Bourbon House New Orleans, Cold Ass Weather

Bourbon House
144 Bourbon Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
(504) 522-0111

On a recent mind-blowingly cold Saturday, a friend and I decided to stop in for lunch at Dickie Brennan's Bourbon House, another outpost of the eponymous patriarch's restaurant empire. It's a beautiful space, located on Bourbon just about right off Canal - the dining room is huge and bathed in yellow and cream tones, with a huge granite oyster bar, and luxuriously appointed fittings for the rest of the space. The menu hits on the usual armada of New Orleans classics, with slightly higher prices then is perhaps standard. You're paying for the room, in the end. But the food is good, high quality, and nicely thought out, and the oysters on the half shell come from P&J and surely qualify as The Good Kind.



We tried the crab fingers Bordelaise as a starter, which came out in an uber rich and delicious lemon-butter garlic and parsley sauce. A really nice dish with a commitment to the cholesterol that made this city grand. Only complaint - could have been a teeny bit warmer.



I had the gumbo. I always have the gumbo. That's my MO. This gumbo? Pretty good, but not a standout in the category - there just wasn't enough STUFF in it. I wanted more meaty bits of seafood, and I wanted less in the way of a thick, thick roux, I wanted more down and dirty flavor. This was a refined gumbo, that you might take home to meet your mama, but I don't really want that. There was an interesting almost boozy flavor to this, that I couldn't properly identify.

We also had a delicious frozen bourbon milk punch, the sort of boozy, milky, semi-evil beverage that defines something essential about the New Orleans pysche. This aspect of the psyche may be encapsulated by the phrase, "Fuck-it-this-tastes-good-even-if-it-kills-me."

(Cold weather is an affront in New Orleans, a smack in the face to the laws of reality, something that cannot and should not be borne in any reasonable or just universe. Everyone walks around with thousand mile stares, dressing in fifteen different layers, since most people don't possess hi-performance parkas, everyone is gazing up at the sky with expressions of hatred and repentance, everyone is wondering if this will ever end. The palm trees look defeated and so do the rhododendron, so does everything, and people sit closer together on the streetcar then they normally would, making small talk. Yes, I hate cold weather in New Orleans, I hate it.)

Napoleon House New Orleans: Good Food, No Napoleon

Napoleon House
500 Chartres St
New Orleans, LA 70130-2110
(504) 524-9752


The Napoleon House in the 1930's.

The Napoleon House is old. As the legend goes, the 200 year old building was first occupied by one Nicholas Girod, the mayor of New Orleans from 1812 to 1815. Ever the altruist, the ardently French Girod offered up his humble Louisiana dwelling to the exiled French conqueror. The potential adultation and publicity that Napoleon's entry into the Crescent City might have brought was, presumably, secondary in his mind. Girod even went so far as to commision the ship Seraphine - an integral part of a plan to rescue the Emperor from St. Helena by way of Dominique. Napoleon never showed and the plot never went through, but the Napoleon House soldiered on, becoming an iconic and never-changing bar, restaurant, and hangout for an assemblage of bums, writers, and tourists. Mostly tourists.

The place does have a faded, oldy-moldy ambience that's extremely pleasant, with dressed-up and efficient staff and a nicely considered menu. Even better? Prices are startlingly cheap, a minor miracle in the ridiculously marked Quarter. There's usually a line - goddamn vacationers, curse them and their economic- stimulating dollars! - so plan accordingly.



Pimms Cups are the Napoleon House's signature drink, a deceptively simple mixture of British gin, lemonade, a bit of Sprite, and cucumber. They're pretty things, served up in a tall glass, and are remarkably refreshing on a hot day - as last Saturday was. Hot days in November are about 95% of why I am going to school here.



My never-ending seafood gumbo quest saw its continuation with the Napoleon House's version ($6.95). I was extremely pleased. I love super-thick okra gumbo with lots of stuff in it, and this didn't disappoint, with a consistency more like a thick, unctuous, roux-thick sauce then a soup. It even came with half a gumbo crab, and gumbo crabs always fill me with love and celestial tolerance for my fellow man, which is a pretty goddamn rare thing around here. My only complaint is it coulda been a bigger portion.



We shared a large Greek salad ($6.75) with balsamic-honey dressing, marinated red peppers, sesame seed, and feta cheese, on a bed of spinach. An unorthodox salad but pretty damn tasty, and you could tell they were using nice cheese on this sucker. The salads here are quite interesting - they really seem to think them out and go beyond the usual "slap some romaine on a plate" routine". Aces.



My friend opted for the perennial favorite of a loaded baked potato. Big as yer head and covered in bacon and cheese, this was gooooddd. The British call these things "jacket potatoes". Further proof they're probably not actual humans but instead despots from Planet Zarg.

I think I'll definitely be back for a reprisal of that tasty, mighty thick gumbo. The rest of the menu sounds like primo up-scale bar snacks as well - antipasto salads, cheese plates, charcuterie boards, and a lovely looking toasted muffaletta. Conclusion? Sometimes those damn tourists know a thing or two. Come on down, order some booze, eat some food, and sit back and enjoy the Quarter.

You can even pretend to be Napoleon in a reprisal of every movie insane asylum scene ever. (Seriously, why do they do that?) They'll probably kick you out, but the choice? Baby, it is yours.