Great food and music!
We also visited the other night to hear Jon Cleary and have a bite to eat. Took the streetcar up Canal from our place on Chartres. Arrived a half hour or so before Cleary’s performance at 8. Like many places in NO, Chickie Wah Wah is pretty small – there aren’t a lot of tables. When we arrived, all of the small tables along the wall and most of the seats at the bar (there are more of these than at tables) were taken. Fortunately, there were 3 tables on the floor available, and we grabbed one. Caught the tail-end of the girl performing before Cleary. Sadly, I cannot remember her name, but she was quite good. Worth noting: performers at Chickie Wah Wah are paid solely by the tips you leave or the cover set by the performer. This first performer had no cover, so we left a tip. Cleary had a small $10 cover. I observed quite a few people also leaving him tips. Back to the review: Mixed audience tonight-from young hipsters to geriatrics on canes and one in a scooter. I’d like to say we were closer to the former group but sadly we definitely fall closer to the latter. 🙂 Knowing that the bar would get busy tonight, we went ahead and ordered some food. The poor girl working the Cochon King pop-up was all by herself and her oven wouldn’t stay lit!! She was very apologetic and warned us that it might be awhile before she got the food to us, but we didn’t mind. I felt so sorry for her! (Fortunately, she had some help later in the evening.) As the time for Cleary’s performance neared, the bar really filled-up. More chairs were pulled out to try to accommodate everyone. Everyone was very helpful and friendly. Cleary’s performance was excellent, of course. He is a must-see, if you have the opportunity. The age of the crowd truly was revealed by the number of people who left after the first set. Wow! The place went from overflowing to 1/2-full by the time Cleary finished playing…and this was no indication of a poor performance. As previously stated, Cleary’s show was great and extremely well-received by the audience. Now onto the food. Cochon King has a small pop-up kitchen right inside the door. There’s also an outside window and tables out front. We had the mac-n-cheese and cochon delait. Both were excellent! The mac was thick and gooey and the sandwich had just the right bite to it to offset the smoked pork. Yum!!
