Dr. Gumbo Food Walking Tour, New Orleans – Deeeeelicious!

New Orleans is a food heaven that has so many unique, local dishes that it’s hard to adequately sample them in a couple of days. One great solution is a food tour. On the basis of descriptions and great reviews, I chose a Dr. Gumbo 3-hour Food History Tour for $65.80 on Expedia. The cost included food and gratuities, but not alcoholic beverages, which we could order at different stops during the tour.

It was a great experience. Our tour guide, Lindsay, was superb. She was high energy, and provided a wealth of information.

There were nine people on our tour, including a couple from Australia. I enjoyed meeting and talking with everyone in the group.

We went to seven different food venues – six eateries and a sauce store. We tried a total of eleven dishes, plus a number of spicy sauces. The food venues were chosen because of their unique dishes, and in some cases, because of their history. For example, Tujague’s, a 19^th century bar and restaurant, has the oldest standing bar in the U.S.

The dishes we had were:

Fried pork skins

Boudin balls

Apple & andouille sausage beignets with spiced cream cheese

Traditional praline

Bacon pecan brittle

Muffuletta sandwich

Fried catfish PoBoy sandwich (wild caught catfish)

Creole beef brisket with German horseradish sauce

Seafood gumbos at two different restaurants. (I tried a total of six different gumbos during my trip to New Orleans. Each one was different. They ranged in taste from incredible to edible (play on words).

I enjoyed every dish except the brisket, which I thought was only ok, despite my love of beef.

At the Pepper Palace sauce store where we stopped, we were able to sample a large number of sauces, from very mild to one that was supposedly the fieriest available, and that required a signature before sampling. One member of our group sampled it and affirmed it was as advertised. The fire stayed with him for a while. We were each given a free bottle of sauce.

At each location, Lindsay explained the history and nature of the food we were sampling. She also explained the influences of many different cultures – native American, French, Spanish, African, Italian, German, and Irish on the Creole cooking of New Orleans.

I highly recommend this tour. In fact, I’m getting very hungry writing about it.