This was our first night out on Bourbon Street, and we stopped in at Pat O’s for a midnight snack. The restaurant is beautiful, with a flaming fountain, brick everywhere, and wrought-iron furniture. The wait staff was very attentive, which I imagine can be quite difficult to maintain at midnight on Bourbon Street, with flaming drunk jerk-offs everywhere. It just so happened there were a group of them at the table next to ours.
At any rate, we were there for appetizers and drinks. Apparently, New Orleans created the Hurricane, but at this point, everyone there seems to be making it from a mix instead of from scratch, and it’s really not that good. I may be the only one in my group that felt this way, but I’m also the only one in my group that is a bartender and knows the ingredients, so I kept my opinions to myself and had a ginger ale. For appetizers, we had the famous muffuletta sandwich, crawfish nachos, and alligator bites. The muffuletta was very good and consists of a round loaf of crusty Italian bread split and filled with layers of sliced Provolone cheese, Genoa salami, and Cappicola ham, topped with olive salad, a chopped mixture of green, un-stuffed olives, pimientos, celery, garlic, cocktail onions, capers, oregano, parsley, olive oil, red-wine vinegar, and salt and pepper. The alligator bites were also delicious, lightly seasoned and deep fried, with such a fresh taste. My swamp tour guide said, "If you get alligator and it tastes like chicken, you’ve been duped and given chicken." He was right on the money. No way does it taste like chicken; it has its own distinctive flavor. It’s hard to describe, but definitely tasty!
We returned to Pat O’s on our second tour of Bourbon Street and ventured in to the Piano Bar. I should’ve stayed home. Maybe I’m not the piano bar type, but if I wanted to hear no-talent singers wreck my favorite songs, I’d have gone back to the Cat’s Meow for karaoke.
Go to Pat O’s for the food and drink, and go to the Piano Bar at your own risk.