Now that you’ve read up on Parts one and two of our trip, the next part of our New Orleans Trip found us at the Ruby Slipper to start the day. The Ruby Slipper is a mini chain of restaurants that offers a variety of simple southern inspired dishes. The service is quick, friendly and efficient, but for the gluten free among us the food options are fairly limited. No fried food is gluten free, they do not offer substitutions of items for dietary reasons, and they do not offer gluten free breads. This was a big let down for me. We kept it basically simple with our orders, getting the Catfish with poached eggs and grits and the Florentine omelette. The food quality was good overall, but nothing spectacular. I’d say this is a good breakfast joint if you’ve ran out of other gluten free options. I ended up sneaking a second breakfast in at Meals from the Heart before we continued out day.
Next came one of the more traditional pieces of our trip: Visiting the New Orleans Aquarium. Since Mike and I met we have gone to an Aquarium at virtually every location we’ve visited, I don’t know why but we just love seeing the variety of wildlife that inhabits the largest part of our world. Everything about aquatic life is fascinating: Colors, purpose, shapes, sizes. Some highlights of this aquarium include their penguin exhibit, their sting ray and shark tunnel, and their parrot exhibit. The parakeets were well worth the extra charge, and it hysterically to try and get them out of your pockets and hair.
You can see how many of them there were in the background of this photo of one perched on Mike’s head. In addition to finding them on our heads and in our pockets and cleavage I had a hard time keeping them away from the gluten free lara bar in my purse!
For lunch we found ourselves in a small alley way back in the French Quarter at Green Goddess. This little hole in the wall restaurant was one of my favorite of the trip, as they’ve truly taken the unique fusion of cultures that is the port city of New Orleans and made it into a wide reaching ethnic menu. From truffle manchego cheese grits (Spanish/Southern fusion) to uttapam (Indian style stuffed pancakes) all your senses are immersed in the dining experience from start to finish. You can smell your food being cooked in the small kitchen practically next to your table, and each dish has flavors that went perfectly. They have a great selection of gluten free, vegan, and vegetarian options, and everything was incredible. They also pickle their own vegetables on site, which is just fun in general! The only down side is the limited size, I felt incredibly claustrophobic during our meal but we also went when outside seating wasn’t available due to weather.
After lunch we found ourselves rained in at the Harra’s casino during what would turn into a lingering thunder storm, so we spent this time trying to find someplace we could have a relaxing low key dinner, maybe with some live music. Although it was a good distance from the main stretch of the city we agreed to have dinner at the Irish House on Saint Charles Street, a quick trolley car ride away. We spent the remainder of our night nestled inside of this bustling little pub, with Irish music playing live in the background. The menu follows traditional pub fare, but offers a more southern less fried twist, and gluten free options are denoted on the regular menu. The staff are also incredibly friendly and knowledgeable about dietary needs. For the second time on this vacation, and my gluten free life, I was able to have the crab cakes on the menu. We continued our love affair with seafood by topping things off with the Salmon with Curry sauce drizzle and the Fish of the day Gulf Fish dinner entrees.
These were the top fish of the trip, they were just so incredibly fresh and perfectly cooked. One slight pull of your fork and the fish just flaked off in bite sized bites. We paired a Golden Apple Cocktail and an Irish coffee with our meals, which were equally as pleasant. It was certainly a great dinner decision, and was well worth the trolley ride in the rain.
Restaurant Ratings:
The Ruby Slipper: 2/5 shamrocks (No points for options, .5points for atmosphere, price,
hospitality, and food quality)
Green Goddess: 4.5/5 (Full point on option s, food quality, price, and hospitality, and half point on atmosphere)
The Irish House: 5/5 shamrocks (full score: options, atmosphere, price, hospitality, and food quality)
Next week we’ll be making the final stop in my New Orleans Review series, and you’ll be meeting a very awesome blogger so I had the opportunity to meet up with while down there. Stay tuned!