My main reason for visiting New Orleans earlier this year was to attend Chowzter’s annual North America Fast Feasts Awards. I’ve been working with Chowzter for almost two years now, and I’m excited with how much they have grown.
They recruit food writers, guides and experts from all over the world to provide recommendations of must-eat dishes for each city. I’ve found the website very helpful and it’s always my first resource now when I am visiting somewhere new.
The annual awards is always an exciting time. Not only is it fun to find out the dishes that won, but it’s nice to reunite and spend time with other Chief Chowzters whom I’ve become friends with.
Every time I am with them, I get this feeling of “these are my people.” People who are adventurous eaters, who don’t blink at the mention of a multiple meals or food crawls, and who enjoy taking pictures of their food.
Our first official Chowzter event was a welcome dinner that took place at the historic Brennan’s, which has just recently reopened. It was founded back in 1946 and is known for creating the Bananas Foster. During our dinner there, they mentioned to us that they are actually most known for their breakfast. I didn’t have a chance to try it for myself, but a few of my friends went the very next morning for breakfast and said it was one of the highlights of their trip. The breakfasts are extremely lavish, serving courses usually reserved for lunch and dinner. It’s definitely on my to-do list for next time I’m in NOLA.
Here are a few photos from our dinner that evening:
Oven Roasted Gulf Oysters
Seafood File Gumbo
Shrimp Creole Risotto
Bananas Foster
This was actually my very first time experiencing bananas foster, so it was a huge thrill to be having it at the place it originated from. The dish is pretty simple: bananas are cooked in a sauce consisting of brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, banana liquor and rum, which is then lit on fire and served with ice cream.
I tried my best to capture the presentation. It was a little hard since there were so many other people trying to do the exact same thing!
Commander’s Palace
The awards dinner took place the following night, held at Commander’s Palace, one of the most famous restaurants in New Orleans, and winner of multiple James Beard Awards. I could barely contain my excitement to be dining here.
When I first glanced at the menu, I thought this was a three course meal where we got to choose one of the appetizers and one of the main entrees. But actually, we were getting all the food listed on the menu. This, after a full day of food crawling…But I’m definitely not complaining. Also there were passed appetizers, including some amazing fried oysters.
Turtle Soup
I have to confess, I felt too guilty to drink more than a sip of this soup, since I have pet turtles at home.
Commander’s Romaine Salad
Pecan Crusted Fish
Tournedos of Black Angus Beef
Creole Bread Pudding Souffle
Awards
Throughout the evening, the various awards were announced. While San Diego had three nominations, we didn’t win anything this year. Hopefully next year!
You can view the full list of complete winners here, along with videos discussing the winners. The ones I’m especially curious to try are:
- Pizza: Pepperoni Pizza from Buddy’s in Detroit.
- Asian: Dry-fried Chicken Wings from San Tung’s Chinese Restaurant in San Francisco.
- Bakery and Best Dish Overall: Honey & Sea Salt Doughnut from Pip’s Original in Portland.
Time to plan some trips!
In the past, I’ve found the winner list to be pretty spot-on. Last year’s overall winner was the pastrami sandwich at Langer’s, which if you recall, I finally got to try at the end of last year and it was my favorite fast feasts bite of 2014 (the only bites ranked higher were from fine dining restaurants). And the fried jam croissant from Albion in London won Best Bakery item at the World’s Tastiest Feast Awards and it was my favorite sweet for 2014 as well.
If you haven’t yet checked out Chowzter, I encourage you to do so. You can also follow them on Facebook for updates. I use the website all the time, and always refer it to friends. And I keep my San Diego list very up-to-date as well.
What a wonderful adventure! Food crawls would be the best thing ever, with more people the easier it is to share and taste all sorts of food!
That Chowzter sounds like a pretty good idea, hopefully my taste lines up with the Chief Chowzter for that city. That’s probably one of my many reasons of disliking Yelp or any opinionated rating sites, sometimes the crowd just isn’t in your favor… Thanks for sharing!
Taste is definitely subjective, but having eaten with many of these Chief Chowzters, I find that I really agree with their tastes
What a great opportunity this was! So cool that you were able to eat at those famous New Orleans’ restaurants. 🙂
It was so much fun and I do feel really lucky to have been able to go!