N'awlins is short for "the best food anywhere"

   On my short trip to New Orleans, Louisiana, I enlisted the help of fellow foodie (and friend), Chris.

   He directed me first to Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter for beignets and special coffee made with chicory, which I drank black (like a boss).
   Beignets are french "doughnuts", not what we would consider doughnuts, but more like a cross between a traditional doughnut and a funnel cake. Squares of a light dough are deep fried and BURIED in powdered sugar and served hot and delicious.
   The coffee at Cafe Du Monde is blended with chicory (endive root)-a habit adopted during the Civil War when coffee beans were scarce, and continued to this day. If you don't like coffee black, order a traditional cafe au lait-a mix of coffee, milk and half and half.

Read more about Cafe Du Monde

   For lunch we went to The Coops Place "where the not-so-elite meet to eat". While the atmosphere is decidedly laid-back, the Jambalaya Supreme is quite possible the most well-crafted dish I have ever consumed.
   Ever.

   One thing I always try to find when I am traveling is a used bookstore, and I hit the jackpot with Beckham's Bookshop.
 
   As soon as you open the door, the smell of aged paper and decaying spines beckons you in. Like anyone who has spent any time with old books, I have grown to love the smell the glue in the binding gives off as it slowly rots, especially when mixed with the dusty odor the pages get when they haven't been turned in years.

   Old men in long beards and longer coats walked quietly through the aisles, picking up weather-beaten copies of more recent favorites, as well as heavier tomes. The creak of old floorboards let everyone know that you were entering the upstairs area of the store, and served to warn the fat cat that lived there that someone was entering his domain.
 
   I picked up a copy of one of my old favorites, Anne of Avonlea, to add to my collection and as a souvenir of one of the most perfect bookstores I've had the pleasure to visit.

   Because nothing goes with a good book like a cup of coffee, I walked my way to Canal St & St. Charles to visit this Starbucks: 

   It was unique, it was chic, it had bathrooms that were locked with a keypad. While I love the ambiance and I love Starbucks, I do not love having all the baristas know how often I use the loo (there is no way I'm memorizing 6 digits just to piss).

   Before dinner we stopped at the mall for tea samples and popcorn. Popcorn Bistro ships folks, so even if you don't make it to the Big Easy, you can still try their wild and spectacular popcorn flavors like boiled crawfish, zesty buffalo wing and mardi gras mambo.
   Yes, please.
   After trying about a dozen flavors, I have decided that popcorn gets its own food group.

   As the temperature dropped, I stayed warm with a bowl of only slightly-but-pleasantly-spicy gumbo and a cafe au lait. A word of advice to anyone looking to visit New Orleans: bring cash. Most coffee vendors and a few other places do not accept credit cards. Shocking, but kind of nice in an old-world throwback kind of way.

   I stayed at the India House Hostel for the night,  my first time actually staying at a hostel. A creaky old house with a front room filled with hippies and stickers on the walls, it was nonetheless clean, comfortable and affordable. While I might not go out of my way to stay at hostels in the future, I was pleasantly surprised at how efficient and economical my stay was.

   All in all, my stay in New Orleans was a success. While the trumpet players in the streets, the old world European flair of the houses and shops that line streets are memorable, It's my taste buds that will never let me forget N'awlins.

Hanging baskets in the French Quarter 

Fat Cat at Beckam's that owned the upstairs 

Statue to commemorate the founding of New Orleans in 1718