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This was my third time in New Orleans. The last two times I went my work paid for me to attend a conference. This time they didn't want to pay for it, but I love New Orleans in December so much that I paid for my own visit.
We arrived in New Orleans and went to the hotel we were staying at, The French Market Inn on Decatur Street in the French Quarter. (I stay at a different hotel in the French Quarter every time I visit because I enjoy the individual personalities of different hotels.) The hotel isn't one of the best I've ever stayed at, but our room did have a beautiful view of Decatur Street.
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After getting everything squared away in our room we went and had lunch at Cafe Maspero. I was severely disappointed. The food was ok, but the service and decor was lousy. I don't even remember what I ate, but the person I was with had an excellent corned beef sandwich. Not that the sandwich itself was great, but the corned beef was real and really good. All in all though, it wasn't a good introduction to the usual quality of New Orleans cuisine.
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After lunch we checked out the sites of the French Quarter. It was nothing more than the usual tourist stuff, so it's not really worth writing about.
That night we had dinner at the one restaurant I truly love in New Orleans, NOLA. We were seated at the chef's bar, which I absolutely love since you can watch what goes on in the kitchen and even chat with some of the chefs if they want to. Dinner was amazing, as I've come to expect from them. Our entrees were the smoked duck and beef tenderloin with stilton cheese. The duck is the dish I recommend to anyone who's never been to NOLA before. The duck is smoked, tender, and juicy without being fatty. It's served on top of buttermilk cornbread with au jus that's a little sweet and candied pecans. Delicious! The tenderloin was also excellent. It was served over sweet mashed potatoes and topped with a healthy amount of stilton. The beef was very tender and the stilton added a delicious flavor and richness to the meat. The serving was much larger than I expected, and I had a hard time finishing it. (The stilton, although excellent, was a very strong flavor and I eventually grew tired of it. I would have preferred a little less stilton in the end.) The dessert was a banana cake that didn't impress me. While their food almost always impresses me, their desserts always seem to lack that same impressive quality.
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After dinner we walked along the Mississippi River (Woldenberg Park and The Moonwalk to be precise) and enjoyed the beautiful stroll and the feeling of being someplace special. We stopped at The Cafe Du Monde in The French Market for some hot chocolate and beignets. Twice before I had been to New Orleans and never stopped at The Cafe Du Monde. What a mistake. The hot chocolate was excellent, the service friendly, the beignets tasty, and it all cost less than $10. What a nice way to spend some time with someone.
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Thursday morning we went to The Aquarium of the Americas. I'd never been to an aquarium before and I'd always wanted to go to the one in New Orleans. That was a really fun experience. There were different themed areas that showed aquatic species from the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, a tropical reef, and many more. It was both educational and fascinating.
After the aquarium we headed to the business district to eat lunch at The Bon Ton Cafe. It was excellent creole cuisine. We had the turtle soup, shrimp and crawfish etouffee, and a deep fried soft shell crab. All of it far was too rich for our health and far too good not to eat until we were stuffed.
Stuffed we walked down Magazine Street until we hit the part of Magazine Street were all the antique shops and other odd places are. (It was three miles and not a walk I would recommend.) We had fun looking around and found an import shop called The Prince and Pauper. There I got a male Indonesian stick puppet to match the female one I bought in Tucson. After that we were exhausted and took the bus back to the French Quarter.
We rested and went to Bacco for dinner. The atmosphere is very nice, but it looks a little too upscale for my tastes. I had the salmon with polenta and grilled vegetables. The salmon was grilled over a wood fire, and had a very smokey taste. At first the taste was very good, but after about three bites it was overpowering for the delicate fish. The salmon was also a little overcooked. The polenta was also overcooked. I was not very happy with my meal. My partner's meal was much better. It was a pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes and a prune sauce. The dish sounds too simple to be great, but it was. The pork tenderloin also received the wood fire treatment, but it was tender and juicy with just a hint of the smoke flavor. The mashed potatoes were the best I've ever had in my life, and the prune sauce was mildly sweet and tied the entire dish together. I would highly recommend that entree, or anything else that won't be adversely affected by too much smoke.
I picked up a cigar at the Cigar Factory (where you can watch them roll their own cigars) and smoked it in one of our hotel's court yards. It wasn't the best cigar I ever had, but it allowed for one of those reflective moments where I look back on the days events and really enjoy the experience.
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We took a street car to the Garden District to take a tour. I'd been through the Garden District, but never walked around it before. What a cool place. Our tour guide did an outstanding job. She talked about architecture, botany, superstition, and the history of the Garden District and New Orleans. It was a very educational and interesting tour of a most beautiful place. By the way, I got to see Trent Reznor's house. (I didn't even know he lived in New Orleans.)
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I don't remember lunch, but we had dinner at Liborio, a Cuban restaurant. I didn't find the food impressive. Either Cuban food isn't as good and spicy as Mexican food or Liborio didn't do a good job with the food. The dessert was really good though. It was tres leches cake, or three milks, so named because the cake is soaked in three different types of milk (evaporated, sweetened condensed, and something else). It was my first time having it, and I was hooked on its sweetness and moistness.
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The night ended with us walking around Bourbon Street and not being impressed. We headed back to the hotel and found Sweet Kathleen's, a bar with a live band that played jazz and bluegrass. The band was very talented and made me want to get up and dance at times. Other times they would play things like this romantic Spanish song called "Petite Flur." (Why it sounds Spanish but has a French name is still a mystery to me.) It's owned by Kathleen and her two sons, all of which play in the band, and is just too much fun. If you're in the mood for good music and don't care for the drunk crowds of Bourbon Street, I definitely recommend Sweet Kathleen's.
We had a flight to catch, but we still had time to eat a quick and cheap meal at Johnny Po' Boys. You'll find a lot of locals in there because the food is fast, cheap, and delicious. I won't go into details about the meal, but trust me, it's worth eating at if you aren't in the mood to spend a lot of money for some good food.
All around New Orleans were these fish. Local businesses sponsered artists to do something creative to the fish, and they were displayed around town, and auctioned off for charity. Very cool stuff.
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![Two Fish](javascript:WriteContent('../images/NewOrleans1200/TwoFishsld.jpg','This scan did not come out well at all, but I love the "Yellow Submarine" fish.',273,333,405,425,'#000000','#FFFFCC'))
The photos were taken with black and white, slide, and color print film in a cheap Kodak camera that cost me about $20. The slide film was 200 speed which was perfect for that camera and the lighting during that time. The slides came out the best (beautiful and rich colors), but the scanner I was using didn't capture them too well. Most of the slides on this page have been highly tweaked to get the colors close to the original, but Photoshop can't fix a really bad scan.
I took most of the pictures on this page. (I obviously didn't take the ones of myself.) The pictures are copyright by me, or the picture taker. Unauthorized use is prohibited.
