Day 2: Nola Livin'

Here I am wearing my A$AP Rocky t-shirt. Shout out to A$AP fans, all my fellow Sony College Reps and the good people at Sony Music and RCA Records.

In the picture above I am on the Streetcar - the form of public transportation in the city of New Orleans. It is pretty inexpensive.

$1.25 for a one-way trip

$3.00 for a day pass.

Here is a picture of the supermarket, Rouses. It is the most popular grocery chain down here. 

Would you like some cheese with that wine? This cheese was deeeee-lish. But at $23 per pound, I passed up on making a purchase. Good thing it was on sample.

New Orleans knows how to pull at my heart strings...Peanut butter cover pretzels!

But the maddness does not stop there...

Peanut butter covered PEANUTS.

I didn't purchase any of these sweet treats, but I did take a sample or two.

You can purchase alcohol virtually anywhere in New Orleans. This is something very different fromwhat I am accustomed to, being a Jersey resident. Anyway, in the grocery store I stumbled upon 7 different types of the local, Abita beer. 

Here are all of the different types of Abita beers that Rouses carries.

1 - Jockamo IPA

2 - Purple Haze (Raspberry flavored)

3 - Strawberry

4 - Turbodog (Stout)

5 - Restoration Pale Ale

6 - Golden

7 - Amber (Abita's flagship flavor)

After the trip to the grocery store, we went over and grabbed some Sunday Brunch at a restaurant and bar called Santa Fe.

Here is a picture of the outdoor seating arrangements at Santa Fe.

I think that Santa Fe's menu could be best described as Creole-influence Mexican dishes. I wound up ordering a dish called Rueda de huevo.

Rueda de huevo - a fried tortilla topped with sweet potato mash, pulled chicken and an egg. 

The dressings include, jalapenos, guacamole and sour cream.

The dish I ordered was absolutely delicious, it tasted like nothing I have ever tried before. The sweetness of the sweet potato mash mixed with the spice of the pulled chicken was very unique, yet balanced. To top it off, the crunch of the fried tortilla pulled all of the textures together very nicely.

After brunch we headed back to our hostel for a minute just to put some of our things down and then headed back out to the Streetcar.

Here is Jessy getting onto the Streetcar.

We took the Streetcar to City Park. City Park is extremely large and beautiful. It has a lot of different activities ranging from outdoor concerts, to restaurants and to scuplture gardens.

Here I am standing in a scenic spot - that's a big tree!

Just standing outside of the Botanical Gardens...

Riding a lion statue, located next to one of the pavillions in the park.

After walking around for a bit and observing all of the beauty of the park, we made a quick pit stop at the Morning Call Cafe to listen to some live music and grab some beignets.

The Morning Call Cafe.

Here is the live band that was playing, their name was, Ovidio Giron y Los Ranas.

Here are the beignets from Morning Call.

I will let you know what place has better beignets down here. So far, the ones from Morning Call were a bit doughy, but I intend to try more...from different places.

When we were swinging on a giant swing in City Park, we got to talking to a local man named, Dallas. He told us of some local 'hotspots' for food. 

So...

After walking around City Park, we were hungry, yet again. So we walked over to a place that Dallas reccommended called, Mandina's.

I got a shrimp Po' Boy.

Shrimp Po' Boy.

For those of you who do not know, a "Po' Boy" is basically a sub/hoagie (whichever you prefer to call it based on your region, respectively). If you get a po' boy "dressed" that means it comes with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and pickles.

As you can see from the picture, I got a fried shrimp po' boy, dressed, It was delicious. I am a firm believer that the bread can make or break a sandwich, and this french loaf definitely sealed the deal on this local favorite.

That's all for now, off to explore some more...