Shacking Up in the Big Easy

Rivershack Tavern
3449 River Rd.
Jefferson, LA





Everybody loves The Big Easy.

Whether it was a the Sugar Bowl, your buddy’s bachelor party or that all-important “business” conference that just happened to be held one block from Bourbon Street, you’ve been here, stumbled through the grimy streets of the French Quarter and bought the House of Blues t-shirt.

Everybody comes to New Orleans. Everybody has a good time. And everybody leaves with a Goody’s Headache Powder Super Value Pack hangover.

Lord only knows, Suit757 knows the back alleys of the Vieux Carre Better than my home town.

So I always get excited when New Orleans makes an appearance on the old Suit757 itinerary.

Even if I’m only on the ground for four hours -- like today.

That’s just long enough to hop in my rental car, conduct my meeting and go find something to eat before heading back to submit to the TSA crotch-gropers at MSY.

As you might imagine, in one of the world’s great eating cities, I’ve been to all the touristy places like Acme, Felix and Crescent City Brewhouse.

I’ve been to all the popular places like Mother’s, Tujague’s and Galatoire’s.

More times than I can count.

Been there. Done that. Bought the shirt.

What gets me excited now is finding those hidden joints in the seedy neighborhoods outside the French Quarter where the locals go to for good food and beer.

Think about that for a minute.

New Orleans is one of the great culinary destinations on earth. The folks who actually live in this city know good food when they taste it.

I’ll happily defer to their judgment on which local joints are serving up the best authentic Louisiana fare.

The Rivershack Tavern hard by the Mississippi River levy somewhere between downtown and the airport is just such a place.

This is the type of place where if you contribute an old fashioned tacky ashtray to the décor, the bar tender will give you a free drink.

The bar stool I was sitting on was supported by the legs of a golfer.

The bar stool next to me featured the legs of a hooker -- complete with her skirt down at her ankles.

The Rivershack gives real meaning to the slogan, “Tacky, yet unrefined.”

A 100 year old ramshackle dive patronized by bikers, blue collar guys stopping by after their shifts and old guys from the neighborhood hiding out from the misses, you won’t find too many tourists in here.

Or Suits for that matter.

It’s the type of place where everybody knows everybody. Except me, of course.

With such a loyal clientele of drinkers, Rivershack Tavern would probably do good business even if it didn’t have some high-falutin’ chef whipping up creative Louisiana cuisine in the kitchen.

But this is New Orleans, where top notch food is revered as much as Drew Brees -- even in a funky blue collar dive like this.

I kicked off my only meal of the day (so don’t judge my 3pm gluttony) with an appetizer of “Buffalo Shrimp”, a huge plate of generous sized gulf shrimp lightly fried and drenched in a spicy wing sauce.

My entrée of red beans and rice arrived simultaneously.

This classic New Orleans dish is a special reserved for Mondays only.

No Monday morning blues here. I felt damn lucky to snag this quintessential staple of Creole blue collar cooking.

The beans were rich with flavor and creole seasoning and mixed with fall apart braised meat from some sort of tender, tasty animal. I’m guessing pig or rabbit.

Best of all, the dish was topped with a giant link of smoky sausage charred just right with tell-tale grill marks.

At $8.95 this meal was a bargain!

Maybe the food here is just a loss leader to tempt folks into the place for drinking.

Because at $5-$7 per beer, the Rivershack wasn’t exactly giving the alcohol away.

Ever since my visit early this year to the Czech Republic, I’ve been a fanatical advocate for fresh-from-the-tap, unpasteurized Pilsner Urquel, from the Czech city of Pilsen -- the very first pilsner ever invented.

The difference between the skunky, pasteurized Pilsner Urquel crap in the green bottle and Pilsner Urquel on tap is like the difference between Hilary Clinton and Kate Upton in bikinis.

They wear the same label, but the impact on the senses couldn’t be more different.

Following my obligatory unpasteurized draft of Pilsner, I moved on to the local brews.

Nola’s Hopitoulas offered a rare taste of hops here in the bayou where beers tend to be more subdued.

I capped off the afternoon with a bottle of Abita Turbodog, a thick, rich, dark, manly brew that would scare the hell out of your “Bud Light Lime Only” girlfriend.

As I knocked back the last few drops from my Turbodog and paid my tab, I felt proud of myself for venturing out of the tourist comfort zone.

Sure, you can get yourself a hell of a New Orleans po-boy at Mother’s or Acme downtown, but the Rivershack proves sometimes the best food is served to those who know good food best -- the folks who actually live here.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Don’t Think Too Hard in the Big Easy

Domilise’s
5240 Annunciation St.
New Orleans, LA
Visited August 23, 2010

Beer selection: “The Champaign of Beer” on draft. What else do you need?

Food: Classic New Orleans po-boys.

Sometimes I can out-think myself.

That must explain my disappointment with the supposedly famous po-boys at Domilise’s.

To a normal human being, a dive bar in the bad part of New Orleans -- whose only attempt to reveal itself to the outside world is a battered, hand-painted sign laying on the cracked weed-infested sidewalk -- would be a place to avoid at all costs.

But to Suit757? No.

After hearing that Domilise’s had some of the best po-boys in the city that made them famous, the sketchy, kinda-dangerous ambiance only served to heighten my sense of excitement about the place.

After all, the best BBQ, burgers and dive bar food on earth is served in places no sober, self-respecting productive member of society would dare to venture.

Finding those nuggets of awesomeness in the back alleys of blue collar America is what makes being a Suit in Strange Places so much fun.

Paradoxically, my expectations of grandeur were overblown by the sheer divyness of Domilise’s outward appearance.

“This place is such a dump, it must be GREAT!”

Domilise’s marketing ambivalence continued once I walked through the front door.

The two young Italian dudes behind the sandwich counter seemed more irritated at my presence than excited about recruiting a new customer. Of course, not knowing exactly how the whole “dressed”, “not dressed” thing (hint: condiments, not clothing) worked probably didn’t help.

But considering I was the only customer in the joint, I really hoped I wasn’t putting them out too much.

While my order of a hot smoked sausage po-boy, “fully dressed” was being assembled, I was instructed to go over to the bar to order my drink.

The 80 year old bartender only seemed slightly less unenthusiastic as I presented myself at the well worn counter featuring a Miller High Life tap handle.

Miller Freaking High Life? “The Champaign of Beers”? On draft? For $1.50?

Now that my friends, is a divey amenity too good to pass up.

A few sips later, I was summoned to the sandwich counter to pay for my po-boy. I then toted it to one of the four tables in the 300 square foot room.

The spicy sausage had a good kick to it, but failed to live up to my over-heightened expectations. The “fully dressed” part (mayonnaise, mustard and lettuce all mixed together) oozed uncontrollably all over the paper plate. A little better structural integrity might have earned this po-boy a higher grade.

I also tried the traditional roast beef po-boy, also dripping in that mustard-mayonnaise-lettuce concoction. This was even more disappointing, lacking in any real flavor or excitement.

To be fair, I didn’t try Domilise’s fried seafood po-boys, which might be out of this world, for all I know.

So I just may make one more return visit to Domilise’s next time I’m in the Big Easy.

After all, my expectations will be much more realistic. Sometimes a dive is just…

…a dive.

Rating: Would Wear Shirt If It Were Free.

Searching Hard in the Big Easy

The Gumbo Shop
630 St. Peter St.
New Orleans, LA
Visited August 22, 2010

Beer selection: Turbodog, baby!

Food: Bland, touristy Creole food.

For a city and state so famous for good food, it is surprisingly hard to find a great meal in New Orleans’ French Quarter.

Nope. The fact is, the French Quarter is all about drinking, not eating.

I’ve been coming to New Orleans since my first Mardi Gras trip in high school (that was a long time ago). Business trips, basketball tournaments and bachelor parties.

The Big Easy is always good for a good time. And no trip to the Crescent City is complete without a stroll through the Quarter. Just don’t do it hungry.

I mean, if Suit757 can’t find a good place to eat, you know the pickins are slim.

Oh sure, Felix and Acme are always good for sliding down a few Louisiana raw oysters. And the Central Grocery is fine if you want a muffuletta to go. And of course the Café du Monde is justifiably famous for their powdered sugar beignets. And who hasn’t stood in line at 3am at that infamous Bourbon Street Krystal on the stumble back to the hotel?

But a mouth tingling, destination dining spot to indulge in everything that makes Louisiana food famous?

New Orleans has plenty of those. They just aren’t in the touristy Vieux Carre.

Trust me, I’ve looked.

Unfortunately, after checking out The Gumbo Shop on Sunday night, I’m still looking.

The best thing about this little tourist spot around the corner from Jackson Square is they have Abita Turbodog on draft, one of my favorite beers in America.

Almost every restaurant in the state serves Abita Amber, a rather bland easy drinking offering by the Louisiana microbrewery up in Abita Springs.

But real men drink Turbodog.

I mean, it just sounds manly.

And looks it too. Black as Louisiana swamp water, Turbodog tastes as heavy as it looks. A dark, powerful, full-flavored beer that leaves a sweet aftertaste.

What I like about Abita beers is they don’t categorize their brews. They don’t call Abita Turbodog a stout or a porter or a triple bock.

It’s just…

…Turbodog.

One of a kind.

Unfortunately, the Gumbo Shop serves it in tiny 12 oz. glasses for way too much money.

But then again, I was here to eat. The “Huge Ass” 32oz traveler could wait for Bourbon Street. Now that’s what I call desert!

There wasn’t much indecision about what to order. When the joint is called “The Gumbo Shop”, well, you order gumbo.

Imagine my disappointment when the namesake trademark dish came out of the kitchen barely above room temperature. And the only thing scarcer than the crab and shrimp was the spice.

Bland, lukewarm tourist gumbo. That’s the gumbo served at The Gumbo Shop.

The jambalaya I ordered on the side was a little better. At least it had been heated at some point in its existence. And the sausage and chicken were more generously applied than the gumbo’s crab and shrimp.

I also sampled the red beans and rice with sausage, which was okay, but again, a little bland.

Of course I knew what my problem was.

I had just spent the prior 48 hours eating my way across the bayous and prairies of Louisiana Cajun country, where real Cajun food comes from, enjoying some of the most spectacular meals of my life.

I was spoiled. Spoiled rotten.

It would have been like seeing Hank Williams, III open for Brittney Spears. Even if she got naked, I’d be disappointed.

A touristy joint in the French Quarter is just going to be a let down after Café Des Amis, D.I.’s and Prejean’s.

So, 32 oz. Turbodog in hand, my search for an exciting French Quarter meal continues. Bummer. Guess I’ll just have to keep coming back.

Rating: Would Wear The Shirt If They Paid Me.