Italian Seafood on Frenchmens

I am not a big fan of tourist-ie spots but when the BFF asked, I was stoked about a birthday celebration in New Orleans.  I had never been to the French Quarter but as a huge fan of urban fantasy (and a leaning toward vampires and pirates) many of my imaginary worlds have Crescent City roots.  I was excited to see the dark beauty described in all my books.

It's a dirty city but parts of it were just as beautifully gritty as I had imagined.  Tropical storm Lee cooled things down but it never washed the grime away.  It also didn't deter the obnoxious party fiends on Bourbon street.  Go figure.

Luckily, the cemeteries were lonely in a lovely way and the French Market was wonderful.  Mother's had excellent bloody marys as promised but the other food wonders seemed to blow away with the storm.  We struck out a few times in the Quarter.  Then our hotel bar tender (yes, there were many cocktails) suggested an Italian seafood joint just off the Quarter on a street called Frenchmens.  He said Adolfo's was hard to find if you weren't looking for it but that it was a local gem.  He was right.  Adolfo's was yummy even if it was tucked away above a bar.  It was dingy (just like the rest of the town) but it was packed.  We took the advice of the waiter and had the cannelloni stuffed with crab and corn. YEEEUUUMMMM.  I had the speckled trout with "ocean sauce".  The ocean sauce consisted of half shrimp, half crab with a light red cream sauce.  Again - YEEEUUUMMM.

I pulled up reviews on Urban Spoon; they were mixed and most of the bad comments were about the service.  The service wasn't great but it was good, especially considering how slammed the place was.  AND it was a thousand times better than some of the other places we tried. <cough, Daisy Dukes, cough>.  I would recommend trying it out as long as you have a laid back attitude and cash; it's cash only. 

One of my favorite parts of the Big Easy was the local atmosphere.  Every native we spoke to was wonderful, friendly, easy-going.  Well, except for the soup nazi at Mother's and the staff at one specific double D eatery.  I enjoyed the trip but I really loved coming home to a clean house and sunshine. ^_^