New Orleans

A Whole Lotta Harbaugh: Super Bowl XLVII BATTLE-DRINK Is Here!

Super Bowl Sunday will be upon us soon. I have the good fortune of being able to cover the game in New Orleans this year, and from the bottom of my heart let me say that I wish I could bring each and every one of you with me. I really do. But I can't, so in lieu of cramming all of you into my renta ... More >>

HPD Canine Unit Helping with Bomb-Sniffing at the Super Bowl

Those of us coming into Super Bowl Media Day on Tuesday morning were greeted with TSA-like screenings, army personnel sweeping our bags for explosives, and even bomb-sniffing dogs, including one of Houston's finest four-legged officers, driven in to help out New Orleans's squad, whose K-9 unit was t ... More >>

New Orleans Braces For Super Bowl XLVII Onslaught As Future Of The Game Is Debated

Excited tension hung heavy in the air in New Orleans on Monday evening as the coming Super Bowl XLVII super-storm of tourist dollars began to filter into town. Most streets downtown near convention center are already cordoned off. There are NFL banners blanketing the city. The Mercedes-Benz Superd ... More >>

Cowboy Mouth, Dash Rip Rock

10 Cool & Cheap Weekenders: December 14-16

Kinky December 15, the Engine Room In the same class as Cafe Tacuba, Kinky is a Mexican alt-rock band no stranger to electronic music and hip-hop. The group formed in Monterrey in the late '90s and has seen its star steadily rise, headlining Central Park's SummerStage this past July during New York' ... More >>

New Orleans Suspects

Generationals

Schilleci's New Orleans Kitchen Falls Short of Louisiana Flavor

New Orleans cuisine is the definition of hearty, spicy food. From shrimp Po-Boys to crawfish etouffee, each bite is filled with Cajun spice. Schilleci's New Orleans Kitchen has a menu filled with New Orleans classic dishes, but the lackluster flavors left me dissatisfied. I'd heard that Schilleci's ... More >>

In Memoriam: The Daily New Orleans Times-Picayune

And so it has come to pass: an venerable and award-winning major metropolitan daily has ceased publishing every day. Last week, Newhouse Newspapers announced that this fall, their new acquisition, the 175-year-old New Orleans Times-Picayune, would only hit the streets in print form three days a we ... More >>

Bonna-What?: How 7 U.S. Music Festivals Got Their Names

This whole week, the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, featuring the Black Keys, Radiohead, Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg, Pulp, At the Drive-In, the Shins, AVICII, David Guetta and maybe one or two others, will be all anyone who follows music these days will be talking about. Then early next week, it' ... More >>

New Orleans' Ponderosa Stomp: A Photo Diary

Photos by Brett KoshkinNew Orleans' Ponderosa Festival thrives on 45s.​Maybe it's age or my ever-increasing tailspin of stagnating taste, but I just don't find music festivals palatable in the slightest these days. Multi-day romps to summertime smorgasboards is for the birds. No matter if it t ... More >>

The Napkin Files: Deep Thoughts From Shallow Waters

Charles Simms/fineartamerica.comJoe's Cozy Corner in New Orleans​Lonesome Onry and Mean spends quite a bit of night time in bars and music venues writing random thoughts on bar napkins. Lots and lots of bar napkins. Usually LOM is laboring under the delusion that he's having a brilliant idea, ... More >>

10 Facts for Fat Tuesday: The Story of the Hurricane

The good kind of Hurricane.​It's one of New Orleans's most enduringly popular cocktails, and -- like most things from the Big Easy -- it comes with a great back-story: the Hurricane. We know that many of you will be sipping a Hurricane of your own tonight (or perhaps today, you lucky bastard) ... More >>

Top 10 Louisiana Bands Of All Time

​Pardon the geographical pun, but besides Texas, our neighbor to the east may be the most musical state in these United States. And in terms of per capita, Louisiana, which ranks 25th in population to Texas' second, is probably second to none. Outside Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, the program m ... More >>

Down

Eating Red Beans and Rice Without a Fork

​I make a killer red beans and rice. It's so simple and easy to do, it always makes me flinch a little when I get the urge to order it at a restaurant - unless I'm in New Orleans, where it just comes with the territory, along with po-boys, hurricanes and Abita beer. On a recent visit to New O ... More >>

Graphic: When Festival Booking Goes Too Far

Garland RobinetteYes, this is the real Jazz Fest 2011 poster, and that's really Jimmy Buffett.​Every spring, New Orleans puts on something called the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. But as Jazz Fest has grown more and more popular, the headlining acts have had less and less to do with ja ... More >>

Comment of the Day

​Katharine Shilcutt reported on which Houston restaurants have opened and which have closed, including three Cajun joints. Which led commenter Tim to reflect on Creole and Cajun, New Orleans and Lafayette: Forgive me for I am about to nitpick: 'Three separate Cajun places went to that big C ... More >>

Hustle Town

Hustlers Brass Band brings hometown joie de vivre.

The Radiators

Better Than Ezra Succeeding On Their Own Terms

Rick Olivier​It's been a hot minute since we've heard from '90s hitmakers Better Than Ezra, but they've reconvened over the last year, releasing their seventh album Paper Empire and embarking on a "Road to Mardi Gras" tour which winds down New Years Eve in the band's hometown of New Orleans. ... More >>

Stanton Moore feat. Anders Osborne Trio

Parade Rest

A NOLA second-line at Uptown Hookah bar

Bartender Chat: Buck Baker of Jackson's Watering Hole

​Buck Baker has been bartending around Houston for 15 years. After graduating from the University of Mississippi, he came back to Houston to work at McElroy's Irish Pub. McElroy became his mentor, and he quickly went from bar back to bartender to now bar owner of Jackson's Watering Hole (1205 ... More >>

Jackson's Watering Hole's Sazerac

Stirred & Shaken: Jackson's Watering Hole's Sazerac

Troy Fields​Heading into New Orleans on I-55, just before you cross the fourth-longest bridge in the world (and the second-longest in south Louisiana), you'll pass a couple remote restaurants/bars that for reasons I can't explain fit perfectly in the alluvial landscape. The exterior of NOLA-th ... More >>

Want To Lease Numbers?

​Amazing what you can find on Facebook these days. The Chronicle's real-estate blog is reporting some interesting information, namely that Numbers says it isn't closing, and the owner says he's not kicking them out. Very interesting, then, that the club appears to be on the market. Rocks Off ... More >>

Recipe Review: Brennan's Pralines, Part 2

​If you're feeling adventurous and want to make something that you can pass out to your family and friends (who will immediately love you unconditionally), then try this recipe. It's the orange zest that really makes all the flavors pop. See Part 1 for helpful tricks and tips. Brennan's New O ... More >>

New Orleans Dining on the Cheap: Daisy Duke's

​Shockingly, most restaurants in or around the French Quarter of New Orleans area close at 10 p.m. during the week. The drunks are left to choose from Lucky Dogs or greasy pizza. But if they stumble slightly out of the Quarter to 121 Chartres St., they'll happen upon this 24-hour establishment ... More >>

Kermit Ruffins, New Orleans' Beaming Musical Ambassador

​Many people say that going to New Orleans feels like being in another time. In fact, the city's current slogan for its tourism TV spots, which Rocks Off caught just this morning, is "you're different here." Listening to Kermit Ruffins, who plays House of Blues Friday night, has that effect t ... More >>

Robb Walsh's 100 Favorite Houston Dishes: #22 The Roast Beef Poor Boy at Mama's Cajun Cuisine

​Over the course of the next few months, I'm counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in ... More >>

Lucky Dogs in New Orleans

​Lucky Dogs in downtown New Orleans reminds me of the after-clubbing pizza guys that hang out around the Midtown and downtown districts in Houston. You don't have to be drunk to enjoy one, but they really hit the spot after a night out dancing.

Stiletto Jam

It's a lesbian ladies' night

Lauren McCabe, Young & Recessioned: Three Jobs At A Time

​Today's installment of Young & Recessioned features Lauren McCabe, a 25-year-old living in New Orleans who went from being unemployed to teaching how not to do it. I went to school at Columbia in New York City. I didn't have any idea what I wanted to do. And even people who say they do, ... More >>

Treme: Getting The Tribe Back Together

Hamsterdam: Treme gets a few Wire shoutouts.​This was the most Wire-heavy episode of Treme yet. We've already got Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters in major roles, but this ep was packed with shout-outs to David Simon's former series. One of Sonny's buddies mispronounced Amsterdam as "Hamsterda ... More >>

Treme: Getting The Tribe Back Together

Hamsterdam: Treme gets a few Wire shoutouts.​This was the most Wire-heavy episode of Treme yet. We've already got Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters in major roles, but this ep was packed with shout-outs to David Simon's former series. One of Sonny's buddies mispronounced Amsterdam as "Hamsterda ... More >>

9th Ward Ramblers

New Orleans's Zydepunks embody the polyglot culture of their hometown...loudly.

iFest Aftermath: A Sensory Smorgasbord And Spontaneous Reggae Dance Party

GroovehouseNew Orleans Hustlers Brass Band​ The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley when it comes to Houston weather. That's how Aftermath found ourselves obsessively refreshing the iFest Twitter page around noon yesterday for some sign that the show would go on in spite of the stormy ... More >>

iFest Aftermath: After The Rain, A Downpour Of Gulf Coast Soul

Photos by Eggs/ breakfastontour.comThe Hustlers Brass Band was popular with our writers and photographers.​ As Sunday morning came down in sheets of rain and the crackle of thunder, prospects looked cloudy for Day 2 of the Houston International Festival. Intrepid music fans who dragged out of bed ... More >>

The Best Roadfood of All...

​This past weekend a few of us took to the streets to savor the Roadfood Festival over in New Orleans. What is it? Roadfood spotlights the fantastic regional dishes found along our American roads and highways -- in small towns, along railroad tracks, and in our neighborhoods. The festival brou ... More >>

THE BIG TOP'S SCORPION SHOT

Bobby Heugel's Weekly Cocktail: The Vieux Carre

​People often ask bartenders what their favorite cocktail is, but a good bartender draw out patrons to find out what they like. Still, if there was ever a time for one cocktail to be noted above others, it would be now - following the Saints' Super Bowl victory, Mardi Gras, and the ongoing nationw ... More >>

"Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection"

Explore the effects of other art forms on photographs during the last half century

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Two Top Producers Recall Their Earliest Musical Memories

Two of the better known roots producers on the scene have radically different memories of the first music of their childhoods that gripped them by the ears and heart. Gurf Morlix, whose notable production credits include Lucinda Williams' Grammy-winning Car Wheels on a Gravel Road as well as stella ... More >>

Bringing New Orleans to Houston

​Last week, Greenway Barista visited various restaurants and bars in New Orleans. Lucky him. But while we can't all jet away to New Orleans, we can bring NOLA to us with one of our favorite cookbooks, Cooking up a Storm. During Hurricane Katrina, many classic New Orleans recipes were washed a ... More >>

Butcher Knows Best

​Before our recent New Orleans road trip, we asked a few friends about places to go in New Orleans. We got some expected answers, like Commander's Palace, Parasol's Po-boys, Central Grocery and August. But we also got suggestions along the lines of, "For the love of God, you must go see Butche ... More >>

A New Orleans Saint

​Chef Donald Link has taken French-inspired Southern cuisine to New Orleans's warehouse district at Herbsaint (701 Saint Charles Avenue). Famous for duck confit and frog legs, this institution is a must-stop on your next getaway to New Orleans. We ordered the confit, and it was an ideal appeti ... More >>

New Orleans Happy Hour Deals: Lüke Restaurant

​Lüke is John Besh's new restaurant connected to the Hilton on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. It is touted as an authentic brasserie; the seafood is kept open market-style on the bar and chosen by the customers individually. We really enjoyed the atmosphere here and thought it was an exce ... More >>

Chris McMillian of New Orleans's Bar Uncommon

​Bar Uncommon at the Renaissance Père Marquette Hotel (817 Common St. in New Orleans) is the last place you might look for a life-changing cocktail experience. Funky, high-end interior design and snootiness abound here. The legitimacy starts behind the tiny bar itself. The lead mixologist is ... More >>