Cochon in New Orleans!

                                        

One of our favorite meals on our trip to New Orleans - Cochon, Donald Link's restaurant celebrating cajun food.  Great energy, packed to the gills with locals and tourists like most restaurants we visited here.  As we entered, we met some friends who warned us we were in for quite a meal...

Mmmmm....  soft, sweet rolls - brought back childhood memories of the '70s for some reason...

 The 4 of us shared three appies - the wood-fired oyster roast (served on a bed of rock salt), crawfish pie with a corn salsa, and the fried alligator with chili garlic aioli.  The alligator was particularly delicious - the garlic and spices melded into a salty-savoury-flavour hit...

 Stephen had the grilled redfish "fisherman style", and declared it "the best fish I've ever eaten".  We all had a taste - perfectly cooked, oozing with flavour...  Here's the recipe - so easy, and you will be speechless when you take your first bite.  

Donald had the rabbit stew with dumplings.

 

                                         

Alison and I had the restaurant's signature dish, Louisiana Cochon. Smoky pulled pork formed into a patty, breaded, fried, served with a lovely jus on top of a bed of turnip and cabbage.  Oh, and of course, with a couple of crispy, salty cracklins on top.  Oooooooh baby.......

                                    

We had to have desserts - shared the Black Bottomed Brown Butter Banana Cream Pie and the Upside-down Pineapple Cake with Coconut Lime Sherbet (another '70s throwback). 

All in all a fabulous meal - we rolled out of there happy and full, trying to burn off a few calories walking home down quiet streets in the warm spring air.