For New Years, I went to New Orleans with three of my friends from work. Being in a place with so much history, and a fusion of Spanish and French cultures was a really nice change from collegetown, USA. This city is also really good at making me wish I lived in a cute apartment above a quaint business in heart of the city. and the iron work on balconies and fences was amazing! Sadly, we only had two and a half days there, and with divided interests and diets, it’s easy to feel like I just barely scratched the surface of the New Orleans scene.

We stayed in the India House Hostel (the yellow house), and it was a very pleasant experience. Everything was super clean and had tons of personality. The only bad thing was that it was cold, and we only had one space heater for the four of us. Easy fix, though: bring more blankets, or visit in warmer weather. The Hostel was close to everything, and way cheap!

Our first night, my friends accompanied me to Lola’s to eat. I got the veggie paella! They serve you bread with garlic aoeli, which is just whipped olive oil, and man, was the flavor of the aoeli intense! I felt like my mouth was on fire from the insane amount of garlic, or horseradish (?). Never has a spread made me want to cry in that way (while still being so, so tasty). The paella was really delicious, and the atmosphere of this place is really nice. It’s a small bistro tucked away in a cute neighborhood. Definitely not touristy.

While in New Orleans, I had a few goals. One was to get coffee from Cafe Du Monde, since there are sadly no vegan beignets around. My other goal was to find myself a po’ boy! Both of those things required a trip on the magazine street bus to the wholefoods market for supplies. I got some soymilk for my coffee, and my veganaise for my po’ boy. Magazine street was super cute, and I’m sad that I only saw it from the bus. Next time, when I have more time, I’m going to walk around that area a lot more. Now, on to the po’ boys. I had asked some advice from Kittee, who had lived in New Orleans previously, and she reccomended Vertimart for Po’ Boys, which was later confirmed by several people we ran into. It was a really small neighborhood grocery, and the people who work there are really friendly and were teasing me for getting such a plain po’ boy (french fries, pickles, and bread? mmmvegan). Sitting on the curb, slathering my french fry po’ boy with veganaise, and watching the haunted tour groups pass by was a fun experience.

The next morning, New Orleans decided to frown on us, and it rained almost all day. We started our trek out to Fair Grinds coffee shop, because I had heard they had vegan pastries. It was a really cute shop, and it seems like a place I might hang out if I lived in the area, but the vegan pastries were slim. They had a few different types of sweet breads, so I got a pumpkin Flax bread. Not bad, but nothing special, and way dry.

Later that day, we set out to see the Iron Rail Book Collective. This was a really cool space. It’s in an old warehouse off of frenchmen street, that houses tons of books for people to read, and a small selection of books and zines for purchase. I wish I lived closer, so I could utilize the resources better, but awesome place, none-the-less. The Frenchmen area is a really nice place to see music or hang out at night, too.

For dinner, I chose cafe bamboo, which is New Orleans’ only 100% vegetarian restaurant. The atmosphere was really nice, and I enjoyed talking to and nerding out over vegan pastries with our server, Maureen, who is also the baker and wants to open a bakery. Unfortunately, the baked goods were at a minimum, because she had been out of town! Bummer. I ordered the collard green spring rolls as an appetizer, the sol’ chikn po’ boy, and I split a (huge) side of red beans and rice with a friend. The collard rolls were really unique and my favorite thing I ate (Apparently they’ve won an award for them?). The Po Boy was good (I brought my trusty veganaise with me, because a vegetarian restaurant without veganaise is a travesty), but I’m pretty sure the ‘chicken’ is really similar to the same thing whole foods (and and possibly even veggie heaven here in Austin) uses, which leads me to believe that it’s bought and not made from scratch. If this is the case… laaaame! Not a deal breaker, though. I think I’d like cafe bamboo a lot more if they had more variety on their menu. Everything was definitely tasty, and while on the pricey side, I could see myself visiting again.

One thing I was really dissapointed by, as with most touristy cities, is the use of horse drawn carriages. They were everywhere in the french quarter, and I guess I was most suprised that a lot of people used them! Here in Austin, we have horse drawn carriages downtown, but I mainly only see them being used on high traffic times during the weekend. There are so many pedicabs around that the horse carriages aren’t staring me in the face all the time, like they were in New Orleans. Do yourself (and the horses) a favor by watching Blinders and not supporting this industry.

NOLA, I am not done with you yet. I want to see more of magazine street, the garden district, the backstreet cultural museum, and I want to eat at a few other places including Bennachins (it was closed by the time I got there!) and a Banh Mi place called Moon Wok that I heard of after the trip. Also, this place I saw an ad for at iron rail, “Hey! Cafe”. The ad said they have vegan pastries! I’m sure I’ll be back.