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Beignets On Royal Street

We did everything a first time visitor would want to do in the French Quarters— all in one day. 

I scoured Yelp reviews of what seemed like every restaurant near the French Quarters before choosing our food destinations. One thing was for sure, we wanted to eat strictly Cajun/Creole food during our visit. 

I stumbled on the page of J's Seafood Dock, and was immediately intrigued. Not because of crazy high ratings (it's only rated 4 stars), but because it's located in the French Market. The French Market consists of a bunch of food vendors (it's sort of like Quincy Market if you've been to Boston) and a local goods market. This was our lunch spot! 

We got their sausage jamabalaya, fried crawfish tails, and the shrimp boat. 

Sadly, it wasn't crawfish season (it's around March), otherwise we would've gotten a whole bucket of boiled crawfish, but the food was yum!

The line for Cafe Du Monde was as long as I imagined. It wrapped around the block and just looked exhausting. I first heard of this place on Keeping Up With the Kardashian's (yas), when the sisters took a trip to New Orleans. Sadly, I may never know if their beignets are worth the hype, cause I can't see myself ever standing in that line... 

We skipped the popular choice and went to Cafe Beignet instead. Would recommend you to do the same if you're not about waiting for a mid-day snack!

The city is absolutely beautiful.

You hear live music playing everywhere— on the street, in cafes, in restaurants. This city lives and breathes music and it doesn't let you forget it. 

We hopped into one of the many tourist centers in the Quarters and asked for a walking route recommendation. She recommended us to walk down Royal Street, so that's what we did.

Royal Street is packed with small artisan shops filled with antiques and vintage goods. 

We spontaneously entered a antique furniture store and discovered a cute little courtyard in the back! Even better, there are three cats that reside there. I freaking love cats, man. 

We ended up walking towards the Aquarium thinking we would take a quick tour, but learning it was a $30 entrance (omfg) and that it had not-so-promising reviews, we took a detour. 

The Riverwalk outlet mall was right next door, and it being the Friday after Thanksgiving, we knew the deals would be at it's peak. We were right! I recommend any shopping lover to check this mall out because it is HUGE. 

After spending hours in the mall (I know, we're in New Orleans and we went to the mall...we're not proud), we went back to the hotel to drop our stuff off and prepared for dinner.