NOLA Road Trip Day 3: New Year's Eve in New Orleans

With a long drive ahead and an early dinner reservation in New Orleans we grabbed a quick Chick-fil-A breakfast (Two days in a row! Yeah!) in Memphis and hit the road. We made good time through Mississippi, crossed Lake Pontchartrain and arrived in New Orleans by late afternoon.

After checking into our hotel and getting changed we headed to Cochon for dinner. They had a four course set menu for New Year's Eve with four options for each course. To start we were served a small bite with chicken liver pate, which we both love. I got the boudin stuffed quail with pickled greens and mustard seeds, the roasted marrow bones with beet, farro and pickled onion salad and rye toast and the roasted skin on pork loin with egg noodles, mustard greens and satsuma glazed carrots for my three dinner courses. Frank started with the jalapeno sausage and oyster casserole with cornbread and kale and then had the pork, black eyed pea and cabbage gumbo and the shrimp and grits with tasso and chicory for his dinner courses. Everything was delicious but my favorite was the marrow bones while Frank particularly loved the shrimp and grits. The surprise of the evening, however, was how amazing our dessert course was. I had sweet potato and pumpkin pie with cinnamon marshmallow and candied pumpkin seeds while Frank had the turtle cheesecake with sweet and salty pecans. I don't think either of us had ever eaten such a light and fluffy cheesecake before. We had a great time, but would you expect anything less from a restaurant whose name means pig in French?

After dinner we met up with some other Wolverine fans that were in town for the game and headed to Bourbon Street to check out the New Year’s Eve scene. I had thought Beale Street in Memphis the night before was raucous but that was nothing compared to Bourbon Street. It was teeming with people celebrating and the balconies overlooking the street were packed as well. As we were wandering up and down Bourbon Street people watching we saw some members of the Michigan football team including Denard Robinson, Kevin Koger and Fitzgerald Toussaint. Toussaint is my favorite player on the team and I luckily got a picture with him.

At eleven thirty we decided to head to the Mississippi River to see the fireworks. Jackson Square was completely packed with people but we waded through the crowd and found a nice spot to see the display. At midnight the fireworks show began and was a spectacular way to ring in 2012. Happy New Year!

If you are interested, check out the rest of our road trip to New Orleans here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7