It should be pretty clear by this point that New Orleans isn’t a vegetarian friendly city. Creole/Cajun food in general isn’t vegetarian. Pescatarian… yes, but not vegetarian. I would recommend Bennachin primarily to those vegetarians who want to eat something besides salad and another version of mac-n-cheese when they visit NOLA.

Creole food has a lot of African influences so Bennachin fits into the New Orleans food scene quite nicely with a lot of shared ingredients like beans, rice, coconut and sweet potatoes. It’s a busy place, which led to the purchase ‘”walking around beers” while we waited for a table.

And a beverage buffet complete with BYOB wine in styrofoam cups at dinner, cuz we just classy like that.

These plantains reminded me of South American cooking, which makes (some) locational sense given that this is West African cuisine.

I didn’t love my lamb dish because the meat was SO tough

But Corey’s beef was excellent.

And for some reason I didn’t get pictures of whatever Ryan ordered but he loved it (whatever it was) and I do know that it was the first place in a week where he could fold the menu and say “I’m a vegetarian. Just have the chef make me something.” It was worth the whole dinner just for that.

Bennachin food is good and cheap and there’s lots of it. It’s a tiny place and busy; so, like every restaurant in New Orleans, it’s better not to be in a hurry. Bring a bottle of wine and settle in. There are a lot of yummy sounding entrees on the menu.

And just for fun, here’s a picture of the Louis Armstrong arch.

Pretty, right? It’s walking distance from the restaurant so go visit after you eat.

I’ll have a few more NOLA food picks for you next week. Have a good weekend!