We found this awesome breakfast place called Toast. It is by the French Market in the French Quarter, which gives it a nice view and the opportunity to people watch.
Everything was delicious. It was a chilly morning, so Ben and I started with coffee and we got the boys hot chocolate. We picked 4 items from the menu and shared between us, so everyone got to try the different foods. We ordered chicken and waffles (it came with a delicious container of Cajun butter), a savory Florentine crepe, Aebelskivers (puffed pancakes) with chocolate sauce, and coconut cream stuffed french toast.
The puffed pancakes were little round balls of fun, and tasted like…well, pancakes. The crepe had a lot of flavors going on and was the most savory out of the things we ordered. Chicken and waffles are always a hit with our family. The Cajun butter was a nice surprise, not very spicy, just enough to add flavor and cut down on the sweetness. I think they used white and dark meat for the chicken. The stuffed french toast was huge. The macadamia nuts added a nice crunch and texture. I enjoyed it even though I normally don’t like coconut. It was a very sweet dish though.
Our waitress even brought us to-go coffees, which was super nice on a chilly morning. I would definitely recommend eating here!
When we eventually get more storage room, I may give making the Aebleskivers (puffed pancakes) a try. There is a special pan for them and I found a couple of recipes online (Recipe 1, Recipe 2).
We mostly enjoyed walking Bourbon Street during the day. Even with the COVID restrictions, it still was busier at night. One of Ben and my “bucket list” items was to attend Mardi Gras. We lost this opportunity, but wanted to make the best of it and still experience Bourbon at night. We also didn’t want to be in the midst of everyone down in the street.
Images on Bourbon during the day. Not quite the Scooby I remember 😂
We were lucky enough to book a hotel room on Bourbon Street at the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel had most of the 2nd floor under renovations, so we were on the third floor. We did have our own balcony (some of the rooms share a balcony). The rooms currently did not have a mini fridge or microwave with Covid being cited as the reason. Our room had two double beds (doubles or Kings only).
It was nice to have an unlimited hot water shower. The bathroom consisted of a sink, the toilet, and the shower/tub.
The room was pretty standard, I feel like you were paying mostly for the location. There was a closet with a luggage rack, a chair at the desk, two double beds (a little softer than I like and feather pillows), and an ottoman tucked under the shared nightstand. There was a TV as well, which the boys enjoyed. The balcony had two chairs with double doors that opened into the room. There were no screens on the doors, so in the summer I imagine the bugs could be a problem. The pool was open, but it wasn’t heated, so it was a little chilly for us. There was also a Grab & Go Breakfast option, as the sit-down dining was closed. Breakfast was not included in your stay.
Bourbon Street picked up a little on the weekends, and last weekend (1/16/21) was busier than we had seen it this month. (Still not as busy as it was in 2017.) Bars closed at 11:00 pm, so about 10:00 the lines started getting longer to get in. The one right across from us was doing temperature checks to get in. We walked around and got back to our room about 4:00 pm. Our our way back to the hotel, we only saw about 60% of the people out wearing masks. Unfortunately, there was not a lot of mask wearing as the night progressed.
Pool and elevator
We saw some crazy stuff: horses on Bourbon Street, a guy dancing on a trailer bed. There was a drum band next to the hotel, and later a religious group complete with a cross came to stand by the hotel as well. After the kids went to bed, we did see it get a little rowdier.
Pano view from balcony, street performer, horse group, cross bearing religious group, crowd watching drummers
We first had them in New Orleans in 2017. I’ve tried them elsewhere but they just aren’t the same. We were lucky enough to be staying in the French Quarter in 2017 and were able to walk up almost everyday to grab a bag to share for breakfast. It was delicious and messy (powdered sugar just gets everywhere!).
A staple in New Orleans is Cafe Du Monde, which serves beignets and chicory coffee. They have a few locations, but my favorite is the one on Decatur Street in the French Quarter. If you are staying in the French Quarter, it is easy to walk to and you can then grab your goodies, walk up the stairs to the right of the Cafe, and eat while enjoying the view of the Mississippi River.
The cafe has two to three lines open during the day and one line open at night. The outdoor seating was open during this visit, but there are a lot less tables (spaced out for social distancing/Covid). However, they were serving in bags, not on plates like before. The bags still had a ton of powdered sugar in the bottom though if you wanted more for dipping. I would say there was about 1/2 inch in the bag after the beignets were gone!
Beignets on a plate from our 2017 visit. Rest of the pictures from 2021.
It was $3.40 (plus tax) for a bag of 3 beignets. As of our visit, January 2021, the Cafe was only accepting cash.
While walking through the French Quarter, we stopped at the Dutch Alley Artist’s Co-Op. They had some awesome pieces in there ranging from photographs to jewelry.
I wish we had more room (or didn’t have to worry about things breaking during moves), because there were so many neat pieces in the store. Each artist had their own section/display.
Note: They did have their masks on the whole time until the picture. We stood 6 ft away and were the only ones in the store.
We had a great chat with two of the artists that were in that day, Paul and James. Paul had some great wood creations, including bow ties! James had some unique jewelry made out of records. They were really unique and bright.
Ben bought me a really cool jellyfish necklace. I need to get a longer chain for it, but it is certainly a unique piece that is unlike anything I have.
I don’t think they ship, as I didn’t see anything on their website, but if you are in the French Quarter, you should definitely check it out!
We first came to New Orleans for our family summer vacation in 2017. The boys were so much smaller then. The place was bustling with activity: musicians, street performers, restaurants and bars everywhere, stores with pretty much everything you could think of (food, clothes, souvenirs, etc.). It was bright and lively, with people watching as far as the eye could see.
There is an eclectic group of people in New Orleans, and I do believe there is something for everyone. If you want to party, go to Bourbon at night. Otherwise, there is plenty to see and do during the day and avoid the French Quarter (Bourbon specifically) at night. There are museums, parks, swamp and plantation tours, ghost tours, music everywhere…so many activities to keep you entertained. The food is amazing. (If you have had the bourbon shake I make at Christmas, this is where I had first had it.)
When we planned this journey, we wanted to see new places and things we had not seen before. There were a few that Ben or I might have seen, but the rest of us hadn’t. New Orleans was the exception to that. Everyone loved it and we couldn’t wait to visit again. We booked an RV park back in January 2020, before everything went crazy. We planned to stay a month so that we could be there for part of Carnival season. Although we would miss Mardi Gras, we would still hit some of the parades.
Covid of course changed all of that. Mardi Gras was cancelled and New Orleans isn’t quite the same as it was the last time we visited.
The mayor has put in place some strict Covid restrictions: Mardi Gras was cancelled, masks required indoors and outdoors (not while eating or exercising), social distancing, no live entertainment indoors, bars close at 11:00 pm, no indoor seating at bars and breweries, 25% capacity at a lot of places. I personally feel better with having a mask requirement for indoors and outdoors.
It was empty. Walking around during the week, we saw only a handful of other people. Saturday, normally a very busy night on Bourbon, had maybe a tenth of the people we saw last time. Jackson Square was once teaming with performers and artists, now only had a few. We saw a lot more closed shops than our previous visit. It was a muted New Orleans. For a town that relies on tourism, Covid seems to have hit really hard.
Ben and I were walking around the French Quarter. We bought a few postcards from one of the shops. She told us we were her first sale of the day at 1:00 pm.
We have a monthly budget and part of it goes towards giving. We decided for January’s giving to help locally in New Orleans. After seeing and hearing from local store owners how quiet it has been and how they are struggling, we wanted to use our giving budget to increase our tips and donations to local places in New Orleans.
Granted, one was June vs January, but we’ll see how busy it gets closer to Mardi Gras.
I was doing some reading and found that “the unemployment rate in New Orleans increased (from 12.4% in September to 15.2% in October) with approximately 29K people unemployed. For comparison, last year during the same time period, the total labor force was roughly 180K with 9k unemployed with an overall unemployment rate of 5.1%.” per nolaba.org.
