Po Boys, Alligator, Beignets & Other Thangs

I'm pretty sure we ate po boys every. single. day. that we were in New Orleans.  In addition to the places already posted about, we also ate po boys at Cafe Pontalba:

Court of Two Sisters:

And Emeril's favourite, Mahony's (also featured on DDDs):

 

These po boys were ridiculously huge.  Massive.  The pictures don't do them justice.  Christopher's oyster po boy cost nearly $30 (market price - wha?), and he would have eaten every last bite had the oysters been a bit better.

I left a little more behind, but I tried!

Believe it or not, we did eat other things other than po boys.  We had some fried alligator, and both loved it!  The taste was kind of a cross between lobster and chicken.  It tastes better than it sounds.

We also had gumbo (a couple of times):

We ate breakfast at Stanley's again because it was so good the first time.  Christopher ordered French toast, and I had a phenomenal egg sandwich.  We also shared some creole potatoes.

Near the end of our trip we visited yet another DDDs dive called The Joint (yes, we watched a lot of DDDs in the months leading up to this trip).  This place is still only frequented by locals, which was obvious when we showed up (and ventured quite a bit away from the touristy areas).  The cab driver seemed surprised that we "found the joint".  This place sells good-ole southern BBQ, all smoked out back.

They serve it up with a selection of sides.  We tried the mac and cheese, coleslaw and beans.  To drink - iced tea of course.

 

This food was worth the cab ride.  I'm still hearing about how good the pulled pork was ;-)  On the way out we grabbed a couple of bacon cookies.  

As we were waiting for our cab, Christopher decided to run back in and grab a cookie for Rico, our helpful, friendly hotel employee who gushed over The Joint when we told him that's where we were headed.

Some time during the trip we went to Cafe Du Monde, which is the largest, busiest coffee shop I've ever seen in my life.  It was absolutely insane, with more tables than most restaurants, each one full.  The take-out window lineup was ridiculous, but we waited anyway to try a famous beignet and cafe au lait.

I thought the beignets were pretty good, but the cafe au lait was just average.  In fact, I could not find a really good coffee in New Orleans.

We had even better beignets when we went to Cafe Beignet after a recommendation from some friendly strangers.

Have you ever eaten alligator?  Have you had a beignet before?  Are you concerned about the number of po boys we consumed?