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I ain’t even gonna lie.  When we travel, I’m all about the food.  We’re total foodies.  I have a serious crush on Bobby Flay.  And we watch all the food shows:  MasterChef, Top Chef, Iron Chef, Chopped, Hell’s Kitchen, etc.  Reality TV + food = a good thing.  So when we were planning our road trip, we looked up celebrity chef restaurants and worked some of those in to our trip.  So up today is a sampling of what we ate on our trip.
{If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve already seen most of these pictures.}

Aaron Sanchez’s restaurant “Mestizo” in Leawood, Kansas.
Zarela (his mother) rice.  The most amazing, creamy, cheesy rice, with fresh grilled corn.  And there was a special on margaritas that night 😉

Sweetie Pie’s in St. Louis.  {It’s a show on the Oprah channel.}
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes & gravy, cornbread, and the most amazing mac and cheese.

Pecan pie at Corky’s Ribs & BBQ in Memphis.

It’s not New Orleans without beignets from the Cafe Du Monde.

I had been to Emeril’s on my last visit to New Orleans without the family about 7 years ago.  My husband was totally jealous.  So of course we had to go to one of his restaurants while we were in town.  NOLA Restaurant in New Orleans.

Succulent fresh shrimp on this poboy at Johnny’s Seafood in Marrero, Louisiana.

John Besh’s Domenica in New Orleans; half-price pizza from 3-6 = $6.50 for a whole pizza!

We don’t have a Panera in the ‘ho, and I’ve read about their mac & cheese.  There was a Panera by our hotel in Louisiana, so I stopped there one night when I was grocery shopping at the Winn Dixie.  The mac & cheese is pricey, $4.99 for a small and $7.99 for a large.  I was asking the girl if it’s that good and do you get double the amount for the larger size, and she tells me that because I’ve never had it before she’s going to give me the large for the small price.  And then I was sitting at the drive-thru forever.  They totally forgot about me – it was late at night.  And when they realized it, they apologized profusely and threw in some bread and cookies.  Score, score, and score some more.  Oh, and the mac & cheese?  So yum.

Beef brisket, and pecan pie at Mo’s BBQ in Humble, Texas.

While in Denver, we looked up the Cheap Eats section of Urban Spoon and found Wholly Cannoli in nearby Aurora.  I cannot say enough about this place.  Some of the best homemade Italian food I have ever had.  And cheap!  They could (and should) totally raise their prices.  2 big pieces of veal parm, fettucine, and buttery, garlic bread.

Bocce balls at Pizzeria Venti in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  Apparently it’s a chain, but I’d never heard of it.
Meatballs and cheese wrapped in a crust and baked; so good and so so filling.

I weighed myself before we left on this trip.  Because I had every intention of just full-on obese gourmet bliss.  No worries about calories or carbs or any of that.  Just taking it alllll in.  Literally.  But when I got home and weighed – I only gained .4 of a pound!  Bonus.