- I had a mint julep! At 9:30 AM at that! This was one of my quests in coming to NOLA and, quite frankly, since watching Bones McCoy spend most of the Star Trek 'spores' episode sipping some. It is basically a triple bourbon, with, I have to assume, sugar or maybe a sweet syrup of some kind, and obviously mint leaves, on the rocks. A very lovely post-breakfast drink.
- During the evening, I quite literally stumbled across the historic Preservation Hall (just off Bourbon Street) and caught the last few songs of the Preservation Hall All-Stars, a brass band with piano, playing traditional New Orleans jazz. The building and the room are old, almost run down, but the acoustics are great.
What else did I do:
1) I spent the day on a combo plantation swamp tour, offered by Old River Road Plantation Adventures, which had been recommended to me by a small tour provider. We visited two plantation manors:
- Oak Alley Mansion, known as Bonséjour when the manor was first built in 1839.
- Laura House, known as the Du Parc plantation in the 1800's, now known as Laura's because the restoration (and the tour) is based on the diary of Laura, one of the grand-children of the matriarch who ran the property.
The swamp tour, by Cajun Pride Gator Tours, was in the Manchac swamp. Alligators, turtles and birds were seen.
(Pictures to follow.)
2) I had dinner at K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, Chef Paul Prud'homme's French Quarter restaurant. ('Chef' is almost part of his name, innit? I could not bring myself to just write Paul Prud'homme; it just looked wrong.) This is a fairly posh place; it is the only time here where I felt under-dressed in shorts and a golf shirt.
I started with a cup of chicken and andouille gumbo (nicely spicy) and ended with a sweet potato pecan pie, with homemade crème Chantilly, which were both outstanding. My main course was an eggplant pirogue with seafood 'atchafayala'; this is a carved out half-eggplant, breaded and fried, overflowing with shrimp, oysters and mussels. I would have hoped for the dish to be spicier; I regret not ordering instead one of the blackened dishes, Prud'homme's signature cooking approach.
3) My intention post-dinner was to walk up Bourbon Street, simply to check out how active it was on a Tuesday night. One thing led to another and I ended up popping my head into a number of clubs to check out various bar bands. The cash-and-carry approach to alcohol, where one can walk around with a drink, provided it is in a plastic cup or container of some type, really encourages bar- and band-hopping. If you do not like what you hear from a band, you can just move to the one playing in the next bar over. There is no single formula: some bars have gimmicks (e.g., duelling pianos), others have regular acts that play New Orleans type R&B, blues or jazz, while others simply have cover bands, with some mixing in their original material.
I wonder how it feels like for the artists and the acts: coming in night after night, playing the same songs, doing the same shtick, having to appear fired up and excited about being part of the Bourbon Street scene for an audience predominantly made up of tourists (one would assume) that are excited and fired up about being on Bourbon Street to party for one or two nights. I wonder if it gets routine, repetitive, disheartening or even soul-crushing, not unlike, say, a mid-level Government job.
I did spend a bit of time at Bourbon Street Blues Company because the band, playing relatively straightforward rock, was a bit better than some of the others and was either playing their own material or covering songs I did not know (some of what the kids are listening to these day...). Also, it did not hurt that the band was fronted by an awfully cute young Asian female singer... Yes, that is what I do...
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