Passionfruit Butter

Since its inception, I’ve found the wording of the New Orleans Roadfood Festival a bit tenuous. When I mentioned it to out-of-towners (and to my very local grandfather), they scratched their heads and said, “…roadkill?” Indeed, “road” and “food” aren’t necessarily two words that get along swimmingly. Carry the word association a bit further; the eateries dotting most of the highways I take are more along the lines of Subways and Burger Kings than rootsy local fare.

Antoine's oyster Foch po-boy. You'll have to go to confession after eating it, but it's worth it... oh my, is it worth it.

If I can give the festival planners one thing, though, it’s their impeccable timing. I had already booked my flight home for spring break, scheduled to land at MSY on the night of March 26, when I started making plans to head over to Royal Street in the French Quarter the next day, for better or for worse. I didn’t get to check out the offerings when the fest debuted last year, but I’d heard good things about the event and the people behind it, so I had high hopes.

Little white tents dot blocks 300-700 of Royal Street, offering a wide variety of snacks including Vaucresson’s sausage po-boys, duck cracklins from the famous purple Que Crawl truck, and strawberry shortcake from Café Reconcile. It’s worth checking out for the antique shops and heavenly architecture that permanently reside in this neighborhood, but also for the colorful array of visitors (demographic groups were represented from frat boys to the conservative middle-aged crowd to a few adventurous elderly folks) and the street performers (who, I always have to remind myself, are not fixtures in most other cities).

Alleyways to luscious little hidden courtyards will always be one of my absolute favorite things about visiting the Quarter.

Not exactly sure what this fellow was up to, but he stood stock still in that position, which is cause enough for stealthy snapshotting.

You may also have been lucky enough to get a glimpse of this fascinating pair, just a girl and her bike:

The girl’s outfit speaks for itself, but you may not be able to catch the detail on the unicorn’s head. Luckily, she was totally cool with me getting a little closer for a picture.

Rhinestones and glitter and heavy eyeliner, oh my!

But I digress. This was, after all, about the food. My point is simply that there’s a bit of sensory overload going on here, which is all the more reason to hightail it there next year.

Blue Dog Café, coming from Lafayette, LA, was serving chicken and andouille sauce piquante over roasted corn grits. The sauce was bright and celebratory, just fruity and sweet and tangy with a little kick at the end that was bolstered by morsels of andouille sausage and chicken. A bit more spice wouldn’t have hurt, but I’ll take it. The roasted corn grits imparted a thickness and richness to each bite that somehow didn’t feel overpowering on such a hot, sunny day. One trick? Share with someone. I still miss how festive and springy that sauce was.

Coming from the same booth were these crawfish enchiladas, which brought to mind issues we’ve been discussing in my Ethnic Eats class about authenticity and hybridization. Fat crawfish and diced jalapeño studded a thick creamy sauce, all of which was encased by a flour tortilla that was crispy in parts, soggy in others. Whereas the sauce piquante lightened and livened up the grits, this was a bit heavier — but I was yearning for my first bite of crawfish of the season. Eat it for the crawfish. Always do it for the crawfish.

Moving right along to Shrimp Uggie with new potatoes, propagated by none other than the now-closed Uglesich’s, which made a comeback for this weekend only. Perks: they cook it to order; the garlic and spices took root deep in my soul and reminded me, for the millionth time, why I’m glad to be from where I’m from. Downsides: the portion was comically small; the sauce was a bit greasy. Not sure how I felt about the potatoes since they seemed, if anything, to be compensating for the sparse allotment of shrimp, though they made for tasty bites.

New Orleans’ august institution, Antoine’s Restaurant, set up shop with this oyster Foch po-boy, a big ruckus of oysters fried in thick cornmeal batter, tossed onto French bread that’s been smeared with foie gras, finished with a heap of thick brown Colbert sauce. This felt a little bit like drinking in the daytime: naughty, decadent, exciting, excessive. Tasty.

The damage! Crikey, and sorry for bad lighting.

But the highlight of my day was the alligator burger from Creole Delicacies Catering. Okay, a good part of that was telling my friends at college that I ate an alligator burger. Imagine the shock of people from the likes of Long Island and Istanbul! But this is most assuredly what the Sterns must have meant by road food.

The sesame seed Bunny loaf was a bit of a buzzkill, an underwhelming accomplice to the hunk of gator meat, but really, try and see past it. I asked for my cole slaw on the side since slaw and I don’t often get along (it takes a special attention to cabbage:mayo ratio for me to get remotely interested), but a light sprinkling on the patty would have given a crispness to bites of what was otherwise a very dense, very piquant burger. I really like alligator, though it’s a little on the chewy side; it’s sweet and, if prepared right, juicy and spicy. Added bonus: jars of smoky Bone Suckin’ Sauce were available for our drizzling pleasure.

Still grappling with the Bunny bread. Otherwise, this was a paradise of a snack.

I wrapped up my day with my first snowball of the year, provided by Plum Street Snowballs. I can’t get nectar cream at any place other than Hansen’s Sno-Bliz, so I opted instead for cherry and coconut cream. I can’t really explain it; it was very out of character for me, but actually quite yummy eaten on the walk back to the car.

Hi there, beautiful. My heart pitter-patters for these deep, verdant balconies and painted shutters that seem so ubiquitous once springtime rolls around in New Orleans.