Chowzter North American Awards at Commander's Palace in New Orleans

So last month I was in New Orleans for the Chowzter North American Awards. The award ceremony was held in the historic Commander's Palace! The restaurant was established in the 1880s and is an institution in this city. It was my first time there so I was pretty excited.

During the award, Boston's Rino's Place took home the Best Pasta award for their ricotta ravioli. Yay! You can check out the list of winners through the link above.

Now, on to the dinner at Commander's Palace. The dining room was very elegant, white tablecloth and chandeliers are, of course, to be expected. We headed upstairs for our awards ceremony and dinner.

Before dinner started, we had some passed appetizers that included some great fried oysters.

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Corazon y Miel (Bell, CA)

I don't venture out to East LA much, but there are a few great restaurants there worth traveling to. One of them is Corazon y Miel. This is an unusual restaurant to find in Bell, as it serves a more modern/non traditional Latin American food and craft cocktails to boot.

For appetizers you'd find things like marinated chicken hearts or Bacon wrapped dates with whipped cotija cheese, mustard seed cider ($5)

One of my favorites was the Wild Boar Chilaquiles (guajillo, roasted carrot crema, queso casera, fried egg, $14)

I love chilaquiles to begin with but the wild boar in the bold guajillo sauce and the runny egg just made it even better.

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Single Origin Hot Chocolates and Desserts at LA Burdick (Cambridge, MA)

Even though I'm not sure who decides on these national food holidays, since it's National Hot Chocolate Day, I thought I'd write about Boston's most popular hot chocolate spot, LA Burdick near Harvard Square in Cambridge.

Other than their house signature hot dark chocolate, I also like LA Burdick because they serve single source/ single origin hot chocolates! When I went they had two different ones from Grenada and Ecuador.

I tried the Ecuador one, described to have "notes of black tea, cinnamon and earthy flavors ... robust ... with a very long finish". It was quite intense but I loved it, although I still had a hard time deciding if I liked the signature one better.

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