Dining alfresco is not a given in New Orleans. We do celebrate the few weeks in April and October where it is pleasant to be outside. And this is festival season. In this house we had fond memories of festival season, beginning with the French Quarter Festival. My earliest experience with it was captured in a pic of baby Jude in a stroller with Tom and me at Jackson Square, so my first time there was about six years into it.
Then there was the long-running period where Tom broadcast from the northwest corner of Jackson Square, interviewing various restaurateurs for a few minutes. I acted as impromptu producer, rounding up people in the nearest vicinity for a quick chat. It was a great group: K-Paul’s, Trey Yuen, Mrs. Wheat’s, Tujague’s, Jacques-Imo’s, and Muriel’s, offering Tom’s favorite little fest plate, the Goat Cheese Crepe. Back in those days goat cheese was just making a name for itself.
Aside from these broadcasts, festivals were places Tom usually eschewed. He was all about the goodness of the food, and these conditions were not suitable for the best food. Also back in those days, prices per plate were $4 or $5, so it was affordable to try a bunch of things. And we certainly did that at the broadcast booth. Guests on the show would often come bearing food. It was all very good.
But that was 35 years ago, and in that time so much has changed. The very nature of the industry, and certainly the culinary culture in the city. With the arrival of so many millennials from all over the Unites States right after Katrina, it was inevitable that the proportion of ethnic restaurants in the general restaurant pool would greatly expand. It also meant the dynamic of individual restaurants would be different, like shorter days and shorter weeks. And post-COVID escalated a changing of the guard, from the old one to the new one.
Trey Yuen, which was one of the originals, dropped out a few years ago. So did Muriel’s, and roughly 75% of the vendors from the time period I mentioned. They have been replaced by catering companies and restaurants most people would know only from Instagram.
The festival is much bigger now too. It has spread from that original Jackson Square hub as far west as the Old Mint, then east to the Spanish Plaza. And the new guard has a different idea of festival food and festival prices. One booth offered a whole fried fish for $25.
In a brief search of the festival vendors and maps, I decided to stick with my personal preference for tradition. I went to the hub: Jackson Square. It would be a nice trip down memory lane, though there was no WWL tent with anyone there, much less Tom. There was no Muriel’s or K-Paul’s, but Mrs. Wheat’s, Jacques-Imo’s, Tujague’s and Vaucresson were there. Broussard’s was also there, alongside Boulevard. I used to have to choose between Galatoire’s shrimp remoulade and Tujague’s, but absent Galatoire’s I went with the red remoulade of Tujague’s. And I got some jambalaya, a must at any New Orleans spring fest for me.
I had the most fun experience at Mrs. Wheat’s, but not for the obvious reasons. Butter beans were still an option here in Jackson Square, but I didn’t see that until I had passed it. Blue Oak BBQ was there with butter beans and cracklins, which to me can be described by leaving the last four letters off the word. Paul Prudhomme used to be out there as a barker, calling out “Butta Beans!!” and I do love those, but I have to stay far away from cracklins.
My first stop was at Broussard’s for their crabcake sandwich and a crawfish roll. The price of these combined was $26, though I don’t remember which was $11. I’m guessing the roll. The roll had a nice supply of crawfish in a mayo-based sauce. It looked like a housemade inside-out hot dog bun. Taken by itself, the crawfish salad was nice. But another thing that has changed since the early days I mentioned is that people now think pickled veggies belong on everything. I am crazy about pickled veggies but they eclipse the delicate flavors of sea creatures like crab, shrimp, lobster and even ditch creatures like crawfish. Why do I see this so often? I ate these ingredients separately, which I think improved their lot. And I skipped the bread after tasting it because it also overwhelmed everything else.
The crabcake was exactly as I expected for a fest food. Boulevard has one of the very best crab cakes in town, especially for the price. It’s a real deal. It was odd that its sister restaurant and the crown jewel of the Creole Cuisine group was serving a crab patty with the now-ubiquitous arugula (never thought I’d see that) and yes, more pickled veggies. It was served on a nice little bun with a good remoulade and was just fine.
I went over to Mrs. Wheat’s because I am also a meat pie nut. I remember the days when Mrs. Wheat’s pies from Natchitoches opened two drive-thru locations on Veterans Blvd. Meat pies and curly fries were the menu. The curly fries were not just fun but good, and the meat pies were a phenomenon. But they left almost as quickly as they came, and after a long absence everywhere but festivals, they have resurfaced at the deli at Rouse’s, where you can grab one of these little treats for $2!
This booth was nirvana. They had the curly fries and baby pies and crawfish pies as well as spinach and artichoke pies. I got one of each and some curly fries. I opened the meat pie first and discovered that it was instead a crawfish pie. Since these were $7 each and I really wanted a meat pie, I went back to get a real meat pie. I was told to keep both pies and was handed a meat pie. When I got over to the Tujague’s booth I opened the meat pie bag to bite into another crawfish pie!! So now I had three crawfish pies and no meat pies. I wish the problem had been reversed because I like the crawfish pie about half as much as the original meat pie version. It was amusing anyway. The curly fries were exactly as I remembered them. Fun and good.
My luck at Tujague’s was not as good. I got some jambalaya and shrimp remoulade. The shrimp remoulade was the real deal. Plump shrimp liberally coated in the original red remoulade sauce. If done properly, this sauce will clear the sinuses, so intense is the dose of horseradish. It made me cough a bit, but that is as it should be. This was terrific.
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The jambalaya was the very worst jambalaya I have ever had, and that includes all mixes and red versions anywhere. Anywhere. I had to wonder if anyone checks these things before sending it out. The smokiness of it reminded me of eating ashes from a campfire. I had my other jambalaya connoisseur try it, and she said it was more like consuming a cigarette. This was a total loss, and a profound disappointment, because it certainly had the look of a good Cajun version. I was heartbroken. And surprised. Perhaps the sausage was excessively smoky?
I was told by a listener that the Dickie Brennan Cajun Cuban was very good. I headed over to the Kohlmeyer Lawn to try that. And I was looking for the Rib Room poor boy and what seemed to be housecut fries. I never did find that but I did get the Cuban.
It is exciting to think that Ralph Brennan has his own bakery which supplies the bread to all his restaurants. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of any of this bread. (Another heartbreaker.) The housemade tasso and smoked pork and all the other ingredients were fine, but it fell flat with the bread for me. It would have been so much better on pressed Leidenheimer. The Brennan Bakery breads are doughy, and there should be some flakiness to the crust of a poor boy and crunch to the crust of a muffuletta.
As much as I wanted to keep trying things, it was just too much for one. After looking in vain for the Rib Room, I left. My thoughts on leaving were similar to Tom’s on all these festivals: The food is sub-par to anything you’d get in the restaurant, so just go to the restaurant.
We can leave this to the tourists, and we are grateful to have them.
