Visit to the Camellia Grill

My weekend assignment was somewhat of an eye-opening experience for me in terms of dining in New Orleans and the differences the experience has from finding food in New York City.  Now, living in Brooklyn, which I should add is not nearly the most busy part of New York, I'm used to being able to find food at two or three AM, but apparently that isn't how things work down in New Orleans.  By the time I was ready for my Sunday dinner extravaganza to begin, I was shocked to find that most places are closed pretty early on Sunday, so I didn't get any food until Monday.  When thinking about this and being hungry I started to think about the reasons for that discontinuity between these two city cultures, and decided it must be reflective of the different cultural demographics in the two cities, though I'm not sure what exactly is the cause.

Anyway, moving on to Monday night I headed to the street car at around 8:30 to go to the Camellia Grill for a meal at what I would say is a New Orleans institution.  The first thing I noticed about the Camellia grill was the counter, it's huge and has a shape like this which is conducive to the environment that sets the camellia grill apart from many places I've been before.  Because the counter is shaped such as it is, it brings together the visual focal points of multiple groups of people to a common ground occupied by the gregarious waiter that develops conversations and jokes with the customers.  This communal and even somewhat familial environment is exactly the M.O. of the Camellia grill, and part of what makes it such an institution and destination for hungry tourists and New Orleanians, the other part of course being the food.  But it is this anachronistic down-home belief in service and satisfaction, that has become uncommon elsewhere nowadays, that gives the Camellia grill its character.  

On to the food though, the other important aspect of this New Orleans institution is the menu, which first appears to be a pretty simple diner menu but holds many more surprises than one would expect.  There is a surprising amount of innovation in the menu at the camellia grill, which I particularly noticed in their omelets, which are unlike any i have encountered before.  In addition to the traditional formula of beaten eggs, the Camellia grill blends the eggs in a blender to make them extra airy, in addition to adding what I think is pancake batter.  I have always enjoyed the combination of pancakes and eggs, but when they're cooked together the matrimony of the two is what I would call super delicious.  Another popular item with unusual components or preparations is the pecan pie heated on the grill, though I was too full to try it by the time I finished my meal that I have pictured below.  

I ordered a western omelet, (ham, peppers, onions) with hash browns, and an order of onion rings that I unfortunately scarfed down before I remembered to photograph.  The omelet was fantastic, light and fluffy yet wholly filling and pancakey.  The onion rings were also good, and had the slightest taste of beer in the more cooked rings, possibly the secret to their success?  The familial atmosphere and omelet put me right at ease immediately, the waiter even started referring to me as little brother, much to my chagrin.  

After finishing my meal I was extremely full and ready to leave and search for a more comfortable place to sit.  What made my experience of the Camellia Grill so satisfying was that it was everything people said it was, and that combined with the comfort of the food and environment made the experience very gratifying and felt like a successful venture.  

Crunchtastic Homage to the Choco Taco

Comfort food may mean a great number of different things from one person to the next, but to me comfort food means things that my parents never let me have as a child.  After a characteristic lunch at the Orleans Room I found myself still hungry, so I decided to put a bunch of tasty sugary things that are perfectly enjoyable individually into a delicious hybrid desert item.  I call this innovative desert (by which I mean most likely not truly innovative) the Crunchtastic Homage to the Choco Taco, (Pictured Below).

For the waffle I used the standard OR waffle procedure, involving putting the batter in a cup, and then in a waffle-maker.  This waffle portion of the desert served as the "taco shell" of my rendition of the Choco Taco, as a substitute for the waffle cone shell.  After that I added cookie dough ice cream on top of the waffle, and put some corn syrup based maple syrup on top.  Finally I added Cap'n Crunch on top and pushed the cereal into the ice cream so it wouldn't just fall off of my fork and annoy me.  

After thoroughly enjoying my creation I though a little bit more about where my food came from and had a few interesting realizations.  Firstly I realized how much of my desert was corn based.  The Cap'n Crunch and the syrup were essentially composed of corn and corn processing byproducts, which was kind of funny to me because I think of corn as a vegetable and not a garnish for a desert.  Also, I realized how disconnected I was from this meal despite the fact that I prepared it by myself.  In no way did I have any sort of idea where the ingredients making up my desert were from, or what conditions they had been stored, processed, and transported under.  However, asides from the unhealthily disconnected relationship between me and my desert, it was delicious and thats really the most important thing.