More Good Eats in the City Where Sin Never Sleeps (English)

More fine treats for the finicky palate..

Last night Barbara and I went to Iris in uptown New Orleans at Riverbend. It was a small, albeit midly pretentious bistro, but they could make a great Grey Goose Martini and the had a Cantaloupe Mojito as aspecial that was to die for. For my opener, I ordered foie gras, prepared closely to the old world style. It was very pleasant, but I think they could have stuffed that goose for a bit longer! Then I had a mixed greens salad with shitake mushrooms and a house dressing that was very nice. Then for my main course I had sea scallops with Bak Choi and grapefruit wedges; all in all the meal was very light, but very pleasant. Finally for dessert I had honeydew melon sorbet, a very nice foil to the light summery dishes I'd had for my meal, especially considering the 97 degree temperature outside!

Tonight we went to a place not far from Irish, in fact in the same building as Lebanon's Cafe (which is in front of Iris) called the Fiesta Bistro. At first, neither Barbara nor I thought the place would be all the good, but we figured we would try it on a whim, figuring that we had been to so many nice places, we were bound to hit a bad one sooner or later. We were both wrong! In fact the menu was relaly wonderful, a nice combination of Spanish and Mexican (although the waiter, a young swain from Syracuse of all places, informed us that all the Mexican elements would be vanishing in due course and the menu would be just Spanish.). I ordered a couple tapas and some tacos for my meal, accompanied by two lovely frozen margaritas (you can get lovely daiquris and margaritas all over New Orleans, and many places have incredible early bird specials on these, although nothing as grand as those 50 cent martinis at La Petite Grocery). For my first tapa I had stuffed mushrooms, filled with olives, pinenuts, garlic and tomatoes sitting in a lovely drizzle of balsamico. Next I had a manchego cheese and red pepper empanada, followed by m main course, two tacos, one steak one chicken, both of which I topped with some lovely spicey salsa. Finally for dessert, I had a flan and espresso. The flan was a little over the top, and therefore disappointing; I would have prefered a more traditional flan. However, over all the meal was very good, and very inexpensive: 52$ for both of us. In fact with the excpetion of Iris, all the meals we have had this week were rather inexpensive. As I am wont to do, I tend to add things on to my meal and make it more expensives, but really, it would have been possible to eat for around 25$ at five of the six restaurants and still get a fabulous meal. New Orleans has so many restaurants, and with the reduced tourist trade after Katrina, and now even moreso due to the hot weather, many have spectacular offers.