Pedal Pusher: Last Days in New Orleans and Bumming around Boston

The last couple of days in New Orleans were pretty fun and loaded with good eats. The city is jam packed with restaurants and I wanted to try as many as possible before returning home to the Boston suburbs. So, in a futile (yet delicious) attempt to try every New Orleans restaurant, a friend and I went to Franky and Johnny's one night, and then I had Crabby Jack's and Dat Dog the next day (as well as some more Angelo Brocato's to get my gelato fix before leaving for Boston). The day of my flight, a teammate and I went to Surrey's Uptown to order their popular banana pancake. My teammate mentioned that it would be a really big pancake, but I didn't quite believe him. I later found out that for $6.50, this pancake is quite the behemoth! It kept me full until I got home 12 hours later, and a spoon is used as a size reference in a picture below.

Gator nuggets at Franky and Johnnys

Shrimp po boy at Franky and Johnny's

A friend's mother made some very good Vietnamese style noodles.

Alligator sausage from Dat Dog (the bun is the size of my forearm)

Po boy from Crabby Jack's

Crab cake from Crabby Jack's (best crab cake I've ever had)

St. Joseph chocolate almond gelato from Angelo Brocato's

You can actually see a whole almond in the gelato!

Banana pancake from Surrey's Uptown

Money shot

There hasn't been much to do here in Boston, save for enjoying the (essentially) unlimited funding for my ice cream habit and trying my hand at baking. Oh, and food coloring (I put it on everything now). Below is a picture of the banana-less banana bread I baked this week. The banana flavor comes from some Jello Sugar Free Banana Cream pudding. The banana bread wasn't that bad, except for the funky chemical aftertaste (I'm trying to get rid of the giant bag of Splenda on top of the refrigerator).

A friend and I went to grab sushi the other night, and we got a free dish since he's a regular there. I ordered some sushi, but the dish that absolutely blew my mind was the Idaho maki, which is a finely crafted sweet potato tempura roll. Win. A day later, we went to Subway, where we got raspberry cheesecake cookies, and then to the grocery store to pick up Cracker Jack boxes. There are still awesome prizes inside, and I was definitely hit with a bout of nostalgia when I opened the first package.