Due to my giant flight delay, I only had one chance to actually eat in Albany. So on my second night there, I headed downtown to DP. This is actually in the Hampton Inn. That might make you think twice about eating here, but please, do not let that stop you. This place is good in my book. I dined at the bar and it happened to be happy hour. This is an impressive bar. The bartenders here definitely know their stuff. And it looks like they’ve won a bunch of local awards, which is quite deserved.
I had this cucumber martini which totally kicked my lame ass. It was super duper strong and whew, did this thing pack a punch. But it seemed healthy to me because I could taste cucumbers. That’s healthy, right?
Instead of bread and butter, DP does it right. They serve sourdough pretzel ball rolls with homemade whole grain mustard. First off, how cute are these things? And second off, they’re freakin delicious and warm! Please, someone tell me how to make these!
I got the soup of the day which was a potato and leek soup. This is one of my favorite flavors of soup, ever, and they definitely do it right here. It also had bacon in it. How can you go wrong with that?
The lobster ravioli. These kind of look a mess, but they tasted just fine. I actually found it cool that it was black pasta.
These were the pork dumplings, served in a chinese to-go box. Meh, on that presentation choice. There were two dipping sauces, the first brown one was just kind of gross, and the second one was a sweet chili sauce type which I greatly preferred. The dumplings themselves were just meh too.
The banana bread bread pudding! Yes folks, bread pudding made from banana bread. It was super good. If you like banana, I highly recommend it! The two bartenders that waited on me were awesome. They were friendly and helpful and gave me recommendations and were quite attentive. They also kept calling me young lady, which was hilarious. If I’m ever back, I’m going to jump in and try some entrees!

Trying to get to Albany for work, I ended up spending about six hours at the airport. This is not a fun thing. If I had known my plane would be delayed for 5 hours, I could have stayed at home and eaten dinner there. Oh well. There’s a Legal Sea Foods there now, which is pretty decent, considering the other (lack of) options. This day was a particularly horrible day of travel, and for once, not because of the weather in Philly. So Legal was spectacularly full. My clam chowder.
My salad which pretty much was just sad. The best part of the salad was the cherry tomato halves, and there were only about 3 of them. Trust me, I counted.
At least this key lime pie was delicious! It was definitely the highlight of this otherwise sad meal. The other highlight was seeing Tony Dungy as I was eating. He came up to the entrance with his entourage, talked to the hostess for a bit, and then they ended up leaving. But it was surely him! The waitress gave me someone else’s bill, but I’m not going to slight her for it, she was probably waiting on 20 different parties.

After actually being in New Orleans, I didn’t want to see any more New Orleans style food. But I kept telling E about it and she wanted some. Now with months having passed since my visit to the big easy, it was time to trek through the snow to check out Catahoula. So I totally didn’t think Catahoula would be where it is. I pictured it being near other restaurants, other nightlife, other shops. But it is really all by itself, except a funeral home nearby. Otherwise, it’s just houses people, just houses. I also didn’t know it would be so teeny! There are only a few high-top tables and then the bar. It’s seriously small, or as they say, intimate.
The gumbo and the crawfish bisque. This is considered a cup, but it sure looks like a giant bowl to me. It’s really sizeable. I can’t even imagine how big the bowl must be. The bisque was delicious. The gumbo was ok, it was a bit too intense for me.
Here are the hush puppies. These puppies are big too. I found them a bit too mushy and undercooked on the inside, but otherwise, they were good. I think we ate maybe two of these.
We both got po-boys. E got catfish and I got shrimp. These were pretty good. The bread is some of the crustiest bread I’ve ever eaten. And not like hard crunchy crusty, but like fall-apart crusty. So every time you took a bite, bits of bread are all over the damn place. It’s good bread, but I just wish it stayed together a bit more. The fries are good too!
I was pretty full, but we ended up sharing the special dessert of the night – Sweet Dee’s chocolate cake, served with vanilla ice cream. OH. MY. WORD. So seriously, this was some of the best cake I’ve ever had in my life. It was so super dense and amazing. And the vanilla ice cream, which was absolutely delicious and simple on its own, was the world’s most perfect compliment for this cake. People, this cake is up there with Golosa’s red velvet cake. And I’m not even a chocolate person! I’m certainly not a chocolate cake person, but I could have eaten the whole thing, and maybe I even did. Our waitress wasn’t the best, and that’s being nice. I hope she has other career aspirations!