So my birthday was April 27th but since James had finals the weekend after my birthday and then I had finals immediately after him, we postponed my birthday to celebrate it big!! I decided that instead of a gift, I wanted to go to a fancy restaurant so we decided to go to Arnaud's and James went all out. I'm so grateful for such a fabulous boyfriend
Since James and I got really dressed up, we decided to hit up the Sazarac bar in the Roosevelt Hotel on Baronne. I love the Roosevelt because it is gorgeous. Well the bar was beautiful as well except seating is very limited. We had to stand half the time. The drinks are pricy as expected but the bartenders know what they are doing and they are very nice. The drinks are original and traditional. I got a floradora which has gin, raspberry liquor, lime juice, triple sec and ginger ale. They garnished it with a beautiful flower. It was delicious and light. The ginger ale made this drink amazing. James got a Ramos Gin Fizz. I personally didn't care for it too much but he really had been wanting to try it and he liked it. It was Huey P. Long's favorite drink and it was invented at the Roosevelt. It has egg whites in it and it looked like foam.
After drinks at the Roosevelt, we headed over to Arnaud's. They seated us early too. We began with more cocktails. Lol. I got a cosmo while James got a whiskey old fashion (old man). The cosmo was excellent. We each had a soup. I got the chicken and andouille gumbo and James got the turtle soup. Both were great but mine didn't come with rice. I had never had gumbo without rice but I'm glad I did so I wouldn't be too full. We then had the oysters Arnaud. It is 5 oysters and each one is cooked like one of the 5 recipes on their menu. I don't know which ones were which but I ate 2 and mine were really good. There was one I didn't like much because it sort of tasted like Mexican. It was not that great. They also give you fantastic bread that was ferociously hot. Then we decided to order wine to go with our entree. We got a bottle of Kendall Jackson (yes I felt like crap the next day). Our entrees came out and I ordered the veal wohl and James ordered the trout meuniere. the veal whol was a sautéd veal with a mushroom sauce. It also came with crawfish tails in a crawfish étouffée sort of broth. And the best part is that it came with the most amazing crabcake I have ever had in my life. I told James that if I ever won the lottery, I would get whoever made that crabcake and hire them to make me crabcakes all the time. It was that amazing. The trout menuiere looked tasty. James really enjoyed it but he liked the crabcake as well. We also got creamed spinach and sautéd mushrooms. They were both yummy but we were too full to eat them all. We then sat for an extra 30 minutes enjoying our wine and watching several people get flambéd bananas foster. It looked delicious.
After we paid the bill, we went upstairs into the museum portion. It is ultra creepy! They have all these female manicans that have these huge Mardi Gras ballgowns on. We were the only people up there.
After dinner we went back to James' apartment and met up with some friends. Then we went to a karaoke bar called buddah belly. There were literally 4 people there when we walked in. But I guess that encouraged me to sing with Mary and James.
I want to thank James for giving me an amazing birthday!! I had so much fun.
Sorry the photos are dark but I didn't want to be a tacky tourist or anything at a nice restaurant, duh no flash!
