Bash Promoting Gulf Tourism And Seafood

Food that looks good and tastes even better isn't hard to come by in New Orleans.  The Gulf Coast Seafood and Tourism Bash was a “dine around” tour of three different Louisiana restaurants. 

“To showcase what Louisiana does best and that's Louisiana chefs cooking our seafood, gulf seafood,” says the Executive Director of the Louisiana Seafood and Marketing Board Ewell Smith.  The event was paid for by BP as tourism officials try to get people eating gulf seafood more than a year and a half after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

"The challenges regarding gulf seafood do continue because there are some misperceptions about the quality of gulf seafood,” says Louisiana Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne.  On rocking tour buses members of the media, BP employees and others got a rock star treatment complete with a police escort.  Our first stop was Borgne at the Hyatt Regency.  We then got works of food art--in the form of crabmeat caprese and citron oyster shooters at the NOMA Café inside the New Orleans Museum of Art.  With a jazz band leading the way, our tour ended at Muriel's in the French Quarter.  It's hoped fancy parties can help raise tourism and lower seafood fears.