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It's impossible not to cheat in New Orleans. I don't know what it is about this town that inspires such deliciously sinful behavior in people... okay, in me, but every minute I'm here there's no time to waste and I need to be eating, fucking, or both. And if my "better half" is going to insist on spending his days at work I can't be held accountable for my actions.
I do my cheating at lunch — my baby takes the mornin' train and all that — so I need to be done by evening. And that's why I love Olde Nawlins Cookery at lunch time. The locals think it's a quaint French Quarter family restaurant for tourists so they don't give it a second glance, and it's best that they don't as there are times a guy needs his privacy. The tourists, on the other hand, assume this is a local dive and move on in search of Hard Rock McShitbags or whatever the fuck it is tourists look for. Either way this arrangement works great for me — the place is quiet and I get my table in the back by one of the big french windows so I can see who's coming and going on Conti Street.
The food here is awesome for a little family-run joint. The building also has its charms, like a lot of buildings here in the French Quarter it's old — 160 years at last count. The atmosphere is what I like to call neo-secluded. Centrally located yet off the beaten path. Friendly service that minds its own business. I get what I want and nobody bothers me.
My usual is the bowl of red beans and rice ($5.75). The beans are creamy and stewed with cajun spices, ladled over a bed of white rice, and served with grilled andouille sausage and homemade cornbread. I'm not usually a big sausage fan but this is really the place to get it. Mixed in with the beans and rice, the sausage becomes part of a rich, creamy stew with complex flavors. The perfect complement for this dish is a bottle of Blackened Voodoo Beer ($4), which is dark and smooth and goes great with those fine cajun spices.
I've been by the Olde Nawlins Cookery a few times, let's just say I had to do something all those hot mornings, and also had success with their Cajun sausage jambalaya ($6.25) — a perfect balance of moist but not clingy, which is just the way I like... Jambalaya, and also the Creole Mustard Chicken ($6) — a great original recipe, interesting and flavorful, and spicy and sexy and blonde. Blonde-colored mustard.
So les mecs, if you've got something cookin' and you don't want nobody sniffing around the pot before it's done, dive into Olde Nawlins Cookery for a quick bite before your main event. |
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| chumwater |
| January 5, 2002 |
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