march 4 – acme oyster house (airport), kate latter’s praline

after realizing at the acme oyster house last night that i’d actually already eaten in the restaurant since i had eaten at the airport location of the restaurant on my last trip to NO, i figured i’d find somewhere else to eat while i waited for my flight. no luck. the louis armstrong international airport is a sad place for food, given this city’s rich culinary tradition.

so i went back to the acme at the airport as my only other food choices were beignets or ice cream.

tonight i ordered red beans and rice and a side of hush puppies (one of my favorite childhood foods). the red beans and rice were, by far, the best i’d ever had. and they would have been more than sufficient alone but were served with a very large piece of sausage. together, the combination was perfect. the beans were thickish but certainly not unlike a chili consistency. they were cooked with a nice smoked ham, many pieces of which were still in the beans. the white rice was average and really didn’t do much in the way of adding any flavor to the beans. the sausage, though – oh the sausage. spicy but not hot; smoky but not smoked. very very good.

and while i was waiting for my plane, i decided to give another praline a try. i’ve always been an aunt sally’s praline kind of gal. but tonight i tried kate latter’s maple praline. and i’ve concluded that I am still an aunt sally’s praline kind of gal. the kate latter’s praline was much more like the consistency of fudge than of a traditional praline. the maple flavoring was a nice change from the traditional praline flavor, but it just seemed too far afield from what I would normally consider a praline to be, and while i’m always up for something new, this something new was not something i think i’d try again.