The Battle of the Po’ Boy

As is often the case, I can’t say it better than some random person has already said it on Wikipedia:

If you ask any New Orleanian where to get the best po’ boy in the city, chances are that you will get a different answer from each person. Po’ boy restaurants are a part of a person’s identity just like the neighborhood they grew up in. Once a person finds their preference, there is no changing their mind. They refuse to admit that any other po’ boy shop makes as good of a sandwich. The passion for this famous sandwich is made obvious by the battle between po’ boy shops. Each shop owner is continuously trying to come up with inventive recipes to out do the other shops.

It’s with this disclaimer in mind that we walked a few miles over to Mahony’s Po-Boy Shop in the Garden District. Even the small po’ boys are large, so Paul and I split one filled with grilled local shrimp, fried green tomatoes, green onions, and remoulade. This place is popular — we waited about 20 minutes to order and then 30 minutes for our food. It was good, but certainly not life-changing. It was too skimpy on the fillings to justify its $14.95 price tag. Perhaps we visited the wrong po’ boy shop…