By Marica Mackenroth

Typically the start of the work week brings things like morning traffic or football to mind.

In New Orleans, this is true, but it also makes our tummies growl, as Mondays in the Crescent City mean that it’s time for red beans and rice.

While it’s hard to get meals around here without a side of tradition, this Creole dish is welcomed in restaurants, diners and domestic homes alike for its simple spicy goodness. Commonly cooked slowly over time and served over rice, give yourself a splash of Tabasco sauce and a slice of buttered bread and you are set to give your taste buds a treat. You could also go a step farther, and throw in some smoked sausage and cornbread.

Like crawfish, “red beans” as we call it, is served at large gatherings like Super Bowl parties and Mardi Gras. You can also find it at almost any festival or fair in New Orleans, as it’s easy to make in large quantities while keeping its rich, flavorful integrity.

So why does this dish get its very own, designated day of the week? Well, legend has it that it’s because years ago, ham was the customary Sunday meal and Monday was typically washday. Put those two together, and you get a savory, ham-based concoction that could sit on the stove and cook while women were busy doing the laundry.

These days you don’t have to wait hours upon hours to feast on your beans. Modern day society has created “ready made” cans of red beans that you can simply heat up and serve over rice, with “Blue Runner” being the favorite brand amongst locals.

Be sure not to look over the option when you dine in the Big Easy, as many restaurants take tasty spins on the dish.

Remember, there has to be a reason Louis Armstrong signed autographs, “Red Beans and Ricely yours.”

Compucast Interactive (owned by Judy Weitz) is the company that hosts New Orleans Restaurants, which is the premiere website to recommend some of New Orleans’ very best restaurants. Since 1999, Compucast has been an internet pioneer in the city and has brought many of New Orleans’ famous restaurants and businesses to the web.

We hope you find NewOrleansRestaurants.com to be a helpful resource as you search for good places to eat in our city, and we hope you have a wonderful stay in New Orleans.

Welcome to the New Orleans Restaurant Scene!

There are many reasons visitors keep coming back to New Orleans but our fabulous food is always at the top of every list. It is impossible to think of New Orleans without talking about its food. Visitors and locals alike can dine at the finest restaurants in the world, many located in the historic French Quarter and most in walking distance from our great downtown hotels or just a streetcar or buggy ride away. (more…)

By staff writer, Sal Mannino

New Orleans is a city that is famous for its food. It’s the #1 reason visitors love to come to New Orleans and a big part of why we locals are so proud to call New Orleans home . The city is full of restaurants, Creole, French, Cajun, Italian…just to name a few. However, for locals and visitors alike, a popular tradition in New Orleans is the Oyster Bar.

The Oyster Bar isn’t like the fancier restaurants in the city. No reservations are required at this type of eatery and it is not unusual to have a wait in line before seats open.

Acme’s Oyster House and Felix’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar are both timeless New Orleans establishments in the French Quarter along with the Desire Oyster Bar in the Royal Sonesta and the Redfish Grill. Uptown on Magazine Street, locals flock to Casamento’s. Ask five people which is their favorite oyster bar and you will get five different favorites.

The atmosphere is very basic in appearance…an oyster bar, bar stools and either tables with red checker tablecloths or black and white checker tile floors. Another reason oyster bars are so popular is the showmanship by the oyster shuckers…it’s like watching an artist at work with a sharp knife…quick with their hands using the sharp blades to pry open the oyster shells.

Then there’s the presentation. Either a half dozen or a dozen served on the half shell over ice, with horse radish, hot sauce and ketchup on the side to make your own cocktail sauce to your personal taste. Lemon slices and saltine crackers will also be included on your tray.

All of these Oyster Bars also serve a variety of seafood dishes such as fried oysters, fish, shrimp and soft-shell crab or, for bigger appetites, there’s the seafood platters (a combination of all).

Growing up in New Orleans, it was understood that oysters were best eaten during months that had an “r” in it, that is, January, February, March, etc. However, with great oyster farms now and an abundance of seafood in Louisiana, oysters can be enjoyed year-round.

Raw oysters on the half shell…as “Naturally New Orleans” as Red Beans & Rice or Café au Lait and Beignets.

By staff writer, Sal Mannino

The Crescent City Brewhouse, located in the French Quarter near the
river, is not only a really good restaurant but it’s also the only micro-brewery
in the Vieux Carre. Dining for lunch or dinner in a casual atmosphere
is relaxed and festive. You can listen to live Jazz on most nights or
just sit outside on the upstairs balcony overlooking the Mississippi.
Upstairs makes a great place for private parties. The house selection
of distinctive lagers are brewed daily on site and have won numerous
awards. My personal favorite is the Pilsner Brew, a light beer that is
one of many to select from.

Gordon Biersch Brewery, located across from Harrah’s Casino, has
great food in a casual atmosphere featuring American cuisine influenced
by International flavors. It also offers fresh beer specializing in authentically
brewed German lagers. With several large TV screens in the bar area,
it makes for a great place to gather for all sporting events. This venue
has become a popular meeting place for local businesses and its proximity
to the Convention Center makes it very convenient for convention delegates.
Private areas are available for parties and validated parking is available
in Harrah’s garage.

Hungry and thirsty visitors can’t go wrong choosing either the
Crescent City Brewhouse or Gordon Biersch for a really enjoyable dining
experience along with a fresh cold brew.

by Sal Mannino

There are many reasons visitors keep coming back to New Orleans but our fabulous food is always at the top of every list. For tourism and conventions to return to our great city post Hurricane Katrina, restaurants will be the driving force that brings our city back. Since New Orleans restaurants employ thousands of local workers, we celebrate each time one of our precious jewels re-opens.

While Mardi Gras 2006 is the date industry officials have targeted for the world to know that New Orleans is back in business, restaurants have been opening since early October! By carnival season, we will be very close to full force…at least in the downtown tourism districts.

It is impossible to think of New Orleans without talking about its food. Visitors and locals alike can dine at the finest restaurants in the world, many located in the historic French Quarter and most in walking distance from our great downtown hotels or just a streetcar or buggy ride away.

Festivals are big in New Orleans and they use local restaurants as the hook to lure their patrons. The annual French Quarter Festival is known for the World’s Largest Jazz Brunch and it’s hard to choose which one of the over 200 items you will want to enjoy at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival’s Food Fair. At the Tomato Festival, Crawfish Festival, Shrimp Festival, Strawberry Festival…and the list of hundreds goes on an on…great food is the key.

Plain and simple, or extra spicy and hot, our restaurants are paramount to bringing New Orleans back!

By John DeMers

If you’re eating right now, you might be seeing us that way already. Gazing down hungrily into a bowl of dark brown seafood or chicken gumbo, butter-lush crawfish or shrimp etouffee, scarlet shrimp or chicken Creole, a heaping helping of jambalaya made from everything in the kitchen. You might like experiencing New Orleans by the bowl, as long as the bowls keep coming.

But as the author of a new cookbook titled New Orleans by the Bowl, I invite you to look a little deeper than what’s in front of you now. For New Orleans cuisine is, by many accounts, the world’s ultimate bowl cuisine. In more ways than one.

For starters, New Orleans cooking is “bowl cuisine” because it shows up at our tables so readily and dramatically in a bowl. As parts of that global tradition also called “pot cooking,” both the Creole and Cajun styles beloved in the Crescent City find their happiest expression in something other than a flat dinner plate. The best foods New Orleans has to offer are slow-cooked in plenty of liquid that becomes sauce or, better still, gravy, lovingly watched and stirred by people who probably learned more from their mothers, grandmothers and aunts than they ever learned in culinary school. The result, as I learned researching my book with chef Andrew Jaeger, is a collection of gumbos, jambalayas, soups and stews second to none found on the face of this earth.

In other words, dishes cooked in deep pots are best served in deep bowls. If you were born in New Orleans, as I was, you know this intuitively. If you are among our millions of visitors you learn it quickly, completely and forever. We’ll go with you to learn it, if you like. We’ll eat with you and drink with you. Every so often, we might even pick up the check.

Still, for true New Orleanians who have lived through the evolutions and profound social shifts of the past 50 years, the very words “bowl cuisine” can and do take on a meaning deeper than our next meal. The greatest truth of bowl cooking is that many old things go into the pot – and one new thing comes out. It’s a thing that seldom is perfect, a ragtag blend of effort, meaning, fallibility and passion, ever dreaming farther than its reach. But what comes out of this pot in New Orleans is something new. Something soul-satisfying. Something we might dare call admirable.

Into the pot that fills the bowls we enjoy here, the lives French, Spanish, African, Sicilian, Irish, German, Greek, Croatian and others are poured, in a real slow recipe requiring… oh, a little over 300 years. Out of the pot, and into our expectant bowls, comes a dish as full of flavor as it is of our deepest shared truths.