Hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day. It's mark wiens, i'm in new orleans louisiana, which is one of the most the greatest food cities and always exciting cities in the united states. Today, we're going on an ultimate food tour of the french quarter and the french quarter is the center of the city. This is where the city began and we're going to eat some of the legendary food, some of the historic food.

I don't know if you're supposed to shot it or you're supposed to spoon it, let's shot it, especially focusing on creole food. So it's all coming up in this video. I cannot wait to explore this city and share all of the food with you from the french quarter right now. You ready for this ultimate french quarter tour today.

Oh i'm definitely ready for it. We've been uh practicing the stomach and the gut just to get prepped for this, but there's a good chance. I might be like four or five hundred pounds after this uh. This whole trip after this day, the first place that we're going.

Actually, let me just quickly tell you about new orleans, it's one of the oldest cities in the united states and the french quarter, which is where the french first came and settled on the banks of the mississippi river is the original part of the city. The first place that we're gon na go is the most historic, the most iconic coffee shop in all of the french quarter, maybe in all of the united states. So the first place that we're starting we're beginning we're launching off this ultimate tour of the french quarter is cafe du monde or the cafe of the world dates back to 18.. I believe.

Let me just check that fact, but i think it dates back to 1862 and it started originally at the french market. And now it is just a sprawling open-air courtyard one of the most iconic scenes and place to sit to have a coffee and to have a special beignet which i'll show you what that is in the entire city of new orleans. We've got to try cafe, olay and also black coffee, both right i'll, take two coffees: does it come with a foundation of powdered sugar on the bottom? Oh, yes, like always, what's your biggest tip about beignets, you cannot open air some jazz music. In the background you come here to drink coffee, but it's a special type of coffee and then also the baniers beignets beignets right, beignets, deep, fried little pillows of dough just submerged in powdered sugar with a lot of sugar, there's no shortage of powdered sugar.

You got ta lean over. You definitely want to lean over and do not take a breath. Do not breathe in not breathe in hold your breath until you take your first bite, all right cheers, oh yeah. Oh, so the actual, the actual dough is not really sweet.

I don't think right. No, so the sweetness is all the powdered sugar sugar, because the actual dose it's amazingly pillowy and then fried on the outside and crispy nice good crisp on the outside. I love them. Okay, i get it.

I get. Why there's so much? Powdered sugar, though definitely yeah, i'm sure everybody. If you look around i'm sure everybody has a powdered mush powdered sugar mustache, but this is not just any coffee. This is coffee with chicory, and so, as the story goes, coffee was first brought to new orleans by the french, but at some point throughout history there was a coffee shortage, and so they ran out of coffee, and so they started using these chicory wood chips.

I'm not totally sure it has a bit of a similar kind of taste, a dark kind of roasted fruity flavor similar to coffee, and so they started substituting chicory for coffee until today when they serve. I think now is a combination between real coffee beans and chicory. It is creamy, oh you taste that full cream that full full milk in there for sure it does have a bit of a woody taste to it, though, for sure i think it could be a little bit stronger and i would enjoy it even more. Derek is a coffee, roaster derek.

What do you think about the coffee? It goes perfect with the vignettes, so traditional dark roast, so you're gon na have a lot of smoke uh within it. You definitely get like that woody nutty flavor within it as well and the chicory definitely comes through and it pairs perfect. I think that's, i think, that's the thing. It's like it's, not the greatest coffee that you'll ever have, but it's the nostalgia.

It's the history. Even just knowing that there was a shortage of coffee in new orleans and that's why they started substituting chicory, makes it even more meaningful. Yeah has to be followed with poppy. All that we're left with is a cloud don't cough on this, or you have a cloud of powdered sugar that was good next up, conveniently, like literally like a a one minute walk down, the road is the next place where they invented the mufueleta.

There we go central grocery, the home of the original walk inside of here it is it. I mean this is a grocery, a full grocery and italian grocery, all sorts of italian products from different sauces and pestos and beans to all sorts of pastas. And then i think at the front they have all sorts of deli meats, they have cheeses and you can order the sandwich here as well. Oh, can i just get one of the original muffalettas please.

Thank you very much. It's like a pie - and this is huge. Look at it next to my face, it's literally the size of a pie with a weight to go with. It got ta kind of open it from the bottom or maybe it's the top wow, and so i think it all begins with this type of bread, which is the special type of mufuleta bread from the appearance.

It looks like a gigantic hamburger bun, but from feeling it it's much more. More dense has a real much like crunchier crust as well, but the top you can see is full of sesame seeds as well. Look at the layers of it the thickness of that bread. I love you guys, like the fresh olive oil as well yeah, and i love how there's full olives, just sliced and packed within that sandwich cheers cheers the original from 1906..

It's the olives that totally make it as well as the the olive oil from the preservation of the olives. I think that just kind of soak into the bread sweetness from the olive oil yeah, you still get that salty flavor from the salami from the ham and also from the olives and even the bread yeah. I'm amazed at like how like it's dense, yet still like. Incredibly, moist it's kind of oily but like holds, holds up and then the the meat, the salami, the ham, the provolone the cheese it all is like so neatly stacked.

Yes, oh yeah there you can see that layer of olives that's what's powering this entire sandwich, but the green olives. Specifically there are pickled peppers in there. I believe some carrots - and you just see the herbaceous mixture in there as well plus the olive oil. No wonder they cut it in quarters, though, although it would be cool to pick up the whole thing and bite out of it pretty sure.

If you ate one of these yourself, though you would be, you would need a nap. You ate a hole in your shelf. You'd be done for the day. I could take this.

I could eat this all day. I am like blown away and absolutely shocked to be quite honest, like again how you said it like: there's no possible way. This would ever like be invented these days because it's too simple of ingredients, but it's like simple ingredients paired well together and prepared properly, like you, can't beat it. The meat is great.

The cheese is great, the bread is great, but that olive salad is what it's all about. That was so good and you can never get enough of somebody using a paintbrush to brush your sandwich with olive oil and salad and spices and garlic and all those herbs from here, maybe we'll walk around a little bit and then we'll go to the next place. To continue eating, you don't find if you like this and welcome to bourbon street. This is for sure one of the most famous streets in new orleans, the most famous streets in the french quarter, and it's especially known for its nightlife.

Although i'm here right in the middle of the day, so it's not too busy, it's actually very quiet. But if you come here in the evening, it's just walking only packed, but i'm just enjoying this walk around the french quarter because of the architecture the i love the balconies, the wrought iron, the beauty, the character, it's so cool. Next, up on this ultimate food tour of the french quarter, we're going to a place, that's called coop's place. They specialize in both creole and cajun food.

The only thing about this place is that i'm not sure how i guess they are pretty strict, but it is a bit of a bar at the same time as a restaurant, their food is really good, but it is a bar as well. So it only says big sign on the front door. That says you must be 21 years or older to enter, i'm especially excited to eat their rabbit, sausage, jambalaya, yes or rabbit. Oh, it's rabbit and sausage shoveless.

Now we know why it's 21 and over. It is really kind of like a tavern, it's a tavern, actually yeah, really bar bar oriented. So unfortunately we got into coop's place, they immediately said no filming, and so we decided to get it for take-aways coming off that that's the jambalaya yeah, oh man, yeah. You popped open that etouffee and that smells incredible.

We were going to do a little bit of a. I mean a talk about the differences between cajun and creole, while we were sitting in korea in in coop's place, but actually this is even better sitting here in the plaza. Yes, so really, for the most part, new orleans would be more considered the heart of creole cuisine, whereas lafayette would be considered cajun, cajun country arcadian, and what exactly derek is going to share with us really the some of the key differences between cajun and creel from Uh ethnic perspective yeah so historically ethnically um like it's speaking in really general terms. Uh creole is predominantly your african, like west african, along with spanish influence, kind of blending and mixing together and in cajuns.

They are the french canadians that came down and started to settle different parts of louisiana as well, because you know historically, like you - have louisiana's just an interesting place. Uh originally settled by the french, then bought out by the spanish and then louisiana purchased and everything and uh the us took over as well. Slave trade was part of a big part of it. So during transatlantic slave trade, you had tons of africans uh, they were being brought over and came over and then as freedom and everything else happened.

The blending of the cultures took place so yeah. It is a such a unique, interesting history and just place in general to be i love it love it. I love it, but now we got two different dishes and just from the surface i know one of the main ingredient. Differences karil often uses tomatoes, whereas cajun often doesn't use tomatoes.

So we got an etufay which is a seafood stew. There's shrimp in there there's crawfish, there's tomatoes in there there's okra in there and there's so much stew over that that, i believe, there's. I believe there's rice at the bottom, but the rice is not even visible etouffee. The words can't express.

Oh, i got a shrimp in that bite, but it's the flavor of crawfish that i taste yes, so i mean shrimp. Shrimp and crawfish should be really similar size. Gon na definitely be a little bit different, but flavor-wise the crawfish. I think the crawfish is coming through more than the shrimp flavor great and the roux on that is nice and thick like that.

That is good. Okay, should we dig into the jambalaya? We can so there's rabbit in there as well as sausage, and then the jambalaya, especially in new orleans. A lot of things are mixed now as well right, yes, a lot of restaurants do serve a combination of cajun creole. Additionally, jambalaya is also kind of influenced by a spanish paella right - oh my goodness yeah.

Oh, my goodness, derek. Had the first bite of that jambalaya i got uh. No, i'm done. I got no words.

Oh man, a big chunk of jambalaya on the pants salty, oh wow, yeah, salty smoky. Just like a good punch with the seafood. I thought it was going to be a little bit mushy because it looks kind of thick. It almost looks like a rice porridge actually, but that is so good.

The rabbit is just there like melted into the entire porridge like jambalaya. It reminds me of like bacon, somehow i think that's smokiness right. I mean that, like it reminds me of bacon. That's smokiness too, fair is good, but the jambalaya is where it's at i'm shocked at the depth of flavor when it comes to this jambalaya, like typically other places around the country, you'll get jambalaya and it's like.

Okay, whatever no big deal here, you take a bite. Swallow them to everything and you're still tasting and tasting and tasting like long after the actual bite, and it is yeah. Actually, the aftertaste is incredible, like it just lingers on your tongue, the smokiness, this one there's so many different meats and proteins in here too, the sausage the rabbit shrimp crawfish. It's all about that jambalaya.

I just want to take a nap in it. Oh, i'm not gon na leave a grain of rice that went down really easily. I think we could eat like five of these. If we weren't going on a full food tour, i think we would eat five of these if we weren't going on a full food tour literally on the last bite, it just started downpouring kind of out of nowhere - ah we're hovering under this tree until it gets Whoa, we might need to make a run for it.

It's coming in yeah. I think we better make a run for it still raining, but we decided to make a run for it and well because the place is pretty close, we're going to that place right across the corner there. It is a hole-in-the-wall grocer, it's an old place. I know it's a 24-hour place.

We're definitely gon na have a pool boy over there and maybe see what else they have to continue with this food tour. Today, you open this, i'm beginning to think that some of the best food in new orleans comes from grocery stores, the back of a little supermarket. You got to go sideways. A little grocery store.

Everything from popcorn to instant coffee are available. If you need a shaver, if you need some coffee filters, if you need some duct tape, it's all available here and then towards the back, there's, actually a little line. Uh all the way towards the back is the deli sandwich counter shop, where you make your order. Just enough space to make a line, that's their distinguishing factor is the wow sauce, so we're gon na get the all that jazz, a medley of grilled ham, turkey and shrimp swiss american grilled tomatoes, grilled mushrooms, tomatoes, french, bread, wow sauce.

Thank you very much. Wow hey! I, like your season's adjusting video. Oh thank you very much. Thank you very much there.

It is oh, it's heavy! It's already leaking a little bit, and i think one of the great things about this place is there's like no no extra space to maneuver to move to even stand, even when you're waiting for your order. You're just kind of like like putting your face into some mayonnaise, it's awesome, okay and then, of course, no no place to eat at all. It's only takeaway, let's come back outside here, oh where it is still raining. It's always a good sign when the paper is transparent.

Oh that's! The wow sauce, the wow sauce has completely saturated how appropriate for you two layers of the paper. Oh look at that all the mushrooms, the cheese there's shrimp in there too. Oh it's so saucy. That is sloppy juicy and oozing.

It might be a dangerous move to try to open it, but i have to see everything that's inside so badly, so we're gon na risk risk the opening of the all that jazz po boy. Oh look at that. The key component is the wow sauce. They literally call it the wow sauce, which is just smothered into everything.

It's so juicy, it's so wet, and yet it holds its shape and the bun the loaf is so soft cheers. Oh man, oh thank you. Thank you. Awesomely tasty because it's like the best of everything combined into a single sandwich with melted, cheese and oozing, sticky, wow sauce all over the place.

I wouldn't know what that was made of it's almost like a honey mustard, almost and mayonnaise. At the same time, almost in aioli, at the same time too, are you still connected the highest concentration of melted cheese. You could possibly have in a single loaf of bread. This is much different.

This is much different than some of the traditional pogoies that you'll find around the city and throughout the state it's much different, but yeah it's working, it's at least worth trying once because it is something special and something different, especially that sauce i'm still shocked. It's so much going on it's so rich, it's so many contrasting things like cheese and american cheese and mayonnaise, and yet somehow it oddly just all fits together in this. Warm cozy, sticky, soggy oozy, sloppy messy po boy, and it is amazing for our next place, and this is uh. It's gon na be an amazing meal.

It's one of the most highly regarded restaurants in the french quarter of new orleans. They have a little bit of a dress code, so it's time to dress up for our next meal. All right. Let's go.

They set us in the back room. I guess maybe in the front room, you have to have a dress code, a suit coat, which i wasn't but we're at lunch. So it doesn't. I don't know anyways uh happy to sit in the back room and it is like it's a little more relaxed back here.

Actually, the the front room was pretty intense yeah. Thank you very much cam, which yourself thank you andrew andrew offered to take our photo cheers. Thank you, andrew for taking our photo good night that was andrew on the video camera. Thank you andrew jazzfest, october 10th.

Awesome. Thank you very much. This restaurant has been here since 1905., so the food is especially french creole, french creole yeah, with a seafood fruit. Okay got these chefs that came the late 1800s early 1900s, because there's other restaurants that have the same situation.

They come from france. They use the french way, but okay, they incorporate it into the local zoo. All right. Yes, thank you.

Oh thank you very much sure. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh you pour it in nice.

Thank you very much. All right. The appetizers have come. She just brought the seafood gumbo, the shrimp remoulade, which is extremely famous here, one of the most famous dishes that they popularized at galatoires.

Another thing that i can't wait to try is the oysters rockefeller, which were actually invented at a restaurant nearby called antoine's, but they also serve very good oyster rock oysters rockefeller here that i couldn't wait to try to they're so bright, green, an oyster on the bottom Of that, with a combination of spinach and herb mixture and then maybe broiled on top, it feels kind of crispy on the top but kind of fluffy and foamy and herbaceous and very green and a bright green. I don't know if you're supposed to shot it or you're supposed to spoon it uh, i'm a let's, try both let's shot it. Okay, i definitely did not get it all. It's huge yeah, wow there we go.

Okay, probably should spoon that i'm gushing so there's more than one mouthful. Oh yeah wow that is unique. Warm and homey is what comes to mind when i taste it. It tastes like a puree of it is a puree of herbs and spinach, almost foamy in texture, and you get that wonderful, nice, mussel and oyster down at the very bottom melt in your mouth, oyster at the bottom, totally different from any other oyster dish that i've Ever had, i think, tam and ying on your first oyster rockefeller.

No, it's but it's good! It's amazing right! I really like the green sauce, but that puree surprise wait. Can you my favorite? Can you lift that up wow? I love the bright green color huh. Can i hit the roulade with some lemon you guys all like lemon right. You immediately taste the horseradish in there, but it's not overpowering it's kind of like a combination of cocktail sauce and it tastes like cocktail shrimp, but with the cocktail sauce and horseradish, all mixed in and with a nuttiness, very refreshing.

It's like, because i kind of want to look into the insides of it. It tastes really fresh for this one. I will cut it in half with a look at the bright interior, green. Look, how green, how bright popping green! It is that's amazing and then the melty oyster on the bottom eat them.

You kind of do have to eat it all in one bite, whether you shot it or eat it with a spoon because otherwise it kind of doesn't come apart, oysters rockefeller. That was two thumbs up amazing next up for gumbo, one of the ultimate of all louisiana dishes - and this is a seafood gumbo. You can see. There's whole oysters in there there's shrimp beautifully thick from the roux and rue is the combination of fat and flour used to thicken and to flavor a gumbo like this.

I believe right, um seafood is fresh. Oh that shrimp. It almost just feels like crab. It's that stringy it's so thick and hearty, but it doesn't feel too heavy.

It is really good. The crab flavor in that gumbo is unmistakable andrew. Thank you, wow wow, nice. That looks amazing.

Thank you. Thank you. Very much. Ying got the ribbon wall, the juiciness of that oh nice.

You know, pam got the sardu, yin got a steak and then derek and i each got a fish dish. I got the sauteed red fish with uh, a sauce made from crab and mushroom and then derek got the fried trout, deep, fried trout covered in a almond yeah it's covered in a mountain, oh man. I can't wait. I love fit.

How firm this redfish is. It's so firm, it's you can see it's topped with a bit of a seasoning or a dry rub and then a chunky sauce with butter, mushrooms crab in there that sheer the butteriness of it, the sauce with crab with mushrooms, so good, cooked perfectly yeah. I'm thinking the same thing for the trout, like i don't know how they cooked it. This well, but it's like, especially with it being fried, but it's like cooked cooked through all the way, yet still like flakes off easily nothing's overdone nothing's under done like it's perfectly cooked i've hit the wall.

I think i've bounced off the wall moving slower. I need to go exercise for like a year. Maybe i should take another bite. This is the last meal they're ever wondering.

Yes, this is all in one day. It is all in one day and it is much better like it's not even six o'clock. Yet it's been a lot of food in a short, so good the entire meal was excellent. I think my favorite part, though, for the oysters, rockefeller wow, so you've got brandy, control, orange cinnamon, stick and chloe wow that smells amazing watch out all right, wow right here.

Look check this out, wow fire, that's very cool! All right! Why don't they keep these? You don't want to do it too long with you, okay, alcohol and then you wouldn't have any alcohol. Okay. Okay, that's awesome! Very cool! That's so awesome ignite it on fire play with it, something i've never had before. Have you had this before dirk i've? Never i've never had it interesting.

I love the can barely sit show here. There we go yeah, you guys should add at least look at it smell it wow that is very festive tasting um. I feel like it's like a spiced punch, almost yeah. What is the? What is the um, the famous apple, or it's almost apple, cider or or the eggnog, maybe because of the because of the spices because of the cinnamon because of the clove.

It almost has an eggnog taste to it, but i mean with coffee. It's almost a combination of it's cidery, very cidery, but then with coffee as the base. It reminds me of an apple cider or just a cider spice cider yup. It's a spice like a spice center wow, very festive, very aromatic yeah.

I think, because of the sweetness of the brandy, yeah and the coffee is not like it's not overly like perfect, ending to an amazing meal and a huge thank you to jennifer and andrew for taking great care of us. Thank you for the amazing service, amazing service. Very high quality, very fancy restaurant step outside immediately love that change of pace you hear the jazz music, the live music and galaxy is actually right on bourbon street. We weren't sure if we were going to pull this off, because we weren't sure it was possible, but it was just like one street down and right over, so we had to stop here a place called brennan's for one fast dessert to end this tour, the epitome Of new orleans invented here, bananas foster they invented it at brennan's right on a birthday celebration.

Have you ever had bananas fosters before yeah here, never here, first time yep. So we have brown sugar, a dash of cinnamon some butter. I have banana liqueur now we're going to go ahead and caramelize. This blend this all together, nice and creamy.

There we go. This was created last minute for a party for a good friend of the brennan's family, mr richard foster, okay, um, and to celebrate him last minute, owen brennan decides to throw him a party, so he does. He invites the town he sets everything up in his restaurant and decides to tell ella brennan his baby sister, who is the general manager at the time of this party um, and that he needs a dessert, something special, something that hasn't been done before, something that would Wow the crowd, and so she says absolutely give me a few days and i'll come up with something really beautiful and he says well, no ma'am! You don't have a few days because people are going to be here in a few hours very frustrating. So she gets right to work.

She reaches right into her own mother's cookbook to find caramelized bananas, something that they had enjoyed as children. So it was something that they were already familiar with, not only that she throws it right over vanilla ice cream. Knowing that i'm sorry knowing that owen brennan hates vanilla ice cream, this is her way of getting back at him for giving her such short notice, because it is not fancy enough not only that they decide to add a shot of rum to flambe these bananas. For the crowds to compete with antoine's another world famous restaurant here in the corner, um, who is famous for baked alaska, okay, something special, so okay, alabana decided she needed to come up with something special as well we're going to let this pan get nice and hot And then i am going to go ahead and flambe it's going to get a bit high, okay, one two three! It is the best.

This was actually so popular that night at the brennan's uh foster party, that you will actually continue to come back into brennan and ask for the banana dessert served at that foster party people who weren't even invited to that party came in forcing the brennan's family to Put it on their menu and call it bananas foster and homage to their good friend, owen uh, richard foster, who all in all was the original inspiration for the creation of the dutch. Thank you very much, no problem. Thank you. Guys.

Derek was telling me that bananas fosters, is your favorite dessert, dude sound favorite dessert, but i've never had the original in the office. Oh, this is the real deal. That was absolutely amazing and i loved how she told the entire story. It was so worth it.

Let's try: it cannot wait to try it half melted ice cream, the banana, the rum syrup wow, oh, that is one of the greatest desserts ever, but it's not overly sweet. I guess not too sweet. I've had these before and there's always like too much brown sugar. There's too much like overpowering with the the sweetness right too much, and here it's like you, still get the wonderful taste of the banana.

It's a good balance between the banana and the vanilla bean ice cream and, just like everything, is wonderful and that contrast of the cold frozen ice cream to the warm melted, brown, sugar and butter and the half cooked banana. Oh, we could not have chose a better ending to this ultimate tour food tour of the french quarter. I haven't been pausing, it's just non-stop, i'm almost done. I can drink it.

That's pure joy, like this literally, has been my favorite growing up in chicago. I had this at some place. Have you ever ever had a better version than this? No, no, no, not even close. So that was the perfect way to end this ultimate food tour of new orleans, the french quarter and yeah.

It's just been a fun day. New orleans is so exciting, there's so much good food. I love the mix of cultures, the quality of seafood, the strategic location, the friendly attitudes, the just happiness and positivity of new orleans, and that was an extremely fun day. I want to say a big thank you to you for watching this video.

Please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, leave a comment below i'd love to hear from you and, if you're not already subscribed, make sure you subscribe for lots more food and travel videos. So thanks again for watching goodbye from new orleans louisiana from the french quarter, and i will see you on the next video.