[b][color=yellow][size=200]#1: BOILED CRAWFISH, AT [url=http://www.marketcafenola.com/]MARKET CAFE[/url][/size][/color][/b]

Before we even set out on this trip, the one thing I was looking forward to most was getting a big ol' mess of crawdads and just going crazy on it.

When it came time for our first lunch there, we decided there'd be no time like the present to knock that off the "to-do" list, so we asked a couple of folks running the store we were shopping in, "where can you get some good crawfish around here?"

The first one just laughed, and the meaning was clear: It's New Orleans. There are crawfish everywhere and they're all great.

The other one, however, pointed us to the Market Cafe, citing that the chef had been there for thirty years, and that it was theeee place to go. So we goed.

The Market Cafe is located right when Decatur splits into Decatur and Peters, right in between them at the fork. Most of the tables are outside in its enormous patio section, with ceiling fans struggling above your head to keep some breeze going.

There is nothing fancy here. There is no pretense. There is a band playing Zydeco. There are plastic and paper plates and cups.

There are also the tastiest, most perfectly spiced and cooked mudbugs I ever did have, and sitting there in the sunlight between Decatur and Peters, sucking heads and biting tails, with the bustle of the French Quarter going on around you in every direction, the band struggling to be overheard over the din of the crowds and the steamboats' whistles and street performers and barely-contained chaos which defines the place, well, it was all the best of New Orleans, seasoned and boiled together into one perfect, unforgettable moment.

[b][size=200][color=yellow]#2: FERDI SPECIAL, AT [url=http://www.mothersrestaurant.net/]MOTHER'S[/url][/color][/size][/b]

I knew I was going to eat a po boy. You know you're going to eat a po boy if you go to NOLA. But which one? Shrimp? Oysters? Catfish? Which delicious local seafood are you going to go with?

Certainly you are not going to go with a SEAFOOD-FREE PO BOY, because that would be sacrilege. Except then you saw the "Ferdi Special", at Mother's Restaurant, on an episode of Travel Channel's "Man v. Food" with Adam Richman, and since Adam Richman is like Guy Fieri except talented and funny and not a complete douchebag, you trust his opinion when he says you have to go to Mother's to get a Ferdi Special.

Mother's Restaurant is a wonder. There is a long line, but it is a picture of efficiency. One lady takes your order and money, the next lady gives you your drinks, then you find a table and put your receipt on it. The third lady then grabs the receipt and takes in back to the kitchen. No "here's your number" or anything, because they just [i]know where you are[/i]. And the place is huge, so although the line is daunting, we didn't have any problem finding a seat.

The Ferdi Special is a po boy consisting of their own in-house baked ham, roast beef, shredded cabbage, pickle, mayo and mustard on a French roll.

Big deal, ham and roast beef sandwich.

Oh wait, except I forgot:

[i]The debris.[/i] Pronounce it like it's French: [i]Day-BREE,[/i] which is essentially a pot roast braising in its own juices for a hundred hours until it all falls apart and becomes a savory mix of beef and gravy never before known to man.

It's like they got to the end of the sandwich and said, ehh, let's just pour a pot roast on top of it, just for fun.

The juice runs all around the plate, and the bottom half of the roll is instantly turned to gravy-soaked mush. If you've ever had a dipped Italian beef sandwich in Chicago, you know that [i]this is a very good thing.[/i] So then you pick up the gravy-mushed roll, holding together the beef and the ham and the bits of pot roast and all the rest and dig in, and...

...and you'll realize you're having probably one of the five best sandwiches in the world. I certainly cannot think of five better. An amazing experience. I wasn't even hungry, and I ended up tearing through it in like five minutes, wishing I had more.

I also had a side of red beans and rice, which were the best RB&R I've ever had, but that's not the point.

Wow.

[b][color=yellow][size=200]#3: BEIGNETS, AT [url=http://www.cafebeignet.com/]CAFE BEIGNET[/url][/size][/color][/b]

"One thing you gotta do is go to Cafe Du Monde for the beignets!!" everyone will tell you. Then you will get to Cafe Du Monde and find a line to get in snaking two blocks down Decatur St. and then you have a decision to make. Our decision was, we're fine doing tourist stuff, but we ain't waiting in a long line for fuckin' anything. There doesn't EXIST a meal that I'd wait for like it was the new ride on opening day at Six Flags.

So Kathy found this place, which is not quite as famous, but was closer to the hotel, and had a nice courtyard, and good coffee, and she went there one morning while I slept. She had the beignets and said they're really really good, I gotta try one next time.

Now, two things I generally don't like are: Eating in the morning (not hungry), and: Sweets. Not that I don't LIKE sweets, I'd just rather have bacon and eggs than a pancake, know what I'm saying? So the thought of getting up early to get a... what is it? [i]"Beignet"??[/i] The fuck is a Beignet?

Savvyraven lived up to the "savvy" in her name by trying to describe them to me as "kind of like a sopapilla", since she knows I'm still sour we had to leave New Mexico. "Kind of like a sopapilla, but filled with dough instead of air, and covered in powdered sugar." Well, I like sopapillas, but again, there is no way you're going to get me excited about some piece of sweetened, fried dough when I'd rather be sleeping.

But it was vacation, and she really wanted me to go, so I came along, and we ordered our coffee and got our "beignets", fresh out of the deep fryer, and sat in the courtyard. You get three beignets to an order. I just wanted like a bite of one to see what it was. So I bit into one.

One of those beautiful food moments then occurs, where your brain just snaps out of whatever plans it was making and reflections it was reflecting, and all you can think is, this, this right here, is the best thing ever.

A million degrees, crispy crunchy on the outside, a pillow of fucking heaven in between, with powdered sugar flying everywhere... The first one was gone before I stopped mumbling "oghh myghh ghghod" while the birds try to catch the little bits of dough spittling out of my mouth.

I felt Savvyraven was pushing her luck a little when she said, "better than a sopapilla, right?" I sneered back, put down my beignet, took a slow, long sip of coffee, looked at her and said:

Holy fuckin' christ yes.

Sorry ABQ. The French are disgusting, rude, smelly, surrendering pussies, but in the food world, everything they even had a remote hand in influencing is just incredible.

[b][size=200][color=yellow]#4: RAW OYSTERS, AT [url=http://www.crescentcitybrewhouse.com/]CRESCENT CITY BREWHOUSE[/url][/color][/size][/b]

We had oysters all over that bitch, fully expecting the best to come from some place called "Les Fondeaux De Fucque Oyster Bar 'n' Seafood Dive", but after all we sampled, both of us agreed that the best, somewhat unexpectedly, were at the fancy local brewpub, Crescent City. The oysters themselves were clean, fresh, bigger than normal but still maintaining a sweet, briny flavor.

But what put it over the top was Chef Zo's cocktail sauce. Chef Zo was the shucker, and when we commented how awesome the cocktail sauce was, he told us it was his own recipe, so we said, "wow, you should bottle this!" His answer was "working on it, should be a couple weeks" and gave us his business card. I expect Chef Zo to be famous shortly for his cocktail sauce, probably the best I've yet come across.

For the purists, though, even without the sauce I found Crescent City's raw bar to present the tastiest offerings of all the ones we sampled. I'm not HUGE on raw oysters, but this is as close as I've ever gotten to becoming superfan #1.

Savvyraven and I went to the BIG EASY for our second anniversary vacation/get the fuck away from the dogs for a few days escapade. Neither of us had been there before, but it proved to be the best vacation yet!

Have no misconception: New Orleans is the most fun you can have in the world while actively fearing for your own life. It's Vegas without the pretense, with some of the greatest food in the world, and with way more vomit, piss and blood to clean up on the streets every morning.

We ate mainly in the French Quarter, which all the locals will tell you, that's just for the tourists, and all the REALLY good stuff is in (obscure place nobody is going to go while on vacation). That being said, even the touristy stuff included some of the most memorable meals I've ever had. Everything was at least great, and much of it was exceptional.

So here we are, the thread in which I recount the FIVE BEST MEALS I DONE HAD IN NOLA:

[b][size=200][color=yellow]#5: WINGS, AT [url=http://www.patobriens.com/patobriens/]PAT O'BRIENS[/url][/color][/size][/b]

You're thinking exactly what I was thinking: "You went to the heart of Louisiana to eat CHICKEN WINGS?" See but the thing is, apparently Pat O'Briens is SUCH an institution that everyone says it's the most touristy thing you can do, BUT you still have to do it. You have to do it mainly just to see the madness, and you have to do it to enjoy the [i]original[/i] "hurricane" in a real hurricane glass. So we did it. And we were lucky enough that a booth opened up and a nice waitress snuck us in there so we wouldn't have to wait another 20 minutes in line. So we were already in a good mood, when I saw the "world famous wings", in their [i]bloody mary wing sauce[/i]. Well, that last part is what did it. Had to try it, right?

They are lightly battered, disintegrate-at-the-touch tender, but it's that sauce that puts them over the top, and even adds a little seafood-y, cajun kick to them. A little sweet, a little tangy, a little kick on the back end, they were completely new, and I wolfed 'em down faster than I think I've ever downed a plate of wings, when winning a free T-shirt was not part of the deal.