Lindsay's Big Night Out

Well it finally arrived. Lindsay's official "Big Night Out!" The entire New Orleans weekend was her bachelorette party of course, but while most of the weekend was pretty relaxed and unplanned, Saturday night had us on an itinerary starting at 6:30 sharp.

We started the evening with a little party in the hotel. The whole troop of girls came to our room, which was decorated to the nines and filled with swag and presents for Lindsay. We dolled her up in all kinds of pink pins and feather boas, did a champagne toast, and then showered her with a combination of silly and special gifts.

Poor lighting, but that's a pretty white bathrobe that says "Bride" for Lindsay to wear while getting ready on her wedding day. Less than two months to go!

Around 7:30 we headed down to the hotel bar for one more drink, then started to make our way down Bourbon Street.

Our first stop of the night was Pat O'Briens. Lindsay loves dueling piano bars, and Pat O'Briens has a famous one, so it was the perfect place to start the evening. The pianos were in full swing when we arrived so everyone enjoyed hanging out there while we waited an hour for our table to be ready. Soon enough, it was dinner time!

I loved Pat's because the whole restaurant was outdoors, and the evening air was the perfect temp for eating outside. I wasn't too hungry after eating a big lunch, so Cathleen and I decided to split an entree and each get a side salad. We also shared a giant hurricane for our drink. Apparently we're like a poor old married couple when we go out to eat, ha!

The salad was a typical house salad, but the restaurant's signature basil vinaigrette was pretty tasty. 

For our main meal, Cath and I went with a southern classic - shrimp with cheesy grits. Pat's was a little different in that the shrimp were served in a thick seafood gravy, almost like a chowder, and the grits were served on top as crispy wedges.

We liked their twist on the shrimp & grits and had no problem polishing it off. 

After dinner, we moved on down the street to The Cat's Meow, a famous New Orleans karaoke bar! It's no exaggeration when I say this was the best karaoke bar I've ever been to. The crowd got so into every song, it was awesome! We had a bachelorette party package set up, so everyone got free drinks and all kinds of swag to wear, including cat ears and tails. We wore them with pride.

We may not have great singing voices, but we're not shy either, so we all got up on stage with Lindsay to sing a Jersey classic, Livin' on a Prayer. The crowd loved it! At least we think so. :) It was a great time.

The rest of the night was spent dancing our way down Bourbon Street to a bunch of other little bars. A fun girls night out, indeed!

I had to leave earlier than the rest of the girls and come home on Sunday morning (such is life with a baby at home!), which was kind of a bummer, but I was pretty sapped of energy by the time I got home so it was really nice to sleep in my own bed. I took today off work so I could stay at home and hang out with my little man since I haven't seen him in a few days, and now we're headed off for a play date with my good friend Heather. Hope you had a great weekend!

New Orleans Day 2

After we digested the big breakfast we had yesterday morning, the whole gang headed out to the hotel pool to relax for a few hours. Before changing into our swimsuits, though, Nicole and I decided to take advantage of the hotel gym and get in a quick sweaty workout. I had packed my gym clothes but was really debating whether I felt like going, so I was glad to have Nicole there to push me. It really helped to have a buddy there to get me movin'!

The gym was actually quite large and had a lot of machines. We each completed a 30 minute run on the treadmills before doing a mini circuit workout.

Our "mini circuit" looked like this:

- 30 crunches on the stability ball

- 10 squats

- 10 push-ups

We completed the circuit three times before calling it a day. I admit my push-ups were the girly kind, but it's better than nothing and my arms still felt the burn. Nicole and I agreed we felt a lot better after getting a workout in, and we were charged up for the rest of the day!

After a quick change, it was pool time! The whole group was there, and we enjoyed fresh minty mojitos while chatting and letting our legs dangle in the water. 

A group of people hanging out at the pool even sent over a bottle of champagne to congratulate Lindsay on her upcoming wedding, which we happily passed around. So nice!

A few hours of drinking mojitos in the sun and we were all ready for a break and some food. Some of the group went back to Cafe Beignet for lunch and then to the park to see some local artists, but Nicole, Cathleen and I wanted to try a new restaurant, so we went for a long walk down Canal Street to check out  some places near the water. 

Love those palm trees! We eventually ended up at the Riverwalk, which I was pretty excited about since it's the scene of one of my favorite movies of all time, The Pelican Brief with Julia Roberts. An oldie but goodie!

We settled on the first restaurant in the square since it featured fresh seafood, live music and tables right on the water. And a giant lobster.

I am seriously in love with how much live music there is in New Orleans. It makes everything that much more enjoyable.

While we perused the menu, we sipped on some orange screwdrivers. It's vacation after all! ;-) We originally ordered 007s (orange vodka, orange juice and 7-Up), but the bartender was confused and brought us Seagram & 7...big difference. I nearly gagged when I took a sip and realized it was whiskey. Not my thing! Thankfully they brought us a new round right away.

Cathleen was on a mission to try some alligator in New Orleans, so when we spotted Alligator Bites on the appetizer menu, it was a no brainer. 

The alligator was spicy and had a decent texture. It was especially good dipped in the restaurant's homemade spicy remoulade. I wouldn't say it was my favorite thing ever, but I'm glad I tasted it. I'm a pescatarian, but I'm not sure where reptiles fall on the spectrum; since they live most of their lives in the water, I figured I'd give it a pass. ;-)

I really wanted to have an oyster po'boy at some point during the trip, so I ordered that while Nicole and Cath each ordered a bowl of the seafood gumbo and we all tried bites of everything.

How enormous is that sandwich? It was packed with breaded oysters, shredded cabbage, tomatoes and pickles. I ate a little less than half the sandwich before I abandoned the bread and fillings and we just ate the oysters. They were the real stars anyway, and the bread was just making me full. The oysters were super fresh, tender and sweet. Yum!

The gumbo was also really good. It was rich and full of seafood flavor since it was cooked with crawfish and shrimp.

We were pretty full after lunch, so the long walk back to the hotel did us good. I had such a great time hanging out with the girls the whole day; whenever we're together, we laugh nonstop until our bellies hurt and there always ends up being a "vacation catch-phrase" that gets used constantly during the trip. We've been on quite a few vacations together, and we can characterize each of them by a single catch phrase. No matter how old we get or how many responsibilities we have, I think it's really important to take a weekend once in a while just to reconnect and unwind together. I hope we do this for years to come!

Once we got back to the hotel, we had just enough time to relax for a few minutes before it was time to start getting ready for the evening festivities. A perfect day on vacation, for sure!

Breakfast on Bourbon Street

One word. Beignets.

This may have been one of the most relaxing Saturday morning I've ever had. The group of girls staying in my hotel room woke up around 8:30 with our tummies rumbling, so we took a little stroll down Bourbon St. to get some breakfast. It was already 85 degrees by 9 AM, so we definitely wanted to sit outside somewhere and enjoy the weather. We stumbled upon Cafe Beignet, and knew it was exactly the place we were looking for.

The cafe was jamming already, but we were able to grab a table under the shade and right next to the little jazz band playing. The place is so cute! Its beignets were featured by Alton Brown on Food Network's "The Best Thing I Ever Ate", so we knew we had to try them. The three of us (me, Cathleen and Nicole) decided to order a few different things and share them all.

We decided to get an egg & swiss cheese sandwich on a homemade croissant (a must-have in the French Quarter), a veggie omelet with French bread and grits, a cup of fresh strawberries, and of course the  beignets. I thought it was really interesting that they served grits and French bread rather than homefries and toast, like we'd typically get for breakfast in New Jersey. I love how we have so many different food cultures right in our own country.

Everything was really good, but the beignets totally stole the show. Alton wasn't lying when he said it was the best thing he ever ate! They were crispy on the outside, dense and doughy on the inside, and piping hot so the powdered sugar clung to them like frosting. They literally melted in our mouths. We were "mmm-ing" and sighing our whole way through the batch. Paired with an iced coffee, they were amazing.

The little jazz band playing in the background while we ate made for the best little breakfast place around. Coffee, beignets and live jazz music on a Saturday morning, does it get any better than that? 

We all said we wish we had a place like that at home that we could walk to and meet for breakfast on the weekends. I guess that's what vacations are for. ;-)