new orleans festival food

(New Orleans, Louisiana).  Sometimes I get so wrapped up in planning meals when I travel to New Orleans that I end up depriving myself of one of the greatest pleasures there - which is simply enjoying festival food.  In New Orleans, the variety and quality of festival food is on par with the best in the world.  Most of it isn't healthy but then who is eating festival food for health?

This year I tried to control myself and left enough meals open to allow myself more time (and tummy room) to enjoy more of the delectable festival food at the French Quarter Festival.  To be honest, the food was so delectable that I forgot to take a lot of pictures ... or by the time I remembered, I had already devoured the evidence.

The French Quarter Festival has several stages through the entire quarter, and each "section" has different food vendors - most of which are well-known establishments in New Orleans.  The website contains a map detailing the vendors and their offerings at each stage, so if you are a pig like me, you can schedule your day based on the food you want to eat (instead of the music you want to listen to)...

Because we had three people we were able to sample a lot more food - we had Shrimp Remoulade from Galatoire's, Shrimp Poboy,  Alligator Cheesecake from Jacques Imo's, Butter Beans and Rice from KPaul's, grilled oysters, a gigantic chocolate cream puff, etc. etc.  Everything was delicious!!!  And it's just fun trying all this amazing food, which is such a large part of the culture of the city that it would be a shame not to fully immerse yourself in the entire 'food' experience.

Below are just a few pictures of some of the items we tried:

Shrimp Poboy with Bacon

Giant chocolate Cream Puff.

Grilled Oysters.

Apple Beignets.

Shrimp Remoulade - surprisingly spicy!

My favorite turned out to be the Butter Beans and Rice ... I had it on two different days and I forgot to take pictures on both occasions because I was too busy stuffing it in my mouth.  Oddly enough I didn't find this dish on their regular menu - but I will be sure to go to K-Pauls again next year and hopefully they'll be serving it again.

And I will definitely need to dedicate an entire meal to the traditional Crawfish Boil - family style!  See you soon New Orleans!