Tag Archives: Around Town

Around Town: The August Round Up

Posted on by
Reply

The White Linen Night Crowd (Photo courtesy of the NOLA Arts District)

It’s August, which means it is either hot as can be, pouring or both. August is a pretty slow month, but that doesn’t mean the city is dead. The slow down in tourists and locals fleeing the city means that the restaurants are hurting for business. Which in turn means special deals galore!

COOLinary New Orleans gives you cheap deals on multi-course lunches and dinners at some pretty nice places. Our run-down of the event for GoNOLA is here. Unfortunately, the COOLinary promotion has been shortened to August only, from the prior year’s August through September. In similar fashion, GW Fins is offering the Fins Feast. From Sunday through Thursday, you can get a three course meal for $35, $5 of which will go help Friends of the Fishermen.

August also gives us a couple of fun events. This weekend has the Satchmo Summerfest and White Linen Night rolling through.

The following week gives us Dirty Linen Night, the Red Dress Run, and the 2nd Annual Louisiana Hot Sauce and Gourmet Food Festival (at the Pontchartrain Center). Finally, the Krewe of Oak closes out August with their annual Mid-Summer Mardi Gras parade on the 27th.

Enjoy the last few days of summer and stay cool!

Around Town: Bayou Boogaloo

Posted on by
Reply

Your Jazz Fest sunburn is gone, you’ve knocked off those five (or ten) pounds from the great food and you’ve probably finally gotten all the track sand out of your shoes. Unfortunately, as likely as it is that your body has recovered, it is also as likely that your wallet has yet to recover. Fortunately, there is a free festival in town this weekend! The 6th Annual Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo is happening Friday, Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine. It’s a free festival along the banks of Bayou St. John featuring more than 30 bands on 3 stages and plenty of local art and food. Oh, and did I mention it’s free?

Sure, this isn’t quite Jazz Fest food area 1 or 2, but the food lineup is pretty killer. You can hit the to-kill-for Boucherie’s 12 hour roast beef po-boy, follow it up with Bad Bart’s Black Jambalaya from the Crescent Pie and Sausage Company and close out with a Meltdown popsicle frozen treat. Cupcake and I are more than a little bummed to see that the folks from Vaucresson’s will not be at the bayou, but I’m sure some of the other treats will make up for it.

You can check out the music line up here and read more about The Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo, including their charitable and sustainability initiatives here. Hope to see you there!

NOWFE: Get to it

Posted on by
3

The New Orleans Wine and Food Experience is coming quickly, the whole thing kicks off less than two weeks away. You can find our GoNola run down of all the events here. While you can get Grand Tasting tickets the day of (for a bit extra cash), there are some events that you need to book right away if it isn’t too late already. One would be the uber-exclusive Vinola dinner on Thursday, May 26. With only 200 tickets, space is very limited.

The other event I recommend you getting into is one of the wine dinners on Wednesday, May 25. I recommend scoping the menus and picking what looks good and jumping in right away. It would be a shame to have it sell out on you. Of course, if you’d like to have dinner with Cupcake and I or many of the other, more proficient, NOLA food bloggers, I recommend hitting up the MiLa wine dinner. Organized by He Said She Said, we’re aiming at taking over the place. To read more about the event, check out He Said She Said’s plans here. Even if you don’t decide to join us, I recommend checking one of these bad boys out.

French Quarter Fest First Timers

Posted on by
Reply

The official 2011 French Quarter Festival Poster. Photo from nola.com.

You all probably know by now that $1.25 and I just love spring in New Orleans.  Not only is the weather beautiful (for the most part anyway), but it’s festival season!  And one of our absolute favorites, French Quarter Fest, is just days away.  

In my impatient wait for the weekend to hurry up and get here, I decided to check out the list of festival food vendors set to tantalize our taste buds this year.  I was really just checking to make sure I could get my old standby favorites from last year, but I noticed there are quite a few newcomers to the list this year too.  So, in addition to all of the faithful favorites, $1.25 and I are going to have to find some room to sample these newbies as well.

In Jackson Square look for Broussard’s Restaurant and Courtyard, where they’ll be serving Crawfish in Puff Pastry with Mustard Dill and Slow Roasted Pork in Onion Stew Po’ Boy (YUM!).  Right after that we’ll beeline our way over to Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse for their Prime Beef Debris Po’ Boy and a BBQ Shrimp Po’ Boy.

From there, you’ll want to head to the Old U.S. Mint food booths, where Boswell’s Jamaican Grill will add Jerk Chicken, Rice and Peas, Callaloo, and Beef or Veggie Patties to the mix.  I’m particularly excited to check out the new Tempura Battered Softshell Crab Po’ Boy at the new Oceana Grill booth.  Oceana will also be serving chargrilled oysters, but $1.25 and I don’t do the oyster thing.

Finally, at Woldenberg Riverfront Park, you won’t want to miss Big Mooney’s Restaurant’s Stuffed Crab, Stuffed Crab Po’ Boy and Seafood Pasta.  Mona’s will be there too with their Gyro Sandwich, Gyro Platter and some other Mediterranean goodies.

Phew.  And you thought French Quarter Fest couldn’t get any better!  Looks like we’re in for a great weekend. We’ll have more for you as we get closer to quittin’ time on Friday. Check back here later in the week and, in the mean time, check out fqfi.org for more information.

Around Town: Hogs for the Cause

Posted on by
Reply

So much has been happening lately. Both Cupcake and I have celebrated another year since we were born and this here site eclipsed the one year mark. With all these birthdays, there was some serious celebrating to do. Through it all we managed to pick up some new spots for featuring in the Fresh 50, enjoyed some interesting new booze to discuss and received some kick ass kitchen tools that we’ve been testing out.

But I’m not here to talk about all that right now. Today is about supporting yet another great cause with Hogs for the Cause, which is this weekend. We did a preview piece of the glorious City Park event over at GoNOLA.com, here. It’s important to note that while it is all going to a great cause, tickets will go from $10 now to $15 at the door. So buy your tickets now and use that extra $5 to help propel your favorite team to victory.

On a vastly more humorous note, I was asked to help judge this year. Without a doubt, this is an honor and responsibility that I do not take lightly. For those of you competing this year, please remember that all bribes are created equal, but gin is more equal than others. As always, I love to meet the folks out there so stop on by and say hi!

Around Town: NOLA Brewing Irish Channel Stout Release Party

Posted on by
Reply

Pic from NOLA Brewing's Facebook page

Well we’ve survived another prime time Saints game. I think I might be running at about 75% by tonight, but I think that is all I’m going to need for the premier of the latest addition to the NOLA Brewing collection, Irish Channel Stout. The premier will kick off at Le Bon Temp at 6:00 pm and unlike the regular Thursday Soul Rebels show it will (probably) start on time.

NOLA Brewing tells us that the Irish Channel Stout is

an American style stout that has sweet malt flavors of caramel and chocolate, complimented by a crisp bitterness produced by roasted barley and American Hops. The complex malt bill of pale and roasted malts result in this well balanced stout that is smooth, rich, dark and delicious!
ABV 6.8%

As a fan of stouts and everything that Peter Caddoo and Kirk Coco have brewed up, I am really looking forward to getting my hands on the ICS at this premier. I hope to see you out there!

Irish Channel Stout Release Party
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
6 – 9 pm
Le Bon Temps
4801 Magazine Street
New Orleans, LA

Still recovering from the Saints game and can’t make it? You can always try to hit up the free Friday brew tours at the Brewery starting at 2:00 for your taste of the ICS or pick it up at most any quality grocery store or bar.

Around Town: Reds, Whites and the Blues

Posted on by
Reply

It’s Thursday (finally), so that means for many people it is the unofficial start of the weekend. For those of you in a business program, it is the official start of your weekend. If you’re week has been anything like ours, you haven’t had time to even think for a minute about your free time. Unless of course you’re thinking about how stuff keeps popping up to take it away from you. All this comes down to two things, you need something fun to do and you need a drink.

Enter Gambit’s 8th Annual Reds, Whites and the Blues event. Sure there will be the some music, some food from great restaurants and a pretty decent collection of wines to taste from. However, one of the greatest things about this event is the raffle, a chance to win a 200 bottle wine collection. Raffle tickets are only $5 or 6 for $20.

Reds, Whites and The Blues
City Park
Pavilion of the Two Sisters
Today from 6-9 pm
Tickets are $70 at the door.

Proceeds to benefit the Big Easy Awards Foundation for Entertainment Development and Education, which supports culture and the performing arts in New Orleans.

Around Town: Tales of The Toddy

Posted on by
1

Missed Tails of the Cocktail or just thirsty again? Coming soon, you’ll be able to hit what looks to be a smaller offseason version. You know, like OTAs or spring baseball.

Unlike TOTC, Tails of the Toddy is a one day event, December 16, 2010–right in time to prop up your holiday cheer. TOTTy [tm] tickets run a mere $25.00 and include the sampling of many a toddy. I’m sure more details will abound as we get closer to the event, but there is one special appearance that should be worth the $25 entry fee on its own, or at least so Cupcake tells me, the men of the 2011 New Orleans Firefighter calendar.

Plus bonus room rates ($99) at the Hotel Monteleone. That’s sounds cheaper than a DUI.

UPDATE (10/15): Just got a discount code for this bad boy, promising half price tickets with code NOLA. Not sure how long this may last so hop to it if you’re going.

Around Town: Red Fish Grill Abita Beer Dinner

Posted on by
2

So six months we told you about the Abita Beer dinner at Galatoire’s. We had a pretty fantastic time. So when the invite to the latest beer dinner popped into my inbox, I was pretty excited. The Red Fish dinner is happening this Thursday at 6:30 (beer-tails hour). Going for $75 (inclusive of tax and gratuity), the Red Fish Grill dinner features five Abita paired courses, including an alligator crusted redfish corndog. If that doesn’t at least pique your curiosity you may be dead.

To see the full menu and the other nitty gritty details, click here.

Ready to sign up already? Reserve your spot at 598-1200.

Around Town: The Theatres at Canal Place

Posted on by
Reply

Have you noticed that a trip to the movies isn’t really that much fun anymore?  First you stand in line waiting to buy tickets or to pick them up from the machine.  You get the opportunity to buy low quality food and candy and overpriced sodas or bottles of water.  Then when you finally make it to your theater, you’re crammed into seats surrounded by kids and people who text and talk through the entire movie.  By the time you leave, you’re irritated and you don’t remember half of the movie because some guy behind you kept answering his cell phone throughout the whole thing.  And you probably dropped over $20 a person before the fun was said and done.

I had that experience enough times that I finally just gave up on going to the movies at all.  DVR and Netflix in the comfort of my own home were just fine.  Until now.  Along came my cinematic knight in shining armor: The Theatres at Canal Place!  The Theatres opened a few months ago as a renovated version of the crusty old theater in the Canal Place mall downtown.  And boy, did they renovate!!  The small theaters are now comfortably appointed with a select number of cozy leather loungers arranged in stadium seating, digital surround sound, and a cafe that offers seat-side service.  And to add to all that luxury, the theater graciously limits its clientele to those 18 years of age and older.  Yes!  18 and older never sounded so good! Continue reading →