Bye Bye College

I graduate college in exactly 6 days, that's right no more school EVER!!!!! As you can tell, I'm super pumped to be done but there are a few things Im going to miss, the people (of course), my relatively stress free life, the strange conversations I have with professors, and last but most certainly not least, the drinking culture. Now I'm not saying that I'm an alcoholic or anything along those lines, but I do thoroughly enjoy employing the its 5 o' clock somewhere logic. And that is most definitely the college approach. I can just always justify having a tasty beer, whether it's 2 in the afternoon or 2 in the morning, a brewsky is always the answer.

Of course I can continue living my life that way, but it may prove challenging when I have a 9-5 job. Then it really will be 5 o' clock when I'm catching a swig of a nice refreshing ale.

At this point it's a toss up between my top four favorite local beers, Abita Strawberry, Covington Strawberry, Covington P40 and Turbodog. Each has it's own fantastic qualities. Covington on tap is definitely my favorite, somehow when it's on tap it is magical. If Boddington's cream ale and Nestle strawberry milk powder had a baby it would taste like this heavenly seasonal beverage. I'm convinced that part of why I'm so enfatuated by this beer is it's lack of availability. Supply and demand is a beautiful thing. And until very recently it could only be found on tap at a few bars. I seriously had a party when I found out it was finally bottled. Unfortunately it loses some of it's creamy goodness when it's not on tap.

The other Covington Brewery brew I love is also very rare, in fact it has a private contract with American Sector, and is only sold there! (Which is why I'm there for happy hour to get this fantastic creamy light beer at least once a week).

Finally, the last two are from none other than the Abita brewery.

Abita Strawberry, and Turbodog. Nobody ever seems surprised that I enjoy the Strawberry (as most girls my age do), but the Turbodog does get some interesting responses. This dark beer is an English Brown Ale, which tastes just as chocolaty and roasted as a stout, but a little lighter on the hops, in other words, it's perfect. It's roasty flavor gives it a hint of espresso bean, and with the right food pairing you could think you're drinking coffee, often just the pick me up you need for a long day of day drinking.

As the wise Homer Simpson once said, "Alcohol, it's the cause and solution of all of life's problems."

Cheers.

Vietnamese Showdown

I am officially done with school... FOREVER!!!! With all this new free time I've had more freedom to indulge my most common food craving as of late, Vietnamese food of course! As I've mentioned numerous times before, New Orleans is home to some seriously legit Vietnamese Restaurants. However, the best, most authentic spots are a bit out of the city on the West Bank. I often drive over the river to visit these fine establishments, but I recently learned about a noodle house in Harahan, a slightly closer neighborhood. Kim Anh's Noodle House blew my mind. Their Bun was fantastic, Bun is basically a Vietnamese salad made of cold vermicelli noodles, daikon, pickled carrots, cucumber, mint, cilantro, green onion, some sort of meat, and sweet nuoc nom dipping sauce. I got mine with chargrilled pork and shrimp and I could not have been happier.

It was so spectacular that I drove all the way back to Harahan two days later to eat more delicious noodles. This time I got a soup made with pork broth, egg noodles, cilantro, bean sprouts, lime, jalapeno, chicken, beef, and seafood. There may have been too much going on in this one little bowl. I loved the fish balls and crab sticks and broth, but the rest was a little disappointing after how spectacular their Bun was.

Clearly that didn't quench my Vietnamese cravings. After months of hearing rave reviews about9 Roses (aka Hoa Hong 9), a restaurant on the West Bank, I finally had my chance to investigate. Their menu is enormous, I mean absolutely HUGE!!! They have delicacies such as imitation shark fin soup and jellyfish salad. As usual Eric went with the stranger dish.

He got coconut curry eel which was actually really tasty. I had never had eel in any form other than sushi, but I'm definitely a fan. It's a little odd because it really does taste like a fusion of fish and chicken, similar to frog legs.

After my delicious Bun from Kim Anh's I had to see how it compared to 9 Roses and it actually was a very close call. It may be a perfect tie. As a whole dish Kim Anh's was actually victorious, but the 9 Roses chargrilled pork was phenomenal. I'm going to have to go back to 9 Roses soon and try something a little more daring... maybe even the jellyfish!

NOprojects

For those of you who don't know, I actually started this food blog because I just really like writing, and since I also love food and food blogs seem to be all the rage now I thought other people would enjoy it too. But my main agenda was to create something that would help me get a writing job. With my double major in Dance and African Studies, I don't sound that legit to big publications. Now I know that food blogs are the very bottom of the writing food chain, and probably not taken seriously at all I had to start somewhere and this is where it landed me!

I've had a ton of fun writing and eating and publishing pictures of fun food adventures, but I finally did a slightly more serious project. Because I still only know how to use blogger it technically is a blog, but it's really meant to be a webpage.

NOprojects.blogspot.com is my final independent study project at Tulane University (and I've had a lot). It tracks the disappearance of Public Housing Projects post Katrina and gives some answers to a lot of unanswered questions. It's a project that really means a lot to me and that I've worked on for a long time now. If you're interested check it out. I hope yall enjoy!

Pho Danh 4

I've written about Pho Danh 4 numerous times, raving about their soothing delicious pho but what you may not know is that they have excellent thai food. Housed in the same building as Hong Kong market, it's no shocker that they have super fresh ingredients and authentic spices and sauces for all their dishes.

My favorite thai dish is their Pad Ki Mao (aka Drunken noodles) with seafood. I've had it with chicken too, but the seafood is way more fun and adventurous. It has shrimp, squid, scallops, and fish cakes. They give a heaping amount of thai basil and juicy red peppers. Add some spicy flat noodles to the mix and you have perfection.