30th Birthday Bash(elorette) in New Orleans

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you know that I recently celebrated my 30th birthday and bachelorette with some of my best friends in New Orleans. We had such a great time that I felt I should share my itinerary as I believe it was one of my best organized trips to date!

When I envisioned my 30th birthday, I always saw us living it up in Barcelona. Unfortunately, I was not that blessed this year to afford a destination birthday trip since I’m planning a wedding, but I had to think of a place in the U.S. that was somewhat walkable, affordable, and guaranteed fun–New Orleans! Something to note upfront: my friends know or know of each other, but only a couple of them are actually friends with each other outside of me. Since I’m not having bridesmaids, I did center the trip primarily around my birthday which meant I only ever expected myself to take on the responsibility of the planning. I wanted to ensure that no matter where we went, every piece of the itinerary would allow for everyone to enjoy their time, and I managed to achieve this goal!

Day 1
The trip started out in a typical dramatic fashion, as always, with terrible thunderstorms. I won’t dive too far into this as it really affected me so negatively, but I mention it because it ended up derailing my plans for the evening. Originally, I planned on hosting the ladies in my hotel room and ordering food so they could get to know each other better, but I knew I was in no position mentally to host. We asked our Lyft driver, a local, for dinner recommendations and she recommended ACME Oyster House.

It was only a short walk away from our hotel in the French Quarter and the rain did us a solid and stayed away during our outdoor wait. We nursed a large frozen daiquiri to kill the 45-minute wait time and once we got inside, we knew we had to kick things off with their namesake: oysters. We thoroughly enjoyed some chargrilled oysters, raw oysters, gumbo, and seafood étouffée. With the rain continuing on, we hung out here for a bit before closing out the place, but of the very few regrets I have from this trip, one of them is not ordering another plate of chargrilled oysters here. I highly recommend this place as it’s very casual and unassuming, like most places in New Orleans, and it definitely does its job. I am not entirely sure if there is a way to make reservations, but the wait in line is just fine if the weather is not terrible.

Day 2
One thing about group trips is you never know where the night can take you. I imagined we’d spontaneously stay on out Bourbon since we were so close to it, but instead, everyone crashed at about 10:00 p.m. after a long day of early travel for the west coast girlies and a long day of delays for the central and east coast girlies. Still, I knew it was best not to plan anything for the morning, so we started off day two with an afternoon cocktail tasting at Sazerac House.
As a group of seven, I would have loved to do a cooking class or food tour in the city, but they were very costly and absorbed big chunks of the day. I thought to myself, “What’s the next best thing to do in New Orleans after eating?” Drink! This old city is also known for its history, so I stumbled upon Sazerac House in my research and was so interested to learn more about this New Orleans staple. The Sazerac cocktail–Sazerac rye whiskey, Peychaud’s bitters, Herbsaint, a sugar cube, and a lemon twist–gained fame in New Orleans in the 1850s and is now served globally. Though I am not a whiskey girl, I saw they offered a class on tropical cocktails where we ended up learning all about the unique history of rum in New Orleans and how daiquiris became associated with the city.

We had an incredible instructor, D’Idra, for our class who knew how to teach us without it feeling like a lecture. She shared all the important pieces of history while allowing us to participate directly by tasting bitters, tasting the rum, and even making our own cocktail in the end. Also, if you have never had a traditional daiquiri, you are missing out. A frozen daiquiri does not even hold a candle to the OG. The classes are also very intimate, so I highly recommend for anyone looking for a group activity that is relatively affordable. The purchase of a class does include the tour of the entire building, but we just went ahead to enjoy lunch since most of us hadn’t had breakfast. Note to readers (and self): maybe eat something before doing a rum tasting!

For lunch, we ate at a favorite restaurant of mine and my dad’s called Deanie’s Seafood. Similar to ACME, Deanie’s is an unassuming place that provides good fried food! Most of us got the Mate Platter, but one of my friends ordered a soup trio (crawfish étouffée, seafood okra gumbo, and crawfish bisque) and omg……..we could not stop raving about this throughout the trip! Perfect portion size and a delicious bite every time. As I write this, I want to order it. I highly recommend going at lunch because there is never a wait.

We had some rest time and then had what I consider our “big night out” to celebrate my engagement. We hung out in my hotel room for drinks, snacks, and tons of pictures and then we headed to Sun Chong.

Sun Chong is a cajun-korean fusion restaurant near the French Quarter which was great to be able to just walk there. It was so fun to order plates of food and try everything family style. We ordered: crab rangoon dip, crawfish fried rice, Sun Chong chicken, gumbo dumplings, and seafood ramen. Out of these options, my favorite was the seafood ramen and the crawfish fried rice and, in hindsight, we probably should have done one more order of the ramen. At the time I’m writing this, the menu online does not show the gumbo dumplings or seafood ramen, but there may be a more expansive menu at the restaurant or if you want to call and confirm. The ambiance was also wonderful with fast and friendly service, mood lighting, and great R&B jams. They also brought us a round of green tea shots (my new favorite shot after lemon drop), but I couldn’t tell you if it was complimentary or not!

The night continued on Bourbon Street and we did the normal things like dance on a balcony, people watch, ride a mechanical bull. Just your average GNO, you know?

Day 3
On our last day, we had brunch at a popular place called The Country Club. This was outside of the Quarter in the St. Claude area near Crescent Park. I will be brief here that I wasn’t that impressed with the food or experience. It wasn’t bad by any means, but definitely overrated (and I never really say that). I specifically wanted to enjoy a drag brunch because they are so fun, but I had a lot of difficulty finding them in New Orleans, specifically with black drag queens or drag queens of color. I ran into a lot of places that had brunch with someone performing which would be a separate expense/ticket and it was a lot to pay before even paying for food. I settled on The Country Club despite reviews of it being overrated because it was known for that aspect specifically. But I have seen waaaaaay better performances that were worth my dollars. I got some cute pictures though, so a win is a win!

From there, we trekked over to Café du Monde for the ladies who have never been to New Orleans because duh! Though you can enjoy good beignets in a lot of places in New Orleans, I just love the informality of the dining experience at Café du Monde with the simple, cash-only menu and outdoor seating covered in powdered sugar. The old-time diner feel maintains its roots which date all the way back to 1862. Again, this is something I love so much about this city since everywhere else in the U.S. is so quick to erase history.

Similar to day two, we had a little bit of downtime after this which we used to get ready for dinner at Morrow’s. Morrow’s is owned by the same hospitality group as Sun Chong and was also a cajun-korean fusion restaurant, but more on the cajun side. We ordered: chargrilled oysters, crawfish bread (!!), raw oysters, red beans and rice, cajun crawfish pasta, pasta Lenora, filé gumbo, Morrow’s fried chicken, and a side of collard greens. I’m not going to lie to y’all….we tore this UP. This was hands down my favorite meal and voted best meal of the trip. Everything we tasted, we could not believe how good it was. The portions are also a great size, especially if you don’t dine like my friends and I do by ordering a lot of things to try.

My favorite food item here was the crawfish bread as indicated by the exclamation points; I understanding this is an appetizer and really just bread, but I could have had this and the chargrilled oysters and died a happy camper. I hiiiiighly recommend this restaurant–you definitely need a reservation and they won’t seat you until your whole party is there, but the service was so great. The music was at a very reasonable volume where we could jam while not screaming to talk and I believe everyone enjoyed their cocktails as well. It’s not a large restaurant either, and why not support a black-owned business?

We ended our night on the infamous Frenchman Street which is funnily more my vibe as I enter my 30s. So cliché to want to opt for quieter, less crowded places as I get older, but I think it’s more to do with the fact that my friends are all spread out now with so, so much going on compared to my early 20s when traveling to visit each other/coming back home was more common; now, I want to soak up every minute with them and just talk and laugh because I genuinely never know when I might see them again, including friends I live in the same city with.

It wasn’t a wild, rambunctious trip that would be a hilarious movie, but it was the perfect balance of good food, good company, and balance for everyone to enjoy time together and apart. . I am so, so grateful for one of my friends helping me with the research on the places we ate because we equally agreed that somehow each meal was better than the last with no bad meals at any point. It was such an important thing for me to provide comfort to my friends above anything else since they paid money to travel and share this time with me and others. I was so happy that I achieved my goals of orchestrating an amazing girls trip, I’m also happy that I have this memory shared with all of them. I am so blessed!

Comment below if you have any questions! I’m always looking for a reason to go back to New Orleans, so please drop some more recommendations below. 🙂

xx, AE