Frostop

Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Frostop has been around Baton Rouge since the 50's, always sitting on the corner of Government Street and St. Ferdinand Street. The huge Frostop root beer float sign will be forever seared into everyone's mind when entering downtown Baton Rouge. Even though it looks run down, it's not closed. It is very much so, still open. You take a step in and it's a like a blast from the past. It has that old school diner feel that you can't get a hold of in many places today.

So many people have been here before in their childhood, probably to get their first proper floats and shakes with their parents. These days, it seems like people hardly find the time to take a trip downtown to relive one of their lost memories of downing one of their frosty treats. A friend of mind mentioned Frostop to me this weekend about how wonderful it is, and I've been thinking about it ever since. Today, I paid a little visit.

I know for a fact that their shrimp po-boys are delicious, but I've been eating so many lately that I had to make a change of plan. I ordered their Whole-Lot-A-Burger with cheese, an order of fries, and of course, a root beer float. I really don't even like root beer on its own, but I love it with some ice cream in it. They don't get any better than Frostop's either.




So the burger comes dressed with tomato, onion, pickles, lettuce, mayo, mustard, all on a toasted sesame bun. What I liked about how they do their burgers with cheese is that they put it under their patty, it makes sense to help it melt better. Which it did. You bite into it and starts to run with ooey goodness. It's nothing spectacular, but it's definitely not bad. You can't really complain about it, and their fries are good too. If you come for a meal, I recommend getting one of their po-boys with something fried, they're delicious. I have yet to
try one of their beef po-boys so I have no idea how good they are.

I saved the best for last. Their root beer floats. It's something about their frozen mugs that make the experience about drinking/eating a float, amazing. You definitely need a straw and a long spoon to tackle one of these but the extra effort is worth it.

I ended up spending $9.24 for everything, and it was worth every penny. Eating a burger and fries with a root beer float definitely makes you feel like a kid again. I think it's something everyone should do from time to time.

Frostop - 402 Government Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 
http://frostop.us/

Chicken 'N Waffles (GoYaYa's Crepes)

Baton Rouge, Louisiana
I told y'all that I'd go back for GoYaYa's Crepes Waffle Wednesday special didn't I? I did. And it was everything I hoped for. It has been a couple of weeks now that I have been craving a good waffle. My hopes were dashed one night when I went to Louie's Cafe, only to hear that their waffle iron was broken! To follow that up, I went to GoYaYa's too early for their special a few days later. Well, there I went again. 11AM on the dot to make sure I got what I have been craving. (they sold out last week)

I'm not positive if they have the same combo of flavor of chicken/waffle every week, but it was a repeat from before. Fried chicken on a smoked Gouda waffle with a honey jalapeno garlic sauce, garnished with scallions was the order. Doesn't the picture look glorious?!

First, the fried chicken. Sadly, they can't fry the chicken on site because they operate in a little nook inside the Main Street Market. So, you might want to get there earlier than late, just in case they start cooling off. When you order, you get the option of having white or dark meat. I always get dark meat if there's a chance, it's usually juicier and has more flavor. They gave me a fried thigh and drumstick. Judging by the coloring of the batter, it looked slightly over done. It definitely didn't taste like it though, I was pleasantly surprised that it tasted completely normal. 

The sauce was unbelievably good, and it worked in more ways than one. It added a sweet and sour taste but with a kick of heat from the jalapenos in it. Garlic, chilies and honey can make a ridiculously good Asian flavored sauce, this is kind of what I got from it. The reason why I said it worked in more ways that one is that it drips onto the waffle and serves as a syrup. It was sweet enough to act the part. 

The waffle was light and fluffy about as much as one could be. I couldn't get the taste of the smoked Gouda from it though, if I were blindfolded I probably couldn't taste the difference after eating the chicken. Overall, I was happier than a kid on Christmas morning that I finally got a hold of a decent waffle.

Two thumbs up to GoYaYa's for having Waffle Wednedays!

GoYaYa's Crepes - 501 Main Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

http://www.goyayas.com/index.html

Squeal BBQ

New Orleans, Louisiana
It's Mardi Gras in The Big Easy, I'm hungry and tired from traveling. Me and a couple of friends end up on Oak Street only to find that our favorite sushi place, Ninja, is closed. Luckily there's a glimmer of hope to satisfy our hunger needs just across the street. That place, is Squeal Bar-B-Q.

We've heard good things about this place but never tried it. First off, we had no idea that it was a sit-down restaurant. We stumble in there like a few clumsy fools trying to find an order window. We eventually get our bearings down and get seated. It's a nice quiet place, pretty small too. Just from walking outside you get smacked by the aroma of smoking meats so it probably made us want to eat more than we could really handle.

We get the menu which is clamped onto a piece of wood, pretty neat. As an appetizer, we chose to get the 1/2 order of the Squeal Nachos which come with white cheddar cheese on top of pulled pork, jalapenos and black beans. The salsa and sour cream came on the side. Just from the looks of it, you would think that it may be the best nachos ever made. As I started to dig into them, everything tasted great by itself but it seemed to be missing something for me. I'm pretty sure if it came with their BBQ sauce it would've made it better. Although their nachos weren't as good as I thought they were going to be, the pulled pork was amazing. They were certainly generous with their portions. Some pieces came with the really dark char on the ends that I really like too.


This is what I ordered for my entree. A beef brisket sandwich with their signature BBQ sauce and two sides. I had to try their coleslaw and their corn maque choux.

Corn maque choux is a traditional dish of Southern Louisiana, it contains corn, tomato, green bell pepper and onion. These ingredients are braised in either oil, butter, cream or even bacon fat. Then it's simmered down until it reaches a tender consistency.

Before I even touched my sandwich I took a bite of each side. The maque choux had a very creamy corn taste when you first take your first bite, then you get the spice as it goes down. It was very good, as far as corn goes. The coleslaw on the other hand, hardly tasted like anything. No pepper or any kind of zing. I was sadly disappointed, but I had bigger plans for it. I started eating my brisket sandwich and the quality of the beef was unreal. It was very, very tender. There are times where the fat of an animal should not be a focal point of the meat. Brisket is one of those, but you could tell that the fat that ran through the brisket tenderized it to perfection. Well, I couldn't just waste my coleslaw, so I piled it on top as if I were eating a pulled pork sandwich. I saved the coleslaw's day. The BBQ sauce was just some extra lagniappe, both spicy and sweet at the same time. My pet peeve with sandwiches has always got to go down to the bread. This sandwich was placed on some type of bun/roll that was pretty good. I don't know how some bakers do it, but I love it when the crust cracks but yet stays together at the same time.

This meal was definitely the jump start we all needed to make it back to Baton Rouge.

Squeal Bar-B-Q - 8400 Oak Street, New Orleans, Louisiana
http://www.squeal-nola.com

Parkway Bakery & Tavern

New Orleans, Louisiana
If you ever happen to visit the Crescent City, you absolutely have to try a Po-Boy. This is my third post referring to one now, and it's also in New Orleans for the third time as well... starting to see the trend? I decided to opt out of the raging experience of what is known to be Mardi Gras this year. Well... for the most part. I saw the Muses parade for the first time. But before that, I took a trip to the winner of Best of New Orleans 2011 award, Parkway Bakery and Tavern, with a couple of friends.



You may have seen it mentioned in the Food Wars episode involving Parkway and Domilise's for the best Po-Boy in New Orleans. Domilise's won, but that's not the point, I knew from word of mouth that this place is extraordinary. You step into Parkway's and you know for sure that you're in New Orleans, it's very rustic and has a lot of old school paintings and drawings all over the walls. This place has a ridiculously large patio seating area as well, the crowd comes by the masses at lunch time. I took the advice from my friend and chose the Surf and Turf Po-Boy instead of just the traditional shrimp.



It comes with slow cooked roast beef topped with golden fried gulf shrimp and gravy. It's quite messy so grab a ton of napkins. A fully dressed Po-Boy at Parkway comes with lettuce, tomato, pickle and mayo on French bread. Their bread held up quite nicely against the gravy of the roast beef, but wasn't tough. The Po-Boy was excellent. You bite into it and get all of the flavor that you should when you bite into beef that has been slow roasting for 24 hours. (they really do cook it for 24 hours) Once you get past that, you bite into a piece of perfectly fried shrimp and reach a new height of flavor. The messiness is really the only downfall of the Po-Boy, other than that, this thing is heaven. I recommend spraying some Crystal Sauce on your Po-Boy for a needed kick.

How Parkway didn't win Food Wars is quite astonishing, I guess I'm going to have to pay a little visit to Domilise's because it'll be pretty hard to top what I experienced.



Parkway Bakery and Tavern - 538 Hagan Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana
http://www.parkwaypoorboys.com/

GoYaYa's Crepes

Baton Rouge, Louisiana
The epic battle of breakfast carbs is always around. Do you go with an English muffin or a biscuit? Or, more importantly... are you on the pancake team or the waffle team? I'll take a waffle over a pancake any day. I could rant about it for hours but this post is all about the pancake's cousin, the crepe. You could just say a crepe is a super thin pancake, it's really nothing special without it being topped/wrapped/stuffed with something. It does take a good bit of skill to create one though, that's probably why they're considered a novelty rather than just an anorexic flapjack.


GoYaYa's Crepes is located in the Main Street Market, famously known for hosting the area for the farmers market on Saturdays. When I walked in, it was basically a ghost town. *shrug* I knew I'd be dining alone for this one anyways.



The reason I took the short trip downtown to visit GoYaYa's Crepes was to experience their Waffle Wednesday. Sadly, they don't start serving chicken and waffles until lunch time, so I was out of luck. I was pretty bummed about not landing any waffles so I looked to their savory menu. I've had their Strawberry Nutella crepe before and it's amazing. But, I never tried anything outside of fruit on a crepe so I had to try something new. I went with their Cuban. It comes with shredded pork, sliced ham, dill pickles, swiss cheese and a chipotle mustard.




I opened my to go box and pleasantly found a monstrous crepe garnished with scallions and parsley sitting in front of me. I start getting into it and was very pleased with the amount of shredded pork that was in it. I'm not familiar with Cuban cuisine but I realized that Cuban sandwiches and wraps tend to come with pickles. I put them aside because the dill flavor was a little overpowering. The pork was delicious, it played the main role in this crepe for sure. There were pieces of crispy bits in there along with large chunks of meat. It didn't have much seasoning on there so it was nice to come with the chipotle mustard. I figured it was going to be spicier, it flirted along the lines of plain mustard too much for me. It was a good thing they had a bottle of Sriracha Sauce on the bar. The ham hardly played the role of a supporting cast, the flavor of it was completely masked by the pork and mustard. It probably could have done without it and been just as enjoyable.

For my first experience with a savory crepe, it was very satisfying. I'll definitely be back with a mission to try their waffles. The overall cost was around 9 dollars with a bottle of water. I also couldn't finish this thing in one sitting.

GoYaYa's Crepes - 501 Main Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
http://www.goyayas.com/index.html

Zolia Bistro

Baton Rouge, Louisiana
I hardly ever read The LSU Reveille because it's simply a terrible paper. But, I was glad that I found one on a table at Inga's the other day while waiting for my order. I stumbled across an article of Zolia Bistro located at the the II City Plaza in downtown Baton Rouge. It had great reviews and it's Italian, so I had to try it.

It looked really nice when I walked in. It's in a fairly new building, so that was expected. You walk in and you immediately think of "coffee shop" because of the register and cooler. But then you get seated and the setting completely changes into a restaurant type feel. The seating area looked really nice as far as I could tell, but sadly my friend and I got seated at the first two top they had. Maybe I'll decline that seating option the next time I go.

Zolia Bistro serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Their lunch menu is mainly comprised of paninis and wraps. I got the Toscano panini which was loaded with herb-grilled chicken breast, spicy capicola, gruyere, pickled red onions and a dijon aioli. You also get the choice of a side of either an orzo pasta, vegetable chips, sour cream potato salad or a bowl of fruit. I chose the orzo pasta. It looked really nice when I got it, but I didn't really like it because I'm a true hater towards olives. The pasta basically had everything I liked: basil, zucchini, tomatoes, feta and some salt pepper, I'm sure there were some other herbs as well. Too bad, all I could taste were the olives. I guess my palate is very sensitive towards them so it kind of ruined it. The panini on the other hand was really good. The bread was good, and my stance with onions is a complete 180 with my thoughts on olives. The pickled red onion gave it a little twist on flavor and it added some really good texture. You really can't go wrong with grilled chicken, capicola and melted gruyere. The lightly buttered panini pressed bread only left an additional high note for my meal. Sadly, I really couldn't taste the aioli. Maybe I did and didn't really pay enough attention to it.

For 9 dollars, it wasn't bad at all. Only half of the sandwich is in the picture. I began eating before I snapped a photo haha.

Zolia Bistro - II City Plaza, 400 Convention Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
http://www.zoliabistro.com