Travel & Recommendations

We are looking for historical things to do. I know that my wife is interested in going to Cambridge to check out Harvard. We will probably do a combo of public transport and über. We like to find neighborhoods where we can walk to different bars/restaurants/shops

The Harvard Natural History Museum is pretty cool. I think they still have the glass flowers exhibit going. I liked that way more than I thought I would.

You staying in hostels or AirBnbs? When are you in Budapest?

I can send you a list of stuff for BP if you’re interested, with restaurants, etc. i go to BP a lot for work.

If you decide to do hostels i like staying at penthouse privates. I think it’s like $25-30 a night and they run events every night of the week if you want and you get your own room. I highly recommend them because it felt like a family but at the same time i got my own space.

Utah has the best national parks, I'd say if you can swing it take a week and see Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Moab, Capital Reef, Canyon Lands, etc. 

For Zion, I've never been prepared enough, but hiking The Narrows there is on my bucketlist.

I second Canyonlands, it's breathtaking. Dead Horse Point State Park is right there as well, and Dead Horse Point itself offers a vista that, at least imho, blows the Grand Canyon away. I have so many great memories of camping in southern Utah during my childhood, it's a must-do.

Need food recs for New Orleans, I'm heading down with my GF on saturday and will be there until Wednesday.

Here's a list of spots I already have

Coops, Irene's, Tujaques, and Mothers

Alright. That makes sense. Some places like Galatoire's, Antoine's, Arnaud's and Commander's Palace you'd probably want a sport coat though you don't absolutely have to have them. Arnaud's and Antoine's have bars that also serve food if you want to hit the old white table cloth shit from a casual perspective.

If you want not tourist places, and you're cool with funky, slightly different and locally authentic, here are some recommendations not in any particular order.

Breakfast Places - Ruby Slipper (multiple locations), Toast (multiple locations), Canal Street Bistro (mid-City), Elizabeth's (probably around where you're staying <--- warning gets packed as fuck after 8:30 or so on Saturdays and Sundays), Willa Jean's (CBD/South Market District) and Surrey's (uptown)

Lunch/Dinner Places

1) Peche (Warehouse District) - This won the 2014 James Beard award's best new restaurant in America. It's hard to get in except when it first opens for lunch or dinner if you don't have reservations. It's seafood centric, and pretty much everything on the menu is good. Their whole fish is spectacular, but pretty much everything on the menu is. It's a casual place set in the style of an old fishing camp. They usually have a few options for whole fish depending on what's available that day. I'm personally not big on redfish, but if they have snapper that day (or if you like redfish), y'all will want to split that.
www.pecherestaurant.com/

2) Compere Lapin (CBD/Warehouse District) - This place is fucking blow away and not like anything else in town. Chef Nina Compton competed on the Top Chef season that was held here and came in second place and fell in love with New Orleans. She's from St. Lucia and honed her skills in Miami. She has fused the Caribbean elements of New Orleans, St. Lucia and Miami into her own thing. This place is unlike anything anywhere else including here. I've only been for lunch, and it's not that expensive.
comperelapin.com/

3) Emeril's (warehouse district) - You'd think this would be sort of overrated, but it's not. They usually have a prix fix for lunch. It's not cheap or anything, but if you've never been there, it never sucks.
emerilsrestaurants.com/emerils-new-orleans/menus

4) Johnny Sanchez (CBD/Superdome area) - This is Chopped Chef Aaron Sanchez' Mexican place. They have a pretty sweet happy hour Monday thru Friday with half price margaritas (including pitchers) ultra cheap street tacos. Everything there is good and his take on shit. He lives here so it's not like some Guy Fieri place or whatever.
www.johnnysanchezrestaurant.com/

5) K-Paul's (French Quarter) - New Orleans doesn't have very many Cajun restaurants as most of our food here is more Creole (nod to the Spanish, African and Caribbean, true French, and Acadian who are the Cajuns). This is the restaurant that started the craze back in the early 1980's. It's pretty reasonable for lunch, but sometimes there are lines. You would want to go early, and probably lunch is the best time.
www.kpauls.com/

6) DTB (Oak Street Uptown) - This is a new restaurant that opened in the last year and a half or so. My daughter works there. They have a damn good happy hour with like $5.00 wines, craft beers and cheap small plates along with like a $7.00 chicken sandwich of the day. It's also a Cajun restaurant, but it's very refined. You won't find anything else like it in the city.
www.dtbnola.com/

7) Cowbell (Oak Street Uptown) - Very unique and extremely funky place that has great burgers, schnitzel of the day, random shit. It's a great lunch or afternoon spot if you're down that way. You can't ever go wrong there, but like I said, it's funky as shit.
www.cowbell-nola.com/

8) Jacques Imo's (Oak Street Uptown) - Jacques Imo's is next door to Maple Leaf. If you don't get there early, you can hang on the street drinking which is what a lot of people do. They have some of the best fried chicken in the city, and their shrimp and alligator cheesecake is as good of a random dish as you'll find anywhere. All the hippie tourists love this place, and like Cowbell, it's funky as shit.
jacques-imos.com/

9) Dong Phuong (Village de l'Este/New Orleans East) - This is a bit of a haul out to Little Saigon, but it's the best French bread in the city. They sell by the loaf for like 3/$1.00 and are baked constantly. The Banh Mi's are as authentic as there is in New Orleans which is home to a large Vietnamese population, so you're getting fois gras and shit on them. There are more accessible decent Viet places all over town, so if this is too far out (probably a 15-20 minute run from where you're staying), Pho Orchid and Namese aren't bad options either.
dpbakeshop.com/

10) Bacchanal (Bywater near where you'll be) - This is a wine bar which has an outstanding night time food program. The biggest problem with Bacchanal is that you counter order but you have to have somewhere to sit in order to eat. If you go early, it's pretty easy to get in. But the place gets lines around the block sometimes on the weekends. Nevertheless, it's good as fuck. They usually have tastings on Saturday afternoons and there are some unique and relatively cheap buys there.
www.bacchanalwine.com/

12) La Boca (Warehouse District) - This is my favorite steakhouse in the city. It's got flavors you won't find anywhere else here. It's got atypical cuts of meat grilled in the style of an Argentinean steakhouse. Their condiments are chimichurri, roasted red pepper and a horse radish sauce. This place stays open until Midnight on the weekends. Everything is fucking great there, but the best deal (and unfortunately it requires 4 people) is their feed me. They hook the shit up for $45/person, and that's one of the best deals in town.
www.labocasteaks.com/

Those are just some out of the ordinary places I'd take someone to that wanted to eat here. There are ton of places you can go to get other stuff.

Po-boys - Parkway Bakery (City Park) and Bevi (mid-City) are both good and Martin Wine Cellar (uptown and Metairie) is also good, Crabby Jack's (uptown) and Mahoney's (uptown) is my favorite of them all. Also Killer po-boys in the French Quarter is supposed to be fantastic, but I still haven't been yet.

Fried Chicken - Willie Mae's Scotch House

Plate Lunches - Mandina's, Fury's (blue hair place but cheap and good), Camellia Grill and lots of other corner places you can get recommendations from anyone for.

BBQ - Crescent City (Central City) BBQ is head and shoulders above anything else in town; Boucherie is different but interesting

Pizza - Pizza Delicious near where you're staying is easily the best in the city. Echo's in mid-City (brand new) is a wood fired pizza and also really good.

Here's a list of restaurants by cuisine. He hasn't updated his list in a few months so some may have come and gone and others might now be around that you don't see. But it's at least fairly current.
nomenu.com/?page_id=39899

There are a ton of fine dining spots, and particularly in the Marigny/Bywater, there are a lot of newer places. San Francisco pizzeria Paladar 511 is supposed to be great SF styled pizzas, but I haven't been there yet. Also Mimi's in the Marigny has a great tapas restaurant upstairs and serves until 4:00am. Lost Love Lounge down that way has late night Vietnamese, but I'm not sure how late they go.

Breweries/Tap Rooms - Second Line, Urban South, and NOLA are all great places. Courtyard is stripped down, but they have good beers. As far as bars to get beers, Avenue Pub (lower Garden District) is the best in town and probably Cooter Brown's has the most selections of anywhere.

If you have any questions or need any specific recommendations on anything, let me know. There are like 1,500 restaurants in town, so a lot of great ones have been skipped over. But like I said, if you see something you're curious about, just throw it out there and I or someone else should be able to help.

Oh and I should say that my two favorite restaurants in town are Bayonna and G.W. Fins. Bayona has a great patio, and is reasonable enough for lunch. It's a little dressy at dinner, but it's not stuffy or anything. They make what's fresh that day. On Saturdays they do 3 small plates for $25.00 or something like that which is different from their regular menus. Most people who go for the first time get the peanut butter and jelly which is essentially roasted duck, cashew butter and pepper jelly on brioche. They won't ever make it for dinner, so it's lunch only. If the weather's good, lunch on the patio is crucial.
www.bayona.com/

G.W. Fins - This is a random restaurant. The guys who run it were the long time buyers for Ruth's Chris who went their own way. They fly in random shit from all over the world daily, so they have whatever was good on the international fish markets that morning. You might find everything from Hog Fish from North Carolina to Sole from the Mediterranean or even something out the Amazon. It's not a typical New Orleans seafood restaurant at all. It's really its own thing. You don't need a jacket, but if I was going in with a polo or button down, I'd probably go closer to the opening around 5:00pm or so.
gwfins.com/
gwfins.com/

The bro-child really does help us assimilate

Barton Springs pool!

I love the live music matinees at Continental Club. The dance floor is always swinging.

I’m going to be stopping through Nashville Sunday through Tuesday. I’ll be seeing modest mouse at the Ryman(soooooo excited) is there any food or breweries I should check out? Hot chicken? I heard yazoo is a great brewery but google says they’re close those days. Anyone ever been to third man records? Worth stopping by?