our milestone birthday vacation : three days in the french quarter : new orleans, la
halfway through I realized that traveling from Old City (Philly) to the French Quarter (NOLA) is basically going on vacation to our own neighborhood
la première journée
Our flight lands around lunchtime and we take a taxi into the city. We drop our bags off at our hotel and cross the street to wander the French Quarter. The front-of-store endcaps on every aisle at the CVS at the corner of St. Charles and Bourbon Street are conspicuously tourist-focussed: The one closest to the door is all bottled water and sunscreen; the other three are all Gatorade and Pedialyte. We stroll up Bourbon Street people-watching and take a selfie that will turn out to be my favorite photo of the trip. A tall man riding a hoverboard with a python around his neck acts super fed up with all the people, but come on: He clearly wants attention. He’s riding a hoverboard down Bourbon Street with a python draped around his neck. Hunger is starting to get the better of us so we veer off Bourbon in search of a spot to sit down for lunch. We walk past blocks and blocks galleries and antiques stores but don’t have much luck with restaurants. Then - thank gods - I spot Café Amelie across the street. We sit down to brunch in a crowd that seems to be mostly locals. One of the long tables appears to be a company meeting — either business is very good or they’re committing tax fraud.
After brunch we walk over to the levee and stroll along the river. We make our way down to Café du Monde, which we plan to visit at some point, but the line for seating wraps down the block. No thank you. Enough time has passed that we have access to our room so we head back to relax before our early dinner reservation. I’m raring to go, so we head out for a drink first. Confusingly, the cocktail menu is full of classics but our bartender is at sea when Stephan orders a classic cocktail not on the menu. Before long it’s time for our reservation at Galatoire’s. Stephan has raved about the quality of the food and service for as long as I’ve known him, and it’s special to finally sit together at a table in the main dining room. I use the mirrors lining the walls to surreptitiously observe the crème de New Orleans society out for their fancy Sunday dinners. I feel like we’re breaking an unspoken rule of dining out when we both order the shrimp étouffée but it’s so delicious we regret nothing. From Galatoire’s we go for a nightcap to the 21st Amendment. Stephan made all of our restaurant reservations so I’m (fairly) tasked with assembling a retinue of fallback spots. It feels like a little hole in the wall but the bartender’s cocktail nerdery well surpasses Stephan’s, and they go deep while the jazz band sets up. I turn into a pumpkin pretty quickly so we head back for the night, passing a group of people eating sheet cake out of a car trunk outside another hotel on our way.
la deuxième journée
My sole, unrepentant demand for our room was that it have a balcony — it’s not a vacation without a balcony! — and I make good use of the balcony and our view of St. Charles Avenue while I drink my coffee. We give ourselves such a leisurely start that by the time we’re fully ready for the day we head straight out to our lunch reservation.
I want to eat everything on the menu at Sun Chong. We order everything that looks good and it is So. Fucking. Delicious. I eat so much food that the second we walk out of the restaurant I tell Stephan I need to go back to our room and lie down. So that’s what we do. After a few hours when I’m finally feeling mostly-better I tell Stephan I want to take him to a Strange Bar. Like, A Very Strange Bar. It’s something of a local institution so he may have been there before, but I really want us to go together. Meanwhile I wonder to myself if a rotating bar is a bad idea after stomach ambiguity. It turns out he’s never been and he agrees with me that the Carousel Bar is indeed very strange. Strange and enchanting; we each order a drink and take a bunch of pictures as we go ‘round. After that one drink Stephan tells me he wants to get off the ride so I lead us to happy hour at The Will & The Way. The vibe echoes some of our favorite spots in Philly. It feels like a special place and we settle right in. Our dinner reservation tonight is late; we end up ordering food. We leave well after happy hour has ended and on our walk to dinner we see the gate to Louis Armstrong Park all lit up. It’s our last night in New Orleans and Stephan has made a reservation for us at one of the best restaurants in the country. Except… we ate so much and drank so much tonight already, and my stomach closes for business at 8pm Eastern (7pm Central), and the menu has an awful lot of offal (which excites Stephan but makes me anxious — he wants to be challenged when fine dining but my preferred vibe is “surprise and delight”). As we wait by the bar for our table to be available I miserably try to stiffen my upper lip, insisting and insisting we should stay, while Stephan insists and insists that he’s not going to make me eat anyplace I’m obviously miserable. We pay for our drinks, don’t stay for dinner, and walk disquieted back to our room.
la troisième journée
We have a good conversation in the morning. Our flight departs mid-afternoon so we decide to check out, try our luck at Café du Monde, get lunch, buy the kids souvenirs, and head to the airport. We store our bags and walk toward the river. Mid-morning on a weekday we are able to walk right up to a table at Café du Monde and order beignets and coffee. Sitting outside under the tent feels good and natural and easy. After last night’s dinner debacle I’m hoping we can have a nice lunch as a sort of make-up last fancy meal, so I lead us down the block to Fives. Do we ever have a nice lunch. Two orders of crab claws. Two orders of tuna crudo. Just about every other seafood dish on the menu (and a bangin’ salad). Incredible cocktails. I think to myself it’s a shame that going out drinking isn’t a reputable hobby, because there has to be some sort of skill involved to walk into a bar for the first time and end up getting a free shot of mezcal and sharing cat photos. Maybe drinking isn’t actually the name for whatever skillset that reflects.
As planned, after lunch we buy souvenirs for the kids (and a few for us). My favorite is the “Stevie Nicks is my fairy godmother” tshirt we retraced our steps to buy for the youngest. We’re calling for a Lyft to the airport when we see that our flight is delayed. We head there anyway and have a late second lunch / early dinner at an Emeril-branded airport restaurant I won’t dignify with further description to avoid a Times Square Guy Fieri situation. The last thing I eat in New Orleans is a yogurt while I wait and wait for our long-delayed ship (airplane) to come in.
okay I clicked on those menu links, and we’ve eaten together before… did you guys really eat all that stuff?
I like to joke that you can tell this was a middle-aged birthday trip (my 40th, Stephan’s 50th) by the number of digestive aids we brought along.
Digestive enzymes for right when we start eating a food we know doesn’t agree with us.
Activated charcoal for right after we eat a food we know doesn’t agree with us, or a few hours after a meal when we’re feeling gassy.
Probiotics to reset, first thing in the morning or whenever feels helpful.
A homeopathic antacid for very mild heartburn.
Psyllium capsules as a stand-in for daily Metamucil.