New Orleans, October 2001
Some random notes from my past trip:
First off, the weather was gorgeous - sunny & comfortable days, cool nights.
HOTEL
Villa Convento: Once again, a good experience. We had a nice balcony room; very reasonably priced.
RESTAURANTS
Finally tried Acme for the first time. Oysters were fabulous. We ate at the bar which was quite an experience for me. No plates! Fun.
Angeli for a late dinner - good pizza, good prices.
Coops for a late night snack of red beans & rice.
Walked into the Palace Cafe for the Saturday jazz brunch, no reservations. I liked it a lot. Good food, very fine service, and a great jazz combo. I started with seafood gumbo, and had Eggs Benedict, their style: poached eggs on a cheddar biscuit with pulled pork in hollandaise sauce! Holy cholesterol! Praline cheesecake for dessert.
Bistro at the Maison de Ville. They lost our reservation, despite calling weeks in advance and confirming the day before!! They had a table for us, but I still find this sort of thing disturbing. Anyway, dinner was wonderful (seared foie gras to start, grilled filet mignon, and a great creme brulee), My beau had the duck sampler - the confit was great, but the breast was a bit overcooked for my tastes. The creme brulee was perfect. The service was great, and I love the space. Very romantic.
GWFins. Good food, slow service to start, but it picked up. I have never in my life had a server plop a bottle of wine in front of me and just leave it there! Hey, gimme a corkscrew if you want me to be self-sufficient! Her excuse was that she wanted to bring all the drinks to the table first before she opened the wine. (Of course, there were only six of us, and 3 of us were having wine and no one else ordered a drink...??) I didn't like the space at all - too noisy. And honestly, it just felt too "New Yorky" for me - please don't ask me to explain it! I just didn't feel like I was in NOLA. Food was very good, though - love those biscuits. I started with the lobster dumplings and had the escolar (a gulf fish, this was a new one to me) with eggplant & tomatoes - very light, cooked perfectly.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
French Food Festival in LaRose, La, about an hour outside of New Orleans. Ate a lot, which is I guess what one does at a food festival. Bruce Daigrepont (sp?) and his band played and we listened to them for awhile and watched the dancers...
Saturday night, I sat on the stoop of a local's apartment at the quieter end of Bourbon Street to costume watch. What a hoot. We had buff sailors with shorts, no shirts and glitter, a cowboy with chaps on - and nothing else, a grim reaper, and Wonder Woman.
Flew jetBlue from New York. Good experience. Friday's flight was full, and Tuesday's nearly full.