I’m going down to New Orleans on business in 2 weeks and will be there for about 6 days. While I’ll have little personal time, there will be some free evenings to do a little shopping, eating, and sightseeing. I would like to bring some things back to my very jealous hubby that are indicative of what the Big Easy is REALLY all about. I know the Tabasco plant is in the area, is it worth bringing back some sauce from it’s home state? What about pralines? Chickory coffee?
If the only hot sauce you can think of from New Orleans is Tabasco, you needs you some edumacatin’.
Go down to the French Market and take a look around at all the amazing hot sauces you can buy- sauces so hot that you can flavor a gallon of chili with one drop off the end of a toothpick. Mmmmmmmmm good.
I don’t know if it’s still there, but a video or some pictures of you singing on a Saturday night at the Cat’s Meow would be great.
The Dixie Brewery is in town, and you’re gonna wanna drink you some Blackened Voodoo beer.
Enjoy. Don’t eat nutria, no matter how hard they try to convince you. If you likes the shootin’, though, you can go out to the levees and shoot all the nutria you want.
Bring back some beads, definitely! 
Food-wise, if you have a chance, go to the Central Grocery Store on Decatur Street in the French Quarter, near Jackson Square and Cafe du Monde. They make the BEST muffaletta sandwiches there! Depending on how far you have to travel home, you’d be a hero to bring one back for him. If that’s not an option, get a jar of the olive salad they use to make their muffalettas. While you’re there, get some Cafe du Monde beignet mix, to make your own beignets at home! I’d also recommend Zapp’s potato chips and Big Shot root beer, the finest, creamiest root beer I’ve ever had anywhere. (Actually, you’ll probably have to hit a regular supermarket or convenience store for the Big Shot, but most of the food items you’ll want would be cheaper at those places than Central Grocery anyway.)
If you drink, there’s a bar in the Quarter called Tropical Isle, and they serve these amazing green drinks called hand grenades. They are really sweet and tasty and dangerous as a result. I forget if they sell take-home mix or not, but you should pick some up if you try the hand grenade and like it. Ditto for the famous hurricane drinks at Pat O’Brien’s, but you can usually get a hurricane at any daiquiri-type bar, and hand grenades are unique to Tropical Isle in N’awlins.
Bring home your own jazz man!
But I second the muffaletta. That’s an easy one to deliver on. Beignet mix is good, but it’s near impossible to duplicate the final result in your own kitchen. You could also bring back a king cake, even though it’s early for that.
If you’re looking for miscellania, bring back some voodoo dolls and masquerade masks.
I’d vote for an Abita Turbo Dog.
I’m an Abita Purple Haze lover myself, but I’ve never had a bad Abita beer.
Whatever you do, don’t bring back a voudon doll made by the priest in the park from dirt and sticks with some sort of stone eyes that fall out in the middle of the night you bring it home while you’re wracked with terrible nightmares all night about being choked to death by said doll, only to wake up with the doll on your chest, not the shelf 10 feet away from your bed where you put it before retiring for the night.
And when you find the stone eyes under your pillow the next night, for no apparent reason whatsover, don’t keep them, either.
Just sayin’.
Actually, no it’s not. We are in the middle of the season which will be a short one. Mardi Gras is February 8th this year which means the Bacchaus parade is on Superbowl Sunday.
As to the OP, you’re visiting us at the right time of year. Mardi Gras season is the best time if you enjoy people watching. If you get some free time, ride up I-10 to visit Houmas House http://houmashouse.com/ and say hello to my hubby, the scruffy gardener.
Have fun and be safe.
Wanna bring me back some Cajun Spiced Beans?
Get local food and drink. Crawfish, gumbo, etoufee, muffalettas, po’ boys, a hot dog from the corner vendor (I’m blanking on the name), Balckened Voodoo beer, hurricanes, hand grenades, a Cajun bloody mary… Over the weekend, with my wife’s family, we wound up at a pizza place. It sucked. Nothing against the pizza place, but here in Scranton, there’s one on every corner. I can’t think of one Gumbo Shop here. I wound up eating light and stopping somewhere else later in the evening.
And enjoy the atmosphere. The sounds and smells of the Big Easy are as wonderful as the sights.
I prefer the Metarie parades myself, being not as crowded and that’s where you’ll find the Riverdale Marching Scottish Rebels. That’s my old highschool’s band and, yes, they wear kilts.
I hope that wasn’t Mama Rosa’s, their pizza has been voted one of the ten-best in the entire country.
You just made every hair on the back of my neck stand up. **Stop ** that!
And add my vote for Central Grocery’s muffaletta. Also there are tons of neat little galleries. You could bring home some nice artwork for not much mone.
Oh, and check with your local Popeye’s for those Cajun Green Beans.
Sigh. I think the hamsters are hungry. I swear there was a smiley and a “y” included in my last post. So here they are - 
y
It wasn’t so much that the pizza itself sucked. What sucked was that of all the fantastic food to be had for any manner of mood, we ended up in a pizza joint.
No Popeye’s near me. 
Closest one is in Rockaway, NJ, about 75 miles away.
Yeah, but I doubt Scranton has anything like Mama Rosa’s pizza.
Lucky Dogs!
And if you go into the brewery in the quarter, there’s a lot of great shops for souveniers. But your best bet is a camera - you are going to a magical place, and you’ll want to capture it! Keep it at the ready at all times. I’d recommend siting at Cafe du Monde and people watching for an hour or so, and then wander through the wonderful flea market set up there on the weekends.
Man, that’s the only place in the south that I miss.
I’ve also been told there is a Super Popeyes that serves beer and margaritas with fried chicken? Could this fable be true?
I’m only 3 or 4 miles from Old Forge, PA, and two hours away from NYC. New Orleans pizza couldn’t carry New York Style pizza’s jock. 
Here’s the menu http://www.superpopeyes.com/superpops/superpopmenu.html
:eek: I’m going to have to check it out myself.
Yes. IIRC, that location is right on the Metairie parade route.
You thought it was New York Style? There’s no way you could have been in Mama Rosa’s then; they have their own unique style. It’s as if someone took a Chicago Style and flattened out the center.