Thank you, New Orleans. I am delighted as well. Where shall we go first?

Yes, Cochon sounds delightful. Judging by how the name translates and their choice of artwork, New Orleans, I think this will do nicely.

Why yes, I think we would like to try your house made Slim Jim. I find myself wondering why I don’t utter the phrase “house made Slim Jim” more often.

Or “fried rabbit liver” for that matter.

But really New Orleans, I must stop you. You see, people sometimes assume that we here at Chicken Fried Everything only partake of fried food. And you see, we’re much more complicated–I’m sorry, what’s that you say? Fried alligator? Well, if you insist.

OK, New Orleans. After all that I’m going to need a few hours to recover. But dinner is in three hours? Well, I do hear that MiLa has something called Deconstructed Oysters Rockefeller and I am curious…

It’s been a long day New Orleans. Let’s get some rest, as we have a full day tomorrow.

The next morning, we considered returning to Mother’s for breakfast, but decided it would be a shame not to try something different during our time in New Orleans. We opted for a little diner across the street from our hotel (the pet friendly La Quinta) called Majoria’s Commerce Restaurant. It ended up being one of my favorite meals of the trip.

I am serious about breakfast. Any day I can start with eggs is a good day in my book. The Commerce Restaurant, at the dawn of our last day on the road, was the beginning of a very good day.

Eliza wanted to use this picture, in which you can see an empty window pane just above the restaurant. Sadly, much of New Orleans still resembles a bombed out war zone, even years after Katrina.

Eliza files her nails as we wait for our grub. A convention was in town, presumably for the Association of Chubby Guys in Shiny Shirts and Black Pants. Zing! (Yes, there’s a girl with them and she’s not chubby at all, but she’s probably an intern or something).

Breakfast arrived and it seemed pretty standard. The fried eggs had little pools of butter in them, like at Waffle House. This was not a bad thing, but the meal didn’t seem to remarkable at first.

But after tasting the biscuit, everything changed. As you can see here, the bottom of the biscuit was done just shy of the point of being burned, which gave it a nice crunch and a hint of sweetness. But the real revelation was still to come.

A biscuit of this caliber needs to be taken advantage of. And victimize it, I did. I piled two alternating layers of bacon and egg on it and went to tasty-town. Look at this mess. If you’re not jealous of what I experienced at this place, you might be too virtuous for your own good.

As soon as we arrived, it was time to take the dog on a walk.

A stroll through Woldenberg Park, near our hotel.

Eliza spotted some nice typography and tile work.

Jaxon put her whole body into this particular smell.

Possibly Ben’s favorite meal of the trip. Crawfish etoufee at the Bon Ton cafe, another Roadfood recommendation. Also note: more onion rings.

So, it turns out that when the W says they are “pet friendly,” that means there’s a non-refundable $100 fee involved. As long as we were paying the fee, Jaxon took advantage.

Breakfast at Mother’s. Solid, (but there was a better breakfast coming our second time through.)

A little iced cafe au lait from Cafe du Monde as we left town. Excellent.