NOLA & Disney Cruise: Day 3 - New Orleans
Thursday, February 13th
Another New Orleans day filled with delicious food is in the books. We’ve been eating so much food compared to how we normally eat that we are waking up in the morning still so full and feeling disgusting, yet, we still keep eating! We’re not even on the cruise ship yet, God help us!
Today we started our morning with food on the mind. Forever ago when I started researching this trip, I heard about a donut shop that I knew would be a “must visit” for us, so onto the hop-on-hop-off bus we went heading for the Garden District and Magazine Street to get some donuts!
Magazine Street is NOLA’s prettiest street and they liken it to their own Beverly Hills neighborhood. The homes are gorgeous mansions one after another with cute little boutique shops and restaurants here and there. This is where you could spend some serious dough in an umbrella shop where you could have a custom umbrella made so that not another soul on this planet could say that they have the same umbrella as you. This is what the rich do with their money, apparently. I’m telling you right now, if we ever hit it big, I’m not custom making my umbrellas. No, I’m putting all my money into District Donuts, the most amazing donut shop ever.
When we arrived at District Donuts, I had envisioned us getting a whole dozen donuts just to try them all, but we controlled ourselves and only bought three for our family. It was hard to choose but we decided on a glazed for the kids to share, a raspberry cheesecake, and a king cake since we just can’t seem to get enough king cake. These donuts were huge and oh, so amazing.
After our donuts we decided it’d be wise to walk Magazine Street rather than sit on the bus. After all, we needed to make room for our next planned stop, lunch! Walking Magazine Street was fun. The houses that lined the street were so beautiful. French Quarter reminds me of Old San Juan, but here on Magazine Street, I’m reminded a bit of Cape May. The homes are just so impressive and it was cool to see how into Mardi Gras some of them are.
We walked Magazine for quite some time, probably about an hour and a half, before the kids started to complain about their feet, but once they started, we knew if we wanted any peace and quiet, we needed to get back on the bus so we headed for the next bus stop.
Our next bus took some time to arrive, but once it did I was in heaven, not because we all had seats so that would shut the kids up for like a minute before they were whining that they were bored, hungry, thirsty, needed to potty, telling on their sibling, etc. No, this bus ride was the best ever because I stepped onto the bus to cheers of “Let’s Go Mets!”. I have found my people! Turns out that the tour guide on this particular bus is a Met fan from Jersey and he had already been roasting the one Yankee fan onboard so when he saw my NY Met’s sweatshirt, he was pumped up. As I got on board he excitedly asked where I was from and then warned me that there was a Yankee fan onboard. I, of course, being the wonderful wife that I am had to point out that Matt was also from the dark side, to which he responded by faking to throw Matt off the bus while I cheered. It was a wonderful bus ride. Any time the tour guide had an opportunity he would tease the two Yankee fans on board. Then a few more Met fans got on the bus and that was it. Our tour guide was absolutely giddy. He was so thrilled to point out to every person who got on the bus at each stop that Met fans were the majority on this bus- something your rarely see. The rest of the day, we kept seeing so many Met fans and if we didn’t see them, we’d hear them when they’d spot my sweatshirt. Finally!!! I had to come all the way to Louisiana but I have found my people! I feel more accepted and loved as a Met fan here in Louisiana than I do back home in NY. Looks like we’re moving!
Unfortunately, all good times must come to an end and it was time for us to get off this Mets Mobile and go have some lunch. Our tour guide was sorry to see me go but he still had a few Met fans onboard to keep the numbers in his favor. Besides, we hadn’t eaten in like 2 hours so it was clearly time for lunch. Lunch today was at a restaurant I had found very early in my trip planning and I have been dreaming of eating here ever since. The name of the restaurant is Cochon Butcher and it was to die for. It’s not a kid friendly place, it’s very hipster with all high top tables and no kids menu, but I forgave them for it once I took a bite of their most popular sandwich and why I was here, the “Le Pig Mac”. Basically, it’s a Big Mac but instead of two patties that resemble something like beef, they have two all pork patties on it. It is literally one of the best things I have ever eaten. Matt is not a Big Mac guy so all those months ago when I first showed It to him he really wasn’t too interested. Even today when we got it, he just wanted a bite to try- half the sandwich later he was all sad faced when I took MY sandwich back from him. We both were blown away by it. It was that good. We also ordered the NOLA famous Muffuletta sandwich and Matt got the Gambino. This is a butcher so the meats were all just amazing, but the bread was also really good. The kids shared some of the Muffuletta & the Gambino but don’t think for a second I wasted a single bite of the Le Pig Mac on them.
While at lunch, Vivian decided to get a bit adventurous and build her own sandwich using the meats from the Muffuletta, the olive salad, the bread and butter pickles, and the slice of lemon from her lemonade. Like the responsible parents that we are, I whipped out my phone to document this tragedy waiting to happen. It was a glorious moment for us all… well, except for poor Vivian.
After lunch we opted to again walk to our next destination since we just polished off a ton a food. We decided to head for the aquarium to give the kids some time to be kids. So far today they had walked a ton and not much else so we thought it was the right move. Today’s weather was a bit chilly and it’s been very windy here, but the sun had been out so it was quite comfortable. This afternoon though, the sun was gone and it was borderline uncomfortable to just be in sweatshirts but we pushed through and got ourselves to the aquarium.
The aquarium here is small but what they did with their small space was really impressive. They had a playground area where the kids were happy to let off some steam. They also could touch stingrays and even go in the parakeet room where they were flying free. Matt and I had a few birds try to go home with us by climbing in my sweatshirt hood and pocket as well in Matt’s backpack! It was adorable and we all had a blast!
After the aquarium I was ready to head back to the hotel to rest but I was overruled so we headed to the French Market to buy some pralines and more beignets, because, why else are we here? This time we decided to visit Loretta’s for some praline-filled beignets as well as some king cake praline-filled beignets. Again, Vivian found herself covered in powdered sugar and Benjamin was clean as a whistle. I enjoyed these beignets but I preferred Cafe du Monde’s. Matt preferred Loretta’s praline-filled beignets. After the pralines we stopped at Southern Candymakers to purchase some pralines. Matt went with the “creamy originals” while I got the peanut butter pralines and the coconut pralines.
After snacking around the French Market we walked through the heart of the French Quarter back to our hotel. This ended up being a quite long walk but we got to see a really quiet area of the French Quarter that had such cute homes. The kids were champs on this long walk back and even though my feet were killing me, it was a fun time laughing with the kids… pretty much at Matt’s expense since, like the wonderful wife that I am, I allowed him to walk most of the French Quarter with powdered sugar all over his butt while we laughed and laughed. He and Vivs had matching pants from our beignet stop and it was adorable. You can’t take them anywhere. Finally, we ended up back at our hotel where I took a little nap while the kids played and Matt did, well, whatever it was that he did.
Once I had woken up from my little rest, I realized that it had been too much time since our beignet stop and we needed to eat so we headed for the restaurant across the street from our hotel that is famous for their Po Boys. Both Matt and I were still kind of full from all of today’s (and yesterday’s) eating but the kids were hungry and it was our last dinner opportunity in NOLA so we pushed through. I ordered one of their award winning Po Boys, The Peacemaker which was fried jumbo shrimp & oysters topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Matt ordered two appetizers, the spicy corn and potato fry and the BBQ fried oysters. We also shared pimento and white cheddar cheese fries, because why not? Everything was so delicious that again, we kept eating well after we should have stopped. We were so full.
After we headed back to the hotel to call it a night and I knocked out pretty much immediately, although I did wake up to Matt opening the box of pralines at one point so he clearly was feeling a bit famished.