-control.  We had so much fun checking out all the mansions, most with huge gates, and surveillance cameras sticking out everywhere.   

We made faces for the cameras.

We walked and walked and walked and walked ...

And checked out the gorgeous, heated, salt-water pool at our hotel:

And dressed up sometimes:

And ate a lot, and I mean a lot, of oysters:

We went to the two most famous oyster joints in the French Quarter, Acme Oyster House, and Felix's.  We ordered some raw oysters and our new obsession, char grilled oysters.

Muffuletta sandwiches are popular in NOLA, and we tried the original muffuletta from Central Grocery.  It's worth all the fuss.

And finally, we went to Root Squared (the sister restaurant to Square Root which we went to for the tasting dinner; in the same building) for their happy hour snack plate which included radish with butter, crispy chicken skin, a scotch egg, salt cod beignet, and pimento cheese:

Everything was delicious, especially that chicken skin.

Overall, our trip to New Orleans was fantastic.  The weather was hot and humid the whole time, with a giant storm hitting just as we were leaving on Friday.  We definitely lucked out.

Do you have any trips coming up?  Where to?