New Orleans Summer Grocery-Store Dates
B loves cooking Mexican and also Asian food. So we spent a lot of time at:
Ideal Mart, on Broad Street (Midcity). Look at that octopus THEY SELL OCTOPUS HERE. This is where we got a lot of chorizo, tamarind juice, plantains, tortillas, horchata….we also drank a lot of horchata this summer.
We also spent a lot of time at Hong Kong Market, in the Westbank. Fun fact: if you bike, you get to take your bikes on a ferry, which is actually really awesome and a lot of fun. The not-fun part is biking through Gretna, which is one giant bike-unfriendly suburb, and then going down a big highway to get to Hong Kong Market, which is a cars-only parking-lot kinda place where people gave us weird looks for having bikes. Our bike trip did occur on a Sunday, so we had their delicious bahn-mi for lunch (only $2.75 or something really ridiculous like that. If you’re ever on the westbank and want a kickass bahn-mi, go here!). After that we decided to drive. Alas, there are no pictures of this experience, but man was it ever an experience.
Around this time N decided she wanted doughnuts more than anything else on the planet, initiating what we have referred to ever since as “The Great New Orleans Doughnut Search.” Since she decided this at midnight when no doughnut places were open, she dragged B out of bed early the next day to go to Dorignac’s, the coolest grocery store ever even if it is in Metaire:
B lookin’ hip outside their sign.
Though their doughnuts were good their beer selection was much better, so of course this turned into doughnuts and beer.
The best doughnuts, however, turned out to be at this little place off Broad and St. Bernard called the Buttermilk Drop. They have great glazed doughnuts:
but the real gem of their collection are these spherical yeasty doughnuts that are deep fried then coated in glaze. Yum, of course it is: it’s their signature “Buttermilk Drop.” Before he left to go home to Oregon, B took a dozen of them as his carry on to give to his family.
We have not even yet mentioned Zara’s, who make amazing poboys that are HUGE. We have friends who swear by their sausage. While N does not have a direct picture this is, she swears, their store:
(B doesn’t like to go because he worked there briefly. Their poboys are still amazing.)
Hong Kong Market, Ideal Mart, Dorignac’s, The Buttermilk Drop, Zara’s and Langenstein’s (a cute little grocery store uptown we do not even have pictures of). Grocery store dates are the new hip thing, guys. We definitely recommend it.
