If you’re in New Orleans on business, sometimes you might feel the overwhelming need to escape your coworkers. Nothing personal, but after spending three consecutive days in a hotel conference room or sprawling convention floor, sometimes you would just like to escape the familiar throngs, be [...]]]> Nametag Nation: A Conventioneer’s Guide to Escaping the Conference Crowd

If you’re in New Orleans on business, sometimes you might feel the overwhelming need to escape your coworkers. Nothing personal, but after spending three consecutive days in a hotel conference room or sprawling convention floor, sometimes you would just like to escape the familiar throngs, be they fellow dermatologists, historians or regional sales reps.

So stow your badge, hail a cab, and seek out a place where nobody knows your name…n

·      Avoid the Obvious
Conference goers usually congregate for “no brainer” gathering spots — convention center restaurants, hotel bars, etc. Make a mental list of these places and cross them off your list.

• Eat Where They Ain’t
  Being a mostly pedestrian people, conventioneers naturally gravitiate toward the high-traffic neighborhoods (French Quarter, Warehouse District near the Convention Center, CBD near the hotels). Grab a cab and head to for restaurants in the lesser-known zones: Mid-City, Uptown or the Marigny.

• The Magic Number is Four
  If you want to move quickly, limit your escape group to four members. It’s the perfect number, since everybody can pack into a cab, last-minute tables are easier to nab, and the group doesn’t fall prey to the dreaded “I don’t know… what do YOU want to do” syndrome.  (If you get roped into a larger group, break into groups of four rather than waiting for one huge table.)

• Invent a Family
  It never hurts to have a convenient “family obligation” excuse ready, just in case. If you need to give your boss the slip, invent a distant family member who insists on taking you out to dinner or a drink. Distant cousins or friends of a sibling work well, since they’re not particularly trackable.

Despite what you’ve been told, New Orleans isn’t the place where you want to track down true Cajun food. Unfortunately for the city-bound, true Cajun food comes from the smaller communities in the rural part of the state.

Sure, you’ll find plenty of “CAJUN STYLE” dishes on local menus [...]]]> Beware the Counterfeit Cajun. Lean Creole instead.

Despite what you’ve been told, New Orleans isn’t the place where you want to track down true Cajun food. Unfortunately for the city-bound, true Cajun food comes from the smaller communities in the rural part of the state.

Sure, you’ll find plenty of “CAJUN STYLE” dishes on local menus — things that are blackened, boiled crawfish, things in a “Cajun cream sauce” — but they’re basically there because the tourists started expecting them in the mid-80s. If you want the real stuff, you’ll have to go about two hours west to the region of Louisiana known as Acadiana (or Cajun Country).

There’s one exception to the rule — a great middlebrow restaurant called Cochon (on Tchopitoulas Street in the Warehouse District). Chef Donald Link (born and raised deep in Cajun Country) and his Puerco-centric partner in crime Steven Strejewski go whole hog in bringing the spirit, flavors and soul of Cajun cuisine to a urbane, small-plate centric joint in the Warehouse District. Click here for more info.

Otherwise, give the Cajun stuff a pass. There’s too much good New Orleans food to get stuck with imitation Cajun.