If you’re in New Orleans for several days leading up to the Sugar Bowl, you need to get in your car, get out of the city and have meals at two of the region’s most notable restaurants — Middendorf’s in Manchac and Mosca’s in Westwego.

Let’s take them one at a time.

Middendorf’s was opened in 1934 by a couple of German immigrants, Josie and Louis Middendorf. The restaurant remained in the family until September 2006 when it was sold to a German-born chef, Horst Pfeifer, and his wife, Karen. The Pfeifers had operated a New Orleans restaurant known as Bella Luna that was lost in Hurricane Katrina.

Though the food was great at Bella Luna, it’s fortunate that the Pfeifers did not try to replicate that menu at Middendorf’s. Traditions are important, and the Pfeifers wisely kept the traditional menu, including the thin-fried catfish that Southern Living once described as “possibly the best fried fish in the world.”

Here’s how the Middendorf’s website describes the restaurant’s start: “They often say that blessings come disguised, and so it was for Louis and Josie Middendorf. Louis Middendorf lost his job in the 1929 stock market crash so he and Josie moved to Manchac, where Josie’s mother and two brothers lived. In Manchac, like most of the swamp residents, they fished and hunted for a living. Fortunately for Louis, as he was not very good at fishing and hunting, in 1934 all veterans of World War I received a $500 bonus from the U.S. government. With this and a $500 loan co-signed by a former mayor of New Orleans, T. Semmes Walmsley, Louis and Josie opened their cafe.

“Louis found his calling as he was excellent at talking and tending bar. Mama Josie, as her granddaughter called her, used her personal recipes and did all the cooking. Mama Josie was the one to come up with the now famous thin-cut catfish. It was a combination of the two that brought the customers back.

“Josie’s son, Richard Smith, and his wife, Helen, took over operations in 1947. In 1966, Richard had Ragusa & Sons of Hammond completely renovate, modernize and enlarge the kitchen, adding a much-needed walk-in cooler and freezer. He added a private dining room to the north side of the building and upgraded the other dining rooms and bathrooms. At the same time Suzy, their oldest daughter, began working in the restaurant.

“In 1970, Intersate 10 opened from Metairie to LaPlace, and business skyrocketed. In 1981, Interstate 55 opened from LaPlace to Ponchatoula. Overcrowding on the weekends became a serious problem, so in 1972, Dick built a second restaurant two lots from the original restaurant. At that time, there was a restaurant where the middle parking lot is today called Ship Ahoy Restaurant & Bar.”

Archie Manning and his famous sons are said to be regulars at Middendorf’s during the football offseason.

The Pfeifers have done an excellent job since taking over the restaurant from Suzy and her husband, Joey Lamonte. They built a waterfront deck for dining in 2008 along with a sandpit for children.

Middendorf’s survived Hurricane Katrina, but Hurricane Ike in September 2008 caused a 10-foot storm surge that drove water into Pass Manchac. The original building sustained extensive damage.

The restaurant is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. You reach it from New Orleans by taking Interstate 10 west and then Interstate 55 north. It’s about 40 miles from New Orleans, between Lake Maurepas and Lake Pontchartrain. Pass Manchac, the seven-mile natural canal that connects the two lakes, is just to the south. The Amite River is just to the north. The two lakes and the two streams form what’s known as Jones Island, which was a cypress swamp until being depleted by loggers between 1897 and 1952.

While you’re out in the car, cross the famed Huey P. Long Bridge over the Mississippi River and have dinner at Mosca’s Restaurant at 4137 U.S. Highway 90 West in the New Orleans suburb of Westwego. It serves dinner each Tuesday through Saturday from 5:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m.

Mosca’s was featured in a Nov. 22 New Yorker story by Calvin Trillin.

Here’s part of what Trillin wrote: “From Highway 90, Mosca’s looks roughly the same as it did when it opened in 1946 — a small white clapboard building on a deserted stretch of double-lane highway 30 or 40 minutes from the center of New Orleans. When … Provino Mosca, who had previously operated a restaurant in Chicago Heights, Ill., opened for business that year, he moved his family into a few rooms in the back.

“The dining area of Mosca’s always seemed the same: One room, as you entered, had a bar and a few tables and a jukebox, heavy on Louis Prima. A larger dining room was off to the right. The proprietorship of Mosca’s has changed only with the generations, and there has always been a Mosca in the kitchen. When Provino Mosca died, in 1962, the cooking was taken over by his daughter, Mary, and eventually her husband, a former Louisiana oysterman named Vincent Marconi.”

When Mosca’s was opened, the building was owned by Carlos Marcello, who was a regular customer. It’s still owned by Marcello’s son. The family says the old rumor that Provino Mosca was a chef for Al Capone back in Chicago isn’t true.

“Hundreds of thousands have driven by Mosca’s and believed it to be a low-down roadside bar or cafe,” New Orleans food expert Tom Fitzmorris writes. “Which is what it looks like, all right. Just as many people know that it’s a matchless source of lusty, unique Italian cooking and a gathering place — believe it or not — for the elite. The building that is now Mosca’s was originally the headquarters of 1940s power broker (to put it mildly) and gourmet Carlos Marcello. Provino Mosca and his family cooked to Marcello’s liking, so he set them up — complete with living quarters — in this isolated roadhouse on Highway 90. There Mosca’s has been ever since, attracting eaters from all over the world — and, still, political and economic strongmen of Jefferson Parish.

“Now in its third generation, Mosca’s keeps serving its distinctive food. After Katrina, the building received a renovation, including a bigger kitchen and a bit more dining space.”

The essential dishes here include the crab salad, oysters Mosca (baked with bread crumbs, olive oil and garlic), shrimp Mosca (enormous shrimp cooked with olive oil and garlic, chicken grande (roasted in pieces with potatoes, rosemary and olive oil) and Italian sausage.

“You only need at most three entrees per four people,” Fitzmorris writes. “Mosca’s serves family style, and the waitress will tell you when you’ve ordered too much. Make a reservation but know that you may still wait quite awhile in the bar anyway. Very important: Bring plenty of cash. They don’t take cards or checks.

“Most people who dine there eat the same meal: marinated crabmeat (as a salad or in the shell), the oysters, the very different Italian shrimp, chicken grande or cacciatore or just plain roasted, spaghetti bordelaise. A really big table might have a filet mignon or two or some Italian sausage. Much of this is enlivened by the unfettered use of garlic, rosemary and olive oil.”

In a 2006 New York Times article, Pableaux Johnson wrote: “Dining as Mosca’s has always involved a little adventure. Leaving behind the legendary Creole restaurants of New Orleans, people would set out on a 40-minute pilgrimage to a ramshackle roadhouse thick with mystique and earthy Italian cuisine. For many connoisseurs the trip was a sacred family tradition. Heading west over the Mississippi, the pilgrims felt city noise give way to swamp sounds as they approached this temple of garlic on the edge of a primeval Louisiana bayou.

“During multihour waits at the bar, convivial patrons swilled Chianti by the bottle as they told, retold and re-retold tales of the crime boss Carlos Marcello, a regular during the height of his power. … Waitresses cut through the blue tobacco haze with oversize platters of chicken a la grande (pan fried and soaked in garlic-spiked olive oil) and red-sauced pasta as they whisked from the tiny kitchen to the dining room.”

Road trips to both Mosca’s and Middendorf’s will be well worth your time. If you go, report back to me please on how you much you enjoyed the experience.

I received an e-mail last week from a friend.

He was headed to New Orleans for a few days and wondered what waiter to request at Galatoire’s

I admitted that it has been too long since I’ve dined in my favorite restaurant. But I suggested that he ask for Richard or John. If neither is working, I seem to remember that Billy, Mark and Tony are all good.

There are some unwritten rules to dining at Galatoire’s

First, you must eat downstairs in the room that looks out onto Bourbon Street (and eating at Galatoire’s is the only reason to venture onto Bourbon. Otherwise, stick to the shops, restaurants and bars on Chartres, Royal, Burgundy and Dauphine when in the Quarter). They don’t take reservations for the downstairs dining room. You can make reservations to dine upstairs, but that’s a Siberia reserved from unwitting tourists. So you might want to come at an unusual hour if you hate long waits. I tend to arrive about 3 p.m. for a late lunch that sometimes stretches into the dinner hour.

Second, know that Friday is the day when all the locals show up. Lunch truly does last all afternoon. On Friday, you won’t even get a table downstairs at 3 p.m. unless you’re lucky.

Third, don’t ask for a menu. Ask the waiter to be your guide. If he tells you the pompano or the soft-shell crabs are good on that day, accept his advice.

People in New Orleans don’t like change. There thus was a great stir in the city a year ago this month when it was announced that the descendents of founder Jean Galatoire planned to sell a controlling interest in the restaurant. Businessman Todd Trosclair was the first majority purchaser. He then turned around and sold the controlling interest in the restaurant to John Georges, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New Orleans earlier this year.

Fortunately, not much appears to have changed in the restaurant itself.

Jean Galatoire hailed from the village of Pardies in France. According to the restaurant’s website: “Unlike most modern restaurants, Galatoire’s cuisine is not the creation of a singular superstar chef but rather of a family that has carefully safeguarded its traditions of impeccable cuisine, service and ambiance. Consistently providing this exquisite experience is itself an art form that Galatoire’s steadfastly maintains.

“Galatoire’s traditions have been preserved with little change through the decades. There has, however, been a slight modification of the restaurant’s once impenetrable policy of no reservations. Known for years by its characteristic line snaking down Bourbon Street, patrons would wait for hours just to get a table — especially on Fridays.”

The folks at Galatoire’s love to tell the story of the Friday when President Reagan placed a call to Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, who was waiting in the line outside. The senator went in, took the call and then returned to his place in line.

“Today, Galatoire’s does accept reservations for second-floor dining,” the website reports. “The first-floor policy remains first come, first served at Galatoire’s. Senator or not.”

As noted, don’t bother if you must sit upstairs. The “show” is on the ground floor.

Here’s how Shane Mitchell described it in a piece for Saveur: “No one hands me a menu. It’s just not done on Fridays. Friday lunch at Galatoire’s … starts in the morning, with bourbon milk punch at the upstairs bar. One floor below, a congenial crush of locals clutch cocktails in the foyer. They wait until manager Melvin Rodrigue, in pressed powder-blue seersucker, opens the doors to the dining room of the 105-year-old institution. It’s 11:30 a.m.

“He guides the crowd to their regular tables. The gentlemen hang their Panama hats on brass hooks beneath forest-green wallpaper flocked with fleurs-de-lis, the revived symbol of the city’s fortitude since Hurricane Katrina. A table of ladies in dime-store tiaras and serious diamonds toss confetti into the air. Jacketed waiters bear large platters as they weave between bentwood chairs.

“One of them, Peter or Homer or John or Shannon, recites the specials and brings, without anyone seeming to have asked, orders of the twice-fried souffle potatoes, puffed like starchy zeppelins, with a dose of tarragon-scented bearnaise. Next, a side of fried eggplant sticks.”

Mitchell goes on to describe Friday lunch at Galatoire’s as a “genteel riot.”

That’s as good a description as any.

Please note that a jacket is required for men after 5 p.m. I wouldn’t think of going into Galatoire’s at any time without a jacket. Of course, my friends claim that I even go to the beach wearing a blue blazer.

The restaurant is closed on Mondays. Sunday hours are noon until 10 p.m. The hours are 11:30 a.m. until 10 p.m. the other five days of the week.

Why do I so love Galatoire’s?

For the same reasons that Brett Anderson of The Times-Picayune loves the place: “There was no speckled trout, the souffle potatoes were tepid, the bearnaise congealed and my favorite waiter had ‘parted ways’ with the restaurant a couple of weeks prior. There are better ways to begin a meal at Galatoire’s and, in fact, I have experienced worse. (Pity anyone with the temerity to ask, 50 minutes after having been told a table would be ready in 25, how much longer her party should expect to wait.)

“So why do I persist in loving Galatoire’s? Because even the saltiest waiters can dial up wit at a moment’s notice. Because the sauteed grouper in lemon butter upheld the kitchen’s unspoken maxim that Gulf fish can sing even when it’s wearing little more than its birthday suit. Because of the creme caramel, the Sazeracs, the crabmeat maison and the ridiculous number of people who celebrate birthdays here on any given night. Because only at Galatoire’s do four hours seem to pass more quickly than a river boat.

“The restaurant is a living, breathing metaphor for New Orleans’ uneasy attitude toward self-improvement. Yes, some people actually think the improved wine list is a bad thing. Yes, the restaurant could stand to be more user friendly. But would it still be Galatoire’s if it were?”

John Georges, who also ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2007 (coming in third behind Bobby Jindal and Walter Boasso), is the son of a Greek immigrant. His father put him to work sweeping the warehouse of the family business. Georges Enterprises began as a wholesale grocery company known as the Imperial Trading Co. in 1916. Georges began making truck deliveries for the business when he was just 15. He graduated from Tulane in 1983 and expanded what’s now known as Georges Enterprises into offshore marine services, video and arcade entertainment and investments.

As a native of New Orleans, he hopefully understands what Galatoire’s and its traditions mean to the city.

Several family members — Leon Galatoire, Michele Galatoire, Duane Galatoire Attaway, Ashley Attaway and Craighten Attaway — are still involved with the partnership that owns the restaurant.

If you’re in New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl, you simply must have a meal there.

Make sure you’re hungry.

Now, may I make suggestions:

— Split a couple of appetizers with your dining companions. I would suggest the souffle potatoes and the crabmeat maison.

— Next, have a cup of the turtle soup au sherry.

— Follow that with the Godchaux salad or the avocado and crabmeat salad.

— As noted, let the waiter be your guide for the entree but lean toward the aforementioned pompano, the soft-shell crabs or the black drum.

— Split several sides with your dining companions. I would suggest potatoes julienne, broiled tomatoes and Rockefeller spinach.

— Finish with the chocolate pot du creme and some of that good New Orleans coffee.

Finally, send me an e-mail or text message from the restaurant so I can tell you how envious I am.

One downside to leaving the job I had with the Delta Regional Authority was the fact that I’m no longer in New Orleans on a regular basis.

For the most part, I don’t miss the travel a bit. In 2008, my final full year with the DRA, I spent 110 nights away from home. That’s far too much time away from my family.

But I do love New Orleans. I always have.

I begged my parents to take me there as a child. As a sportswriter, I managed to cover four Sugar Bowls and one Super Bowl there. Melissa and I had our honeymoon there. I’ve long been a fan of the Saints. Most nights when I’m driving home from work, I find myself listening to WWL-AM, 870.

Those planning a trip to see Arkansas take on Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl should count on having a good time.

I was in college when the Razorbacks last played in the Sugar Bowl 31 years ago. No one would have thought at the time that it would be more than three decades before the Hogs would return to the Crescent City to play football.

Because I was the sports editor of the Daily Siftings Herald at Arkadelphia, I was able to obtain media passes to the Jan. 1, 1980, game against Bear Bryant’s Alabama Crimson Tide. The Tide had won the national championship in the Sugar Bowl a year earlier against Penn State with one of the greatest goal-line stands in college football history. Alabama would win a second consecutive national championship against a Razorback team coached by Lou Holtz.

Since the Siftings Herald was one of the smallest daily newspapers in the state, there was no expense money for such a trip. If I attended (and I was determined to attend), I would foot the bill.

I was able to obtain the media rate at the Marriott Hotel on Canal Street. I also was able to convince four buddies to attend with me in order to split the cost of the room.

You can imagine what that Marriott room looked like after five college guys had stayed in it for five nights. We would simply have the maids throw in fresh towels each morning rather than attempt to clean the entire room.

We did, however, decide to dress up one night for one nice meal (something other than food from the Lucky Dog cart on Bourbon Street), even on our college-boy budgets.

We chose Arnaud’s. Unfortunately, I almost began choking when I swallowed an entire bay leaf from my onion soup. The waiter followed me to the restroom. Once he had determined that I had dislodged the bay leaf, he let me know that he would comp my meal.

“He tries that trick everywhere,” my friends joked loudly. “It worked again.”

Actually, I would have preferred to have paid for the meal rather than go through those few minutes of terror.

My wife and I returned to Arnaud’s during our honeymoon — almost a decade after the incident — and I related that story to her. I never walk past the restaurant without thinking about onion soup. I guess I should have gone for the turtle soup that night.

If you’re serious about food and plan to spend a number of days in New Orleans, I would strongly suggest that you go to www.nomenu.com and subscribe to Tom Fitzmorris’ daily food newsletter. I’ve subscribed for years. Here’s the great thing: He only asks you to pay what you think a subscription is worth. The amount is up to you.

“Don’t worry about whether you’re sending too little,” Fitzmorris writes at the website. “If you send too much, I’ll just lengthen your subscription accordingly.”

If you wish to send him an e-mail directly, it’s tom@nomenu.com.

Fitzmorris was born in New Orleans on Mardi Gras in 1951 and never left town for more than three weeks until after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He founded The New Orleans Menu in 1977 as a four-page newsletter. It later evolved into a daily Internet-based newsletter.

I can think of nowhere other than New Orleans that could support a three-hour daily radio show that talks only about food. But Fitzmorris’ program, The Food Show, has aired since 1975. It can be heard from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. each weekday on 1350 AM in New Orleans.

Fitzmorris is a former editor of the monthly New Orleans Magazine (I subscribe to it, also) and the weekly newspaper Figaro. People have strong opinions in New Orleans when it comes to food, football and politics. And Fitzmorris has both fans and detractors when it comes to his restaurant reviews.

I’m among those who enjoy reading what he writes.

Since we mentioned Arnaud’s, here’s what he has to say about that restaurant: “One of the three or four most famous names in the long history of New Orleans dining, Arnaud’s remains a solidly excellent restaurant. It has turned in recent years to a slightly more modern style of cooking, but the core of its menu is from the grand French-Creole tradition. Few restaurants serve that better, and no other restaurant matches such food with as magnificent a collection of dining rooms.

“While Arnaud’s has never hesitated to embrace dishes made famous by its competitors (this is also true of the competitors themselves), its chef Tommy DiGiovanni does a better job than most in bringing those dishes into the 21st century. The names and ingredients are familiar, but the presentations and flavors are more refined. The menu has shrunk over the years to the point that almost everything on it can be considered a specialty. Also here is the best Sunday brunch in New Orleans.

“Arnaud’s was founded in 1918 by Count (really a French wine salesman) Arnaud Cazenave. With a combination of French classic cuisine and a sense of celebration, Count Arnaud turned his restaurant into the city’s most celebrated eatery — a reputation it held until the 1960s, when under his daughter Germaine Wells the restaurant slowly descended first into mediocrity, then into the most disappointing restaurant in town.

“In 1979, hotelier Archie Casbarian bought the restaurant and, over a period of many years, performed the finest restoration a moribund old restaurant ever received. Casbarian continued polishing the restaurant until last year, when declining health left him hors de combat. He died in early 2009. His wife and children, all of whom have been active in the management of the restaurant for many years, are keeping it on the same path.”

The Arnaud’s website describes the Count’s daughter this way: “Only New Orleans could produce a Germaine Cazenave Wells. She was lusty, dramatic, loud and headstrong. Her taste and capacity for alcohol, celebration and men were extreme, even by the standards of today. … Germaine had a way of attracting attention, and she adored the spotlight. She defined the restaurant business as theater. ‘It’s a play in two acts,’ she said, ‘lunch and dinner.”’

The website goes on to tell how she “took to the mock-royal rituals of Mardi Gras like a fish to water. She ruled over 22 Carnival balls, an overachievement unlikely to be equaled. She instituted a parade of her own on Easter Sunday to show off her latest hats, with her friends following in horse-drawn buggies. That pageant continued after Germaine’s death and persists to this day.”

The Count had died a month shy of his 72nd birthday in 1948.

“He continues look down on his main dining room from a large oil painting mounted there,” the restaurant’s website says. “It is flanked by portraits of his wife Irma and her sister, Marie Lamothe. Rumor has it that the Count never could make up his mind between the two sisters. The slightly roguish twinkle in the Count’s eyes might fill in the rest of that story for you.”

Just be careful not to swallow a bay leaf while looking up at that painting.

I hope to find the time to write quite a bit about New Orleans on this blog between now and the end of the year. So if you’re planning a Sugar Bowl trip, check back often.

I plan to write about Galatoire’s, my favorite restaurant in the world, not so much for the food as for the traditions. I hope to write about John Besh and his collection of restaurants. And we may even relive the Hap Glaudi and Buddy D. days on WWL, my favorite radio station in the country.

Let me know your favorite New Orleans restaurants and your favorite New Orleans memories.

The countdown to the Sugar Bowl has begun.