The Internet's New Orleans Travel Tips Are All Wrong

TripAdvisor is going to tell you that the number one place

that you should visit when you come to New Orleans

is the World War II Museum.

[record scratches]

It can't be the number one thing, that can't be real.

[Camera Operator] It is real.

That's a real thing?

[Camera Operator] I will show it to you.

You didn't just make that up?

[Camera Operator] I didn't make it up, I'm not lying.

This is why we're making this video.

[upbeat music begins]

I'm DJ Johnson.

I'm the owner of Baldwin and Co. Coffee and Bookstore,

and I am a local New Orleans expert.

And today, we are going to challenge

what the internet says you should do in my city

versus what I, as the local expert, say you should do.

Come along with us and let's explore the city.

[upbeat music continues]

Day one, you have to have a beignet

when you come to New Orleans.

The internet says Cafe Du Monde,

but if you really want the best, flaky, buttery,

authentic beignet, you have to come to Loretta's.

[upbeat music continues]

This trumps any beignet I've ever had,

and I've been eating beignets since I was a toddler.

I love Cafe Du Monde.

No shade, but this is a completely different experience.

This here is the world famous crab stuffed beignet.

It is absolutely delicious lump crab meat

and a creole sauce stuffed inside of a beignet.

Loretta's is the first place to ever stuff beignets

with anything.

When you look at this and you look at the flakiness

and the buttery inside of this,

when you open up a beignet from Cafe Du Monde,

you don't get that.

It's just dense, it's just doughy.

Still delicious.

It's just a different experience.

This one right here, you can see the butter,

how layered it is,

and it's just a testament to how amazing they do here.

Well, I gotta start off with the savory.

So this sauce is the Remoulade sauce

that you also put on top,

that it just adds a extra layer of excellence

to these beignets.

There's so much lump crab that it falls out of the beignet.

They're not shy with the lump crab meat.

[upbeat music continues]

Mm, delicious.

Next is the praline one.

And you can see the thickness of the praline

just oozing out of the beignets.

[upbeat music continues]

Loretta is the first Black person

to ever own a praline shop in New Orleans.

It was the enslaved Blacks who created

this amazing staple item in New Orleans,

and we've never really been able to capitalize off it.

We've never been able to really get our just due

and our just credit for it.

So for Loretta, in 1983, to open up Loretta's Praline,

it was iconic, a testament to our strength, our resilience,

our creativity, and just an amazing palette

for delicious cuisine.

Mm, this is it.

This is it right here.

[upbeat music continues]

New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz.

So when you listen to hip hop, you listen to R&B,

you listen to country, you listen to blues,

everything that you're listening to in terms of music

is a offset of jazz.

So when you come to New Orleans,

you have to see a live music show.

Reddit says that we should visit Preservation Hall.

I like Preservation Hall,

but if you really want to get your feet moving,

then you have to visit Le Bon Temps Roule

on Magazine Street.

It's where some of our greatest musicians,

like Cameron Ruffin, Soul Rebels, have all come

and paid their dues before they went on to reach the stardom

of being the great musicians that they are today.

It is a stark contrast to Preservation Hall.

Preservation Hall, while you are going to hear

some of our greatest jazz musicians,

it is a sit down, very calm, traditional jazz spot.

Le Bon Temps Roule is the everything opposite of that.

It is bump jumping, brass music, heart pumping, feet moving,

screaming, shouting.

It is that wrapped up in just pure energy

around the sounds of trumpets, drums.

[upbeat jazz music begins]

[upbeat music begins]

When you come into New Orleans,

another cuisine that you have to absolutely have

is a poboy.

Let's take a look and see what does the internet suggest

on where to go to find a great poboy in New Orleans?

According to Yelp and Reddit,

it says that you should go to Parkway Tavern.

While Parkway is delicious,

if you want to eat like a local,

then I wouldn't recommend necessarily going to a restaurant.

See, growing up, we never actually went to restaurants

to actually get a poboy.

The best authentic New Orleans experience

is at a corner store, and my favorite corner store

to go get a poboy is Verti Marte.

They got everything that they would have

at a CVS, a Walmart, and Canal Villery all in one,

and then you walk a little bit to the back,

and then that's where you find the sandwiches.

But it's not just any sandwich.

It's not a snack.

It is so fulfilling that you're probably

only going to be able to get half of it down.

The history of the poboy is invented by the Martin Brothers,

and when the strikers used to walk into the restaurants

and ask for a sandwiches, they would always yell,

Oh, here come one of those poboys!

And that was a symbol to get the strikers a sandwich,

but it was a sandwich made of just like fried potatoes,

lettuce, tomatoes, whole bunch of toppings on this sandwich,

and that's how we got the poboy.

My favorite order is the shrimp and oyster on French,

fully dressed, extra ketchup.

The sandwich of champions.

[upbeat music continues]

Look at the size of the shrimp that they put on these.

Nice jumbo shrimp, perfectly fried.

This is exactly what you're looking for

when you come to New Orleans.

[upbeat music continues]

Mardi Gras is a weeks long celebration of food, music,

parades, bands, festivities,

and it's all to celebrate the indulgence

that you are supposed to engage in before Lent.

So let's see what the internet says on where you should go

to enjoy the flavors and fun and history of Mardi Gras

24/7, 365 days of the year.

The internet says that you should go to Mardi Gras World.

However, as your local expert, I'm going to take you

to a much better place.

I'm gonna take you to Backstreet Cultural Museum.

Mardi Gras World is all about the props.

Backstreet Cultural Museum is all about the people.

Lemme show you some of the most photographed parts

of Mardi Gras, and that is the Mardi Gras Indians.

The craftsmanship that goes into it is so detailed.

Yes, all of the suits are hand beaded,

and we refer to them as suits, not costumes,

because these are true artists.

They have to actually draw it out, bead through it,

regular needle and thread, and sometimes dental floss,

because it doesn't dry rot as fast as regular thread does.

So they take 365 days of the year hand beading this,

and it starts with what we call a patch.

And a patch can be done from cardboard or canvas.

A lot of people come thinking it's just all about

the show and tell and the colors and the suit.

But the significance behind this is that

they're paying homage to our ancestors.

[DJ] To the indigenous tribes that helped enslaved Blacks

during the days of slavery.

The millions of people that are coming to New Orleans

are paying homage to Black culture.

[upbeat music continues]

So whenever people come to New Orleans,

everyone wants the authentic New Orleans cuisine.

So let's see where the internet says we should go.

Yelp says Zesty Creole,

and TripAdvisor says Olde Nola Cookery.

I'm going to tell you where the locals eat,

because I gotta be honest with you,

I'm not sure how either one of those places made the list.

The best restaurant to visit

for authentic New Orleans cuisine is Neyow's in Mid City.

It is absolutely delicious.

Mouthwatering char broiled oysters.

This is the one place where you can even go

to where you're going to feel like you're sitting

in grandmother's kitchen.

[upbeat music continues]

Oysters here?

Yes.

You see the sizzling butter, that's the buttery sauce

that this is grilled with over an open flame,

and it just poured on top as it's being grilled

with garlic herbs and Parmesan cheese

that it's just baked into each oyster.

You never go wrong with more butter.

[Camera Operator] That's not what the doctor says.

[DJ laughs]

[DJ] He not from New Orleans.

Take a piece of the classic New Orleans French bread.

Take your fork, you want to soak up the oyster,

the butter sauce, the garlic, the cheese.

You want to just indulge all of it in one delicious bite.

Crab claw saute.

Mm.

[Server] Breaded pork chops and red beans and rice.

Potato salad.

[DJ] The traditional New Orleans Creole cuisine

is that perfect blend of cuisines

and spices taken from African descent, French, Spanish,

and Creole.

This is blue crab claws and it's absolutely delicious.

All the flavor's packed inside of this

little bitty piece of meat on this crab claw.

You wanna make sure you try to get all the meat off it.

And we're in luck, because today is Monday,

and Monday is the day that everyone eats red beans and rice

in New Orleans.

I remember my grandmother, my mom,

they would always make red beans on Mondays,

and it was more so known as the stretch dish

because you don't feel like cooking

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

So what you're going to do is you're gonna make this meal

for Monday, and that gives you a little bit of relief

because you know that no one cooks red beans in a small pot.

So you got red beans for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays.

This is probably the most staple dish to New Orleans.

[upbeat music continues]

Well there's museums all over New Orleans

that you can soak up this culture.

So let's see what the internet says on where you should go,

which museum that you should visit

when you come to New Orleans.

Wow, according to TripAdvisor,

the number one thing you should do

when you come to New Orleans

is visit the World War II Museum.

However, as your local expert,

I'm going to give you a much better experience

and place to go.

You see, new Orleans is a living museum

throughout the entire area of the Treme,

and particularly within the Treme,

I recommend the New Orleans African American Museum.

[upbeat music continues]

[Gia] Hello.

[DJ] Hey, my dear, so good to see you again.

You as well.

Historic Treme is actually a really small neighborhood.

It's about six square blocks,

but there's so much history here,

but a lot of that history is unmarked.

So unless you know someone

or you know an institution that can take you

to those key places, you might miss

really important parts of New Orleans history.

On the back of our property,

we have a masonry structure

that was the home of Marie Lavoe.

So the infamous Voodoo Queen lived right here in Treme

with her daughters, not in the French Quarter.

Not in the French Quarter.

In Treme. Here.

[Gia] Just right across the street

is the Petit Jazz Museum that was founded by Mr. Al Jackson.

He does a phenomenal job of telling the history of jazz.

[upbeat music continues]

We are in Armstrong Park

and we're headed towards Congo Square.

This is an important center point for us

in that it really does parallel the French Quarter.

This was a gathering place for people of African descent.

So on Sundays, they could sell things,

they could exchange things, they could even find relatives

or try to connect with relatives.

So this was a really important cultural hub for us.

And of course, you know, there was always drumming and dance

and exchange of food and culture.

[DJ] This is what a lot of people get wrong

about the city of New Orleans.

They think the history of New Orleans is rooted

inside of the French Quarters, but a lot of the history

is rooted and begins right here

in the Treme area of New Orleans.

[upbeat music continues]

So everyone knows that New Orleans is well known

for its bar culture.

So let's see where the internet says

we should go for a drink.

So according to Yelp, it says that the best place

is Carousel Bar.

Wouldn't be the place that I would select.

As your local expert, I would take you

to one of the best hidden secrets of our bar culture

here in New Orleans.

It is a Nouveau Chic, sexy environment that,

as soon as you walk in,

you feel like you're in the essence

of the Harlem Renaissance.

[upbeat music continues]

So I've taken you to some of my favorite spots.

Food, music, museums, beignets.

Let me know what you think about my suggestions

when you visit New Orleans.

[upbeat music fades]