Mimi's in the marigny

Mimi's in the Marigny is mostly a bar (the top-rated bar in new orleans by gambit, I think), but upstairs, a pretty extensive tapas menu is served.  We drove over to the marigny to delight in some flavorful tapas as our dinner.  The bar downstairs was relatively crowded when we walked in around seven, but the upstairs was completely empty.  We sat down and perused the menu, basically concurring that pretty much everything sounded good.  Since Jolie wasn't there yet, we decided to order a few different tapas, with hopes that she'd get there by the time they came out.  The nice thing about tapas is that you can keep ordering to your heart's content and it comes out pretty quickly.  We started with our all-time favorite- goat cheese croquettas.  Three balls of fried goat cheese topped with honey and caramelized onion.... heaven.  It was pretty dark upstairs, so we took pictures without flash first, and they came out pretty terribly.  Also, we were so ravenous that we ate pretty much everything nearly to entirety before realizing we hadn't taken pictures.  I'll post pictures just out of formality, but they're pretty terrible. These goat cheese balls are half-eaten and destroyed. 

The next item we got were beef-filled empanadas with roasted red pepper aioli.  The meat inside was really well-spiced and the aioli provided a perfect compliment to whatever spice was used.  The order came with four empanadas, and by the time we took the photo, there was only one left

Next we got gambas al ajillo, which were shrimp sauteed with garlic, parsley and white wine, and by the taste of the dish, a LOT of butter.  Three large shrimp and a large piece of hearty bread which soaked up a lot of the sauce were presented on the plate.  Though this dish was tasty, it was not as good as when I had had it previously.  Maybe the sauce was too buttery and rich.  The chunks of garlic hidden in the sauce, however, were a nice surprise.  The fourth dish was a potato dish.  It was almost like chunky hashbrowns with a somewhat spicy tomato and cheese sauce.  Fancy bar food.

Ellie with the gambas (front) and patattas (back)

Me with gambas and mostly-eaten pattatas.  

Jolie and Ellie sucking on the heads of the gambas [sort of].

Dana munching on something.

We decided to order two more tapas after finishing the first four.  We went for spanish cheese with red peppers, which was served with some warm hearty bread, and mushroom manchego toast (not pictured).  The cheese listed that came with the cold cheese tapas plate were manchego, mahon, drunken goat, and valdeon, and the portions were very generous.  We weren't really sure which cheese were which, but we're pretty sure the drunken goat was the "stinky cheese", which was pretty moldy and very strong.  The other cheese were good, though I found a few of them to be a little oily.  The manchego mushroom toast was absolutely delicious.  The toast was crunchy with melted manchego, smothered with an extremely creamy mushroom sauce.  Possibly my personal favorite dish (after the goat cheese croquettas of course).  

A torn-apart cheese plate.  

We finished our night with the new seasonal beer from abita: SATSUMA flavored beer.  When we got to Rouses right before closing, we were pleasantly surprised to find only one 6-pack of the beer left on the shelves.  It was fate.  Personally, I really enjoyed the beer, though the flavors are definitely strong, and could be described as tasting like flowers.  The more you drank, the more mellow the flavors became, though, and it was very pleasant to drink.  The strawberry beer by abita might edge out the satsuma beer by a little, though!  At Mimi's, ellie also ordered a woodchuck cider (pear flavored) which was very tasty, but kind of pricey at $4.50 a bottle.  

Satsuma brews

Overall, Mimi's is a fun place to share lots of dishes.  It's a crime to order the same dish at a restaurant within a party, so by ordering lots of different things to share, that problem is solved.  Every dish is relatively small (and very very flavorful), but also relatively inexpensive (ranging from $5-$7), so the more people you have, the more of an excuse you have to order lots of different dishes to taste.  I imagine on the weekends it is more crowded and the ambiance is more upbeat, but even on a slow thursday night, it was a really chill place to hang out, pig out, and drink if you're of age (**they are actually seemingly strict about carding**)