Rotgut.org Blog

Saturday, October 08, 2016

#2472 - Cafe Amelie, New Orleans - 3/21/2014

Cafe Amelie is one of the best options in New Orleans for brunch and is especially loved for the portion in a 150-year-old courtyard. It is named for Amelie Miltonberger, who lived nearby and gave birth to Alice Heine, who eventually left the French Quarter to marry Prince Albert I and become the princess of Monaco. The bar is sufficient, and the food quite fine, but it is temperate, sunny days amidst the fountains and foliage that make it memorable.

912 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70116 - (504) 412-8965
Est. 2005
Web site: cafeamelie.com - facebook
Articles ranked: neworleansrestaurants - notesonneworleans - lettucespoon - thefabliss - memeing - yelp - musingsofthebigredcar

#2471 - Tonique, New Orleans - 3/20/2014

If you like craft cocktails and you're in New Orleans you go to Tonique. Tonique is often included in lists of top cocktail bars in the city or the entire country. On this visit I particularly enjoyed a Bitter Harvest Cocktail (Bernheim's Wheat Whiskey, St. Elizabeth Allspice dram, Averna Amaro, Bitter Truth orange bitters)

There are a few other attractions -- it also functions as an affordable, neighborhood beer bar with several cocktails at $5 before 5pm, and even an extensive menu of non-alcoholic classics. It can also come as a soothing, welcome respite from the more gregarious regions of the French Quarter. But these are the things you use to convince your odd teetotaler friend to come along -- YOU will come for the cocktails.

820 N Rampart St, New Orleans, LA 70116 - (504) 324-6045
Est. 2008
Web site: bartonique.com - facebook
Articles ranked: neworleans.com - nola.com - nola.com - offbeat - nytimes - gonola - nola.com - thefabliss - neworleansonline - liquor.com - tripadvisor - yelp

#2470 - Bourbon Pub and Parade, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

When I come in the TVs are replaying Pink's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from the Oscars show and the entire bar area is entranced -- with most of the patrons are gesturing and mouthing the words.The Bourbon Pub, along with rival Oz across the street, are party central for clubbing gays in New Orleans. "Michael Paul Castrillo, who worked as a bartender at Oz in the early 2000s, recalls a rivalry between Oz and Bourbon Pub and Parade that was so heated that each of the bar's managers would send over customers or staffers to the other's place to spy on the crowd, get a head count and report back." (nola.com) They are both large clubs (this one slightly larger), with multiple bars on two floors, and both open 24 hours.

801 Bourbon St, New Orleans, LA 70116 - (504) 529-2107
Est. 1974
Web site: bourbonpub.com - facebook
Reviews: gaycities - huffpo - yelp - tripadvisor

#2469 - Cutter's, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Neighborhood bar in the Marigny, known as gay but a mixed crowd, with tailgate buffets for Saints games and free red beans and rice on Mondays,

706 Franklin Ave, New Orleans, LA 70117 - (504) 948-4200
Reviews: nola.com - yelp - gaycities

Tuesday, October 04, 2016

#2468 - Big Daddy's, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Big Daddy's, Marigny, New Orleans

Not to be confused with the identically named, only recently closed strip club with the iconic mannequin legs swinging over Bourbon Street, this Big Daddy's is a relatively placid, unassumingly gay, unapologetically divey bar in the Marigny. It is open 24 hours, many of them with a small, mostly older crowd mixed with young people who swing in when Mimi's across the street is clowded, closed, or just to full of hipsters. But as one article notes, "It's not unusual to find the place nearly empty at 8 p.m. and crowded at 8 a.m."

Both the staff and patrons are friendly, and we chatted with Edgar Riley Jr., who played with Frank Zappa and was most notably the vocalist and keyboardist for 80s metal band Axe. The band toured with acts like KISS, Ozzy, and Judas Priest before breaking up after a tragic auto accident in which one member was badly injured and another killed.

2513 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70117 - (504) 948-6288
Reviews: nola.com - yelp - gaycities

Sunday, October 02, 2016

#2467 - Mimi's in the Marigny, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Mimi's in the Marigny, New Orleans

Mimi's is a really nice couple of bars -- a more neighborhoody joint with a pool table and video games downstairs and a dining room upstairs -- with good cocktails and excellent tapas. But I will miss the old upstairs -- the one still there at the time of this visit, but subsequently relinquished after several years of legal battles with the neighbors. On this night we came upstairs and stepped into a cheery scene of swing dancing, to the beats of a band playing dixieland and roots music. But since 2012, the city has been clamping down on establishments, and in the summer of 2014 Mimi Dykes and her lawyers threw in the towel and converted the upstairs to a dining room, with music events limited to nine a year.

2601 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70117 - (504) 872-9868
Web site: mimismarigny.com - facebook
Articles ranked: fooddat - nola.com - nola.com - eater - curbed - roadtrippers - yelp - travelandleisure - bestofneworleans

#2466 - Saturn Bar, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

The Saturn Bar is one of the greatest dive bars in the country. It hits on virtually all key areas of a dive -- old, old characters, unique personality, strong cheap drinks, personalized decor assembled over many years -- and amps them up to a rare level. We chatted with bartender Bailee Broyard, whose great uncle O'Neil Broyard founded the place in this Bywater location in 1960, and whose father Eric now owns the joint. It was O'Neil who took the building hosting various blue collar bars over the years and transformed it into a cluttered bohemian gathering place and museum of folk art. O'Neil was the one who frame the taxidermied turtle in neon, installed the leopard print booths, collected the art, taxidermy and bric-a-bat -- and it was his friend Mike Frolich who painted the eponymous planet on the ceiling and historical scenes on the walls.

Saturn Bar, New Orleans

After 45 years of running the place, O'Neil died in December 2005, while the Saturn was still closed by Hurricane Katrina, and Eric and Bailee took over. Bailee books alt bands on weekends, and once a month they host one of New Orleans' most popular dance nights, DJ Matt Ulhman and Kristen Zoller's "Mod Night," featuring "exclusively of British Invasion, Motown, and Funk hits from the 1960s and 70s all spun from their original 33 or 45 RPM vinyl." Mod Night happens one Saturday night a month, but you'll have to watch their Facebook page to know exactly which weekend, as this decision is often made a the last minute. (See offbeat) Bailee and Eric cleared enough clutter from the back section to hold dancers and live bands, and you can watch the action from a narrow upper floor that surrounds that section, accessed by a rickety stairway.

Bailee, Saturn Bar, New Orleans

I could carry on about the decor and personality, but as with any truly unique dive, you can gather a lot more from a few more photos than I could communicate in words.