Eating in New Orleans

The fork is about 4 feet long

When you are in the innkeeping business like we are, people ask you if you know any good restaurants.

One of our guests today observed that we pay so much attention to what we serve at breakfast that we must be foodies.  She is half right.  I would be happy to go to Mandina's every day and eat turtle soup.  Frau Schmitt is of a different mind, however, and she is usually right about these things.  Like my doctor, she worries what an all-turtle diet does to my serum cholesterol.  

There are over 600 restaurants in New Orleans.  In three and a half years, we have been to almost 200, mostly for lunch.

Cafe Dauphine

When you keep an inn close the French Quarter like we do, people ask for recommendations to French Quarter restaurants.  My pat response is that I like to eat wherever the line is shortest.  Frau Schmitt agrees with this strategy since it is very hard to have to have a bad meal in the Vieux Carre.  Just ask the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

When we're in the Lower 9th Ward, we like to go to Cafe Dauphine, on the corner of Dauphine and Egania Streets.  It's a fairly new place, right across from a pale green and pink shotgun.

Egania Street, New Orleans

They have already built a steady clientele and a reputation based on their signature dish.

Cafe Dauphine menu

Fried Stuffed Bell Peppers:  Fresh bell pepper stuffed with crabmeat and shrimp dressing battered and deep fried to perfection.  I've never ordered that.  I'm watching my cholesterol.  I've seen people order it, though, and it looks delicious.  They are always grinning when they finish.

There are all sorts of interesting things to be found outside the French Quarter.  We don't pooh-pooh the neighborhood that makes New Orleans famous, but, for people who want to get out and about and have adventures, there are plenty of other things to taste and see.  When you are an innkeeper, you have to know these things.

Anybody can read a guidebook and anybody can scour the listings on yelp.  More power to them.  We don't tell anybody to look up anything on yelp, except for this place.  We give you the real scoop on the skinny of what is best about living in our fair city.  We live here.

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.