Feast in Saint City: New Orleans Seafood Festival

The Big Easy: Send your taste buds on a mission through downtown New Orleans. Credit: vxls.

By Vince Font

People with a passion for seafood are usually willing to travel far to get it. And if your destination is New Orleans, you’ll probably put yourself up in any available New Orleans hotel just to be within easy reach. Whet your appetite: The weekend of Sept. 9-11 marks the fifth annual New Orleans Seafood Festival — a culinary extravaganzain a city already renowned for its taste-bud appeal. Here’s a sampling from the virtual platter.

Eats, beats & treats
This year’s festival will feature a variety of famous local restaurants, each serving up their inimitable creations, from voodoo shrimp at Café Giovanni to zydeco stick and gator sliders from Royal House. To sweeten the pot, there’s a celeb-tastic roster of chefs cooking up free demos at various downtown restaurants. And, as with any New Orleans vacation, you’re bound to shake it up with live tunes. This year, as in years past, the New Orleans Seafood Festival will feature an exciting lineup of local talent each day. To boot, the festival is absolutely free to attend. Just don’t forget to bring a fair chunk of change — you don’t want to be driven insane by the delectable aromas.

Downtown New Orleans Hotels
After feasting to your heart’s content — or maybe to its chagrin — you’ll want to book your stay in one of the nearby downtown New Orleans hotels. For a convenient location steps from Gallier Hall, check out the Lafayette Hotel or Parc St. Charles on St. Charles Avenue, or the Whitney Wyndham Hotel around the corner on Poydras Street. But if you want to burn a few extra calories, the InterContinental New Orleans is a short walk down St. Charles Avenue. Hook, line and sinker: All four downtown New Orleans hotels are under $100 per night.

Related resources

• New Orleans hotels
• Food & wine vacations
• Biloxi hotels
• New Orleans travel

Vince Font is a travel writer with a deep love of weird, wacky, and off-the-beaten-track vacation destinations – as long as staying in a luxury hotel is part of the deal.

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