Kimbeaux's Food Blog: New Discoveries

So, it's been a long time since I've made a post in my food blog! Maybe this one will get the ball rolling.

To start off, I've been living in Metairie since October and have been exploring a lot of the food options in the area. I've found great, tasty bargains at Cansecos, great Honduran food in Fat City, and flavorful Viet food on Airline. I know that I've barely scratched the surface in my food exploration.

Having bought my first home and living on my own, I've found myself cooking a lot more. I've really hit the jack pot with getting a rice cooker for Christmas. I steamed some Brussel Sprouts for the first time with the rice cooker then put them in the oven with some olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper. They tasted so savory and their texture was soft, but with an outer crisp, that I find myself thinking about them day by day. The crawfish enchiladas were a hit as well. I mostly cook eggs and bacon.

Cooking more has been saving me money...I think, but a local grocery store provides ready-to-eat meals at minimal cost. Cansecos is that place where I can go to the back of the store and find that hot, ready-to-eat meal I crave after a long, cold run. There are plenty of options including, but not limited to meat-pies, fried chicken, hamburgers, ribs, fried turkey, and BBQ chicken. One of the best deals that I've gotten there was a half BBQ chicken that only cost $2.99! That's if I'm remembering that price correctly, but I know for sure that it was a great deal! And it was good! I don't know what kind of BBQ sauce was used but it was brown, thin, and not overly sweet. Better yet, I think I ate off of it twice! All in all, Cansecos is my ideal place to go for a quick meal that's ready to eat or the place to grab a sweet potato or something that I need in a pinch.

It was before I was living in Metairie when I first went to La Nueva Hacienda in Fat City. I took a long lunch from work and met up with my mom at the fabric store before going on our Honduran adventure. No, really it kind of felt like I was in Central America when I walked through the doors of the restaurant/bakery. The aroma of fresh baked goods filled my nostrils and the sound of Spanish speaking soccer anoucers filled my ears. Knowing more Spanish than the little that I do know would have helped me at this eatery because very little English was spoken by the workers and the customers at La Nueva Hacienda. Luckily there was a written menu with pictures that my mom and I could point to and we managed to order our meals. Mom had gotten the fried chicken that seemed to be fried to a perfect crispness with little or no batter. It was golden brown and crispy along side a salad and red beans. I had gotten a plate full of steak accompanied by half an avocado, sour cream, a wedge of cheese, scrambled eggs, and black beans. The eggs needed nothing added for flavor and the avocado was cool and fresh. The meal didn't end there. We also had each a large side of sweet fried plantains and an order of freshly homemade flour tortillas. Right now, those are the best tortillas that I've found in the Metairie area. I'm hoping to find more like them! Overall, the meal was great. It was a higher priced lunch, but we got our money's worth because we had plenty of left-overs. All the ingredients of my meal united in flavorful harmony, especially combined in one of the homemade tortillas. I'd call it comfort food because that's how I felt while eating that meal...comfortable.

My boyfriend and I had made a second visit to La Nueva Hacienda, but it wasn't for lunch or dinner. We went there for the tortillas and tortillas is what we got...eventually. We needed tortillas to make crawfish enchiladas. Going to this restaurant/bakery may not have been the ideal place for ordering 20 custom made tortillas, but it was the only place I knew where to get them. I learned that day that walking into that restaurant asking for 20 homemade tortillas is like walking into a Copelands and asking for 75 biscuits to go. It was an awkward situation and the workers made strange faces as my boyfriend placed the order in Spanish. I felt like a fool for coming there and was dreading the time we took waiting for our tortillas to be made. Finally they came in all their warmth and homemade glory. The waitress handed them to us with a smile and a "Gracias" and we took them into my car and immediately tasted the warm, flat, homemade goodness called a tortilla. We were not disappointed. My boyfriend, Ben, said we'd get tortillas from there again, but next time we'd be calling to place our order ahead of time. Ben explained to me how in other cultures, groceries are bought at the time they are needed and not ahead of time in bulk were items are used over time. This made sense to me and I finally understood why it was so awkward to place the random order of 20 small tortillas.

My favorite discovery, since living in Metairie, has to be Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Orchid Express on Airline Drive. Being one of the coldest days of this year, I may be paying a visit to the popular lunch time establishment. I don't know how long the eatery has existed in the location where it now resides, but it is clearly not undiscovered. The Express is always crowed during lunch time, even after 1PM. It is an ideal lunch place due to the name is holds: Express. Food is ordered and payed for before being served, which makes having lunch there fast, convenient, and easy. They menu is on a digital screen and printed menus, and specials are written on a chalk board. The menu is great which includes Viet style po'boys and tacos, pho soups, vermicelli dishes, crepes and even steak and eggs! The tacos, or "bacos" are a perfect combination of my favorite flavors. I order the pork tacos where the charbroiled meat rests on a sweet, soft bun, accompanied with cucumbers, pickled carrots, green onions and my favorite ingredient, cilantro. Four tacos come in an order that about $7. I like topping them with Sriracha sauce. Another lunch favorite of mine is the Combination meal. It includes a baby bowl of pho, with a choice of half the Viet po'boy (dressed like the tacos), spring rolls (not fried) or egg rolls which are fried crispy, and the meal also includes a fountain drink or iced tea. The combo cost around $7 as well. And a great combo it is! I order my pho with brisket and side it with a Viet po'boy with pork. My only complaint is that the sandwich comes out way before the pho and it leaves me wishing I could enjoy them together, but I always find myself having to start on the sandwich to save time. The pho always comes out hot and savory with a side of sprouts, mint leaves and jalapenos. I mix Hojin sauce and Sriracha sauce together in my pho to create a sweet and spicy concoction. I usually have to take some left over pho home even when it's the smallest portion served. I'm very happy to have discovered this expressway of Viet cuisine. This establishment reminds me of a cherished Viet restaurant in Memphis called Pho Hao Bin, a mom and pop run business serving Vietnamese, Chinese and Vegetarian cuisine. Viet food has become one of my favorite types of food and I'm glad to have it near home. Check out Pho Orchid Express for lunch or dinner!

The above material is quite a lot for one blog and probably should be broken up into sections, but it describes where I'm at right now in learning about the food scene in the area and my journey in further educating myself about food and different food cultures.