00:00TripAdvisor is going to tell you that the number one place that you should visit when you come to
00:04New Orleans is the World War II Museum. It can't be the number one thing. That can't be real.
00:08It is real. That's a real thing. I will show it to you. Did you just make that up? I didn't
00:11make it up. I'm not lying. This is why we're making this video.
00:19I'm DJ Johnson. I'm the owner of Baldwin & Co. Coffee & Bookstore, and I am a local New Orleans
00:24expert. Today, we are going to challenge what the internet says you should do in my city
00:29versus what I, as the local expert, say you should do. Come along with us, and let's explore the city.
00:43Day one, you have to have a beignet when you come to New Orleans.
00:47The internet says Café Du Mal, but if you really want the best flaky, buttery, authentic beignet,
00:56you have to come to Loretta's. This trumps any beignet I've ever had, and I've been eating beignets
01:06since I was a toddler. I love Café Du Mal. No shade, but this is a completely different experience.
01:14This here is the world's famous crab stuffed beignet. It's absolutely delicious. Lump crab meat
01:20and a Creole sauce stuffed inside of a beignet. Loretta's is the first place to ever stuff beignets
01:28with anything. When you look at this, and you look at the flakiness and the buttery inside of this,
01:36when you open up a beignet from Café Du Mal, you don't get that. It's just dense. It's just doughy.
01:42Still delicious. It's just a different experience. This one right here, you can see the butter,
01:46how layered it is, and it's just a testament to how amazing they do here. Well, I got to start
01:52off with the savory. So this sauce is the remoulade sauce that you also put on top,
01:57that it just adds an extra layer of excellence to these beignets. There's so much lump crab that
02:04it falls out of the beignet. They're not shy with the lump crab meat.
02:17Next is the praline one. You can see the thickness of the praline just oozing out of the beignets.
02:29Loretta's is the first Black person to ever own a praline shop in New Orleans. It was the
02:36enslaved Blacks who created this amazing staple item in New Orleans, and we've never really been
02:43able to capitalize off it. We've never been able to really get our just due and our just credit for
02:47it. So for Loretta, in 1983, to open up Loretta's Praline, it was iconic, a testament to our
02:54strength, our resilience, our creativity, and just an amazing palette for delicious cuisine.
03:02This is it. This is it right here.
03:06New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz. So when you listen to hip-hop, you listen to R&B, you listen to country,
03:18listen to blues, everything that you're listening to in terms of music is an offset of jazz. So when
03:25you come to New Orleans, you have to see a live music show. Reddit says that we should visit Preservation Hall.
03:35I like Preservation Hall, but if you really want to get your feet moving, then you have to visit
03:41Le Bon Temps Roulette on Magazine Street. It's where some of our greatest musicians like Kermit Ruffin,
03:48Soul Rebels, have all come and paid their dues before they went on to reach the stardom of
03:53being the great musicians that they are today. It is a stark contrast to Preservation Hall.
03:58Preservation Hall, while you're going to hear some of our greatest jazz musicians, it is a sit-down,
04:03very calm, traditional jazz spot. Le Bon Temps Roulette is the everything opposite of that.
04:12It is bump, jumping, brass, music, heart, pumping, feet moving, screaming, shouting. It is that
04:19and wrapped up in just pure energy around the sounds of trumpets, drums.
04:33When you're coming to New Orleans, another cuisine that you have to absolutely have is a po' boy.
04:50Let's take a look and see what does the internet suggest on where to go to find a great po' boy in
04:55New Orleans. According to Yelp and Reddit, it says that you should go to Parkway Tavern. While Parkway
05:00is delicious, if you want to eat like a local, then I wouldn't recommend necessarily going to a
05:06restaurant. See, growing up, we never actually went to restaurants to actually get a po' boy.
05:10The best authentic New Orleans experience is at a corner store. My favorite corner store to go
05:16get a po' boy is Verdie Mart. They got everything that they would have at a CVS, a Walmart,
05:21and Canal Villery all in one. Then you walk a little bit to the back and then that's where
05:25you find the sandwiches. It's not just any sandwich. It's not a snack. It is so fulfilling
05:31that you're probably only going to be able to get half of it down. The history of the po' boy
05:36is invented by the Martin brothers. When the strikers used to walk into the restaurants
05:42and ask for sandwiches, they would always yell, oh, here come one of those po' boys.
05:48That was a symbol to get the strikers a sandwich, but it was a sandwich made of just like fried
05:53potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, whole bunch of toppings on this sandwich. That's how we got
05:59the po' boy. My favorite order is the shrimp and oyster on French fully dressed extra ketchup,
06:07the sandwich of champions. Look at the size of the shrimp that they put on these.
06:15Nice jumbo shrimp, perfectly fried. This is exactly what you're looking for when you come
06:19to New Orleans.
06:30Mardi Gras is a week's long celebration of food, music, parades, bands, festivities. It is all to
06:39celebrate the indulgence that you are supposed to engage in before lunch. Let's see what the
06:44internet says or where you should go to enjoy the flavors and fun and history of Mardi Gras 24,
06:507, 365 days of the year. The internet says that you should go to Mardi Gras World. However,
06:56as your local expert, I'm going to take you to a much better place. I'm going to take you to
07:01Backstreet Cultural Museum. Mardi Gras World is all about the props. Backstreet Cultural Museum
07:07is all about the people. Let me show you some of the most photographed parts of Mardi Gras,
07:14and that is the Mardi Gras Indians. The craftsmanship that goes into it is so detailed.
07:20Yes, all of the suits are hand-beaded and we refer to them as suits, not costumes,
07:25because these are true artists. They have to actually draw it out, bead through it,
07:30regular needle and thread, and sometimes dental floss because it doesn't dry right as fast as
07:36regular thread does. So they take 365 days of the year, hand-beading this, and it starts with
07:42what we call a patch, and a patch can be done from cardboard or canvas. A lot of people come
07:47thinking it's just all about the show and tell and the colors in the suit, but the significance
07:52behind this is that they're paying homage to our ancestors. To the indigenous tribes that helped
07:58enslaved blacks during the days of slavery, the millions of people that are coming to New Orleans
08:04are paying homage to black culture.
08:19So whenever people come to New Orleans, everyone wants the authentic New Orleans cuisine.
08:23So let's see where the internet says we should go. Yelp says Zesty Creole,
08:30and TripAdvisor says Old Nola Cookery. I'm going to tell you where the locals eat,
08:37because I gotta be honest with you, I'm not sure how either one of those places made the list.
08:43The best restaurant to visit for authentic New Orleans cuisine is Neal's in Mid-City.
08:49It is absolutely delicious, mouth-watering, char-grilled oysters. This is the one place
08:54where you can go to where you're going to feel like you're sitting in grandmother's kitchen.
09:00You see the sizzling butter? That's the buttery sauce that this is grilled with over an open flame,
09:09and they just pour it on top as it's being grilled with garlic, herbs, and parmesan cheese
09:16that is just baked into each oyster. You can never go wrong with more butter.
09:21It's not what the document says.
09:23He not from New Orleans. Take a piece of the classic New Orleans French bread,
09:30take your fork, and you want to soak up the oyster, the butter sauce, the garlic,
09:35the cheese. You want to just indulge all of it in one delicious bite.
09:40The crab claws sautéed.
09:44Spreaded pork chops and red beans and rice. Potato salad.
09:48The traditional New Orleans Creole cuisine is that perfect blend of cuisines and spices taken from
09:54African descent, French, Spanish, and Creole. This is blue crab claws.
10:02It's absolutely delicious. All the flavors
10:06packed inside of this little bitty piece of meat on this crab claw.
10:12You want to make sure you try to get all the meat off it.
10:14And we're in luck because today is Monday, and Monday is the day that everyone eats red
10:19beans and rice in New Orleans. I remember my grandmother, my mom,
10:22they would always make red beans on Mondays, and it was more so known as the stretch dish
10:27and it was more so known as the stretch dish because you don't feel like cooking Monday,
10:32Tuesday, Wednesday. So what you're going to do is you're going to make this meal for Monday,
10:36and that gives you a little bit of relief because you know that no one cooks red beans in a small
10:41pot. So you got red beans for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays.
10:45This is probably the most staple dish to New Orleans.
10:49Well, there's museums all over New Orleans that you can soak up this culture.
10:53So let's see what the internet says on where you should go, which museum that you should
10:57visit when you come to New Orleans. Well, according to TripAdvisor, the number one
11:02thing you should do when you come to New Orleans is visit the World War II Museum.
11:07However, as your local expert, I'm going to give you a much better experience and place to go.
11:12You see, New Orleans is a place that's been around for a long time.
11:17You see, New Orleans is a living museum throughout the entire area of the Treme.
11:24And particularly within the Treme, I recommend the New Orleans African American Museum.
11:32Hello.
11:33Hey, my dear. So good to see you again.
11:35You as well.
11:36Historic Treme is actually a really small neighborhood. It's about six square blocks,
11:41but there's so much history here. But a lot of that history is unmarked.
11:46So unless you know someone or you know an institution that can take you to those key places,
11:50you might miss really important parts of New Orleans history.
11:54On the back of our property, we have a masonry structure that was the home of Marie Laveau.
11:59So the infamous voodoo queen lived right here in Treme with her daughters.
12:03Not in the first quarter.
12:04Not in the first quarter.
12:04In Treme.
12:05Just right across the street is the Petite Jazz Museum that was founded by Mr. Al Jackson.
12:11He does a phenomenal job of telling the history of jazz.
12:25We're in Armstrong Park and we're headed towards Congo Square.
12:29This is an important center point for us in that it really does parallel the French Quarter.
12:36This was a gathering place for people of African descent.
12:39So on Sundays, they could sell things, they could exchange things,
12:42they could even find relatives or try to connect with relatives.
12:46So this was a really important cultural hub for us.
12:48And of course, you know, there was always drumming and dance and exchange of food and culture.
12:54This is what a lot of people get wrong about the city of New Orleans.
12:57They think the history of New Orleans is rooted inside of the French Quarters.
13:01But a lot of the history is rooted and begins right here in the Treme area of New Orleans.
13:18So everyone knows that New Orleans is well known for its ball culture.
13:21So let's see what the internet says we should go for a drink.
13:24So according to Yelp, it says that the best place is Carousel Bar.
13:29Wouldn't be the place that I would select.
13:32As your local expert, I would take you to one of the best
13:36hidden secrets of our ball culture here in New Orleans.
13:39It is a nerd chic, sexy environment that as soon as you walk in,
13:45you feel like you're in the essence of the Harlem Renaissance.
13:54So I've taken you to some of my favorite spots.
14:05Food, music, museums, beignets.
14:08Let me know what you think about my suggestions when you visit New Orleans.
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