2018 Road Trip

January 31, 2019

2018 Road Trip - Day 15

Tuesday 09.18.18 - Next Stop, New Orleans, Louisiana

Around the corner from our hotel is a nice little dine called Fill-Up with Billups. Here we both ordered The HANGOVER PART III. A split cathead biscuit topped with two sausage patties, two eggs & country gravy. I added hash browns, with onions & cheese. This monstrous breakfast was served on two plates, one for the biscuits & eggs, the other for the glorious hash browns. I found the biscuit to be too dense & the sausage was overcooked, otherwise great breakfast. Next time I would order something different.

HANGOVER PART III
split cathead biscuit topped with two sausage patties, two eggs & country gravy

HASH BROWNS
with onions & cheddar cheese

What breakfast is complete without some hot sauce?

After breakfast, we fueled up the truck & took off towards Abita, La to to see the Abita Mystery House. Also known as the UCM Museum is a roadside attraction in Abita Springs near New Orleans. It is a folk art environment with 1000s of found objects, and home made inventions. Tourists see a miniature Southern town with push-buttons that activate animated “displays.” On exhibit are odd collections, memorabilia, pure junk, and old arcade machines that are fun to play. Abita Springs, Louisiana is a historic small town known for its brewery, spring water, and bicycle trails. This place is weird! So many little oddities to see here. If you like silly odd stuff, I highly recommend stopping by if you are in the area.

By this point, I was getting rather thirsty. So what better place to grab some cold suds than at the Abita Tap Room? I had a pint of purple haze & we bought a few cases of root beer, plus Shelly grabbed a couple of souvenir t-shirts. Clean bathrooms, friendly service, and great tap room.

For lunch, we had reservations at Boucherie in New Orleans, LA. We were lucky enough to be in town during there Coolinary Week event. With this, they offered a prefixed $20 three course menu. I ordered the fries, N.Orleans style BBQ shrimp po’boy, & Krispy Kreme bread pudding. The fries were outstanding! The po'boy was a french loaf hollowed out and stuffed with shrimp and fillings. It was a knife & fork sandwich that was too large to finish. Shelly had the summer squash soup, oven roasted ravioli & Krispy Kreme bread pudding. The soup was creamy and had great summer flavors, the ravioli was amazing the cheese gooey and I really liked the sauce.

While the food was good (a different take on traditional plates, good flavor profiles, nice portions) the service left A LOT to be desired. The blonde waitress was horrible. At one point she refilled Shelly’s water but not my tea or water. Shelly walked over to the drink station, grabbed the tea carafe & refilled my glass, leaving the carafe on our table. Our waitress cleared our plates & never mentioned the carafe. At one point Shelly asked for ice with her water and after that she seemed mad at us. The brunette (manager?) was a lot better.

Summer Squash Soup
with Huitlacoche, Black Garlic, Bacon Emulsion, & Roasted Oyster Mushrooms


Hand Cut French Fries with Garlic Butter & Parmesan Reggiano


Smoky Vinegar BBQ Sauce

N.Orleans Style BBQ Shrimp Po’boy

Oven Roasted Ravioli
with Roasted Beets, Grilled Avocado, Queso Fresco & Oyster Mushroom Sopa Azteca

Krispy Kreme bread pudding

Next we went to our hotel at Chateau LeMoyne - French Quarter, A Holiday Inn Hotel. We were assigned room 205. We go up the elevator, around the bend, outside to a balcony overlooking a courtyard, down 3 steps & finally arriving at our room. They were nice enough to let us check in an hour early. The room is stunning, but sadly the A/C wouldn't work. They sent up a couple of service techs, to “fix” it. It never got below 76°. Another disappointment was the way they handle laundry service.... they require the guest to bring their clothes to the front desk & retrieve them upon return.

We left the hotel for reservations at Commander's Palace. I have wanted to dine here for years. I'm glad we finally decided to make it happen on this trip. The food here lived up to the hype!

Everything we ate was excellent. We started off with a couple of cocktails. A Crescent City Cooler for Shelly & the Tropic Heat for myself. A few minutes later, our waitress Samantha, dropped off two types of bread, along with some whipped butter.

Water, Ice Tea & Cocktails

Crescent City Cooler
This cocktail is light and invigorating with fresh lime, ginger ale, guava rum and bitters. Drink up!

Tropic Heat
Featuring habanero infused Wheatly vodka, this cocktail merges the warmth of ginger and light spice of the habanero with a refreshing pineapple sweetness.

Whipped butter & bread two ways

We then both ordered some spectacular soup. We love sampler options, so the 1-1-1 was the perfect pairing of all the of their soups; It included turtle, gumbo & soup du jour. Today was sweet potato & chicken.

Soups 1-1-1
A demi serving of three soups: Turtle, Gumbo, and Soup du Jour

Turtle Soup
The Commander’s classic that takes three days to make

Gumbo du Jour
Scratch stocks made with the best regional ingredients, toasted dark roux,
holy trinity and rum barrel hot sauce

Soup du Jour (sweet potato & chicken)
Fall’s best ingredients from local farms cooked with various techniques

My pecan crusted gulf fish was a soft flaky delicate fish. While Shelly's candy apple lacquered quail was amazing. She let me have a leg. Oh man, was it good! Damn it, this woman did it again. She ordered a dish that tasted better than my choice. I love her!

Candy Apple Lacquered Quail
Broken Arrow Ranch quail stuffed with fire-roasted chili boudin, summer cabbage kimchi & honey crisp-candy apple glaze


Candy Apple Lacquered Quail Broken Arrow Ranch quail stuffed with fire-roasted chili boudin, summer cabbage kimchi & honey crisp-candy apple glaze

Pecan Roasted Gulf Fish
Wild caught Gulf fish, rainbow chard, melted leeks, petite herbs,
spiced pecans, Prosecco poached jumbo lump crab and a sauce made
from sweet corn & Woodford Reserve Bourbon

As a side dish, we selected the spicy Cajun boudin. This was totally different than what I expected. I thought it would be a link of boudin sausage; what arrived was a plate full of what looked like jambalaya. Either way, it was delicious. The more I ate, the hotter it became.

Spicy Cajun Boudin

For dessert, we decided on the bread pudding souffle. It was so different and oh so good. We mainly chose it because Shelly loves souffles. An awesome ending to an excellent meal. Service was outstanding, UNTIL entrees. Then all 4 of our servers seemed to go MIA.

Creole Bread Pudding Soufflé
“The Queen of Creole Desserts”

We returned from dinner to find there was no valet attendant. They honored our request for a new room, but informed us that there was no bellhop after 10pm. At this point I lost all faith in this establishment. Since everything was packed up my wife booked us a room at Hotel Monteleone, her favorite hotel in New Orleans. Shelly called IHG corporate to make sure we were not billed for Chateau LeMoyne. There was free bottled water waiting for us in our room's mini fridge. A nice bonus is that laundry service here is cheaper, plus they pickup & delivery to your room. Friendly staff from reception to room attendants. The only thing that would make our room better would be softer towels & a hand held wand in the shower.