New Orleans (Pt 5)

Welcome 2007!! We were being lazy and got up fairly late, especially considering that we had to check out before noon from the Intercontinental. We packed up and then headed over to Le Pavillon, "the Belle of New Orleans," where we would stay our last two nights. After getting our corner room at the end of the hallway (CSI reference #1: "murder central"), we headed to the French Quarter to get some food. The Italian Market was closed so our original plan to get muffelettas was dashed. We then decided to go to Johnny's Po Boys, which we knew was across from Nola, but since we temporarily forgot where that was, we wandered around a fair bit first. I then realized that I had taken a business card, and it was still in my wallet. We got the most delicious crawfish and shrimp po boys! The fries were pretty good too, but the po boys were excellent. They were "dressed" with lettuce and tomato, and the bread was toasted, adding a really good crunch to the already satisfying texture of the deep fried seafood. We bumped into an LSU couple, the wife apparently used to be a cheerleader for LSU (yay her...), and she chatted until her husband got there with their food.

After stuffing ourselves silly with the yummy po boyishness, we headed down St. Charles for our walk to the Garden District. It was maybe about an hour's walk along that street before we hit the Columns Hotel, which is another historic hotel, this one with a bar. We ordered some Bloody Marys and sat there to watch part of the USC-Michigan game (USC later went on to completely pulverize Michigan) and chat with the people there. The bartender, Theresa, was really cool; she was going back to Tulane this month for a graduate degree in graphics design. The bartender that was leaving as we first got there seemed pretty nice too. (She's especially cool because she watches CSI, leading us to CSI Reference #2: apparently, one of the customers that left as we came in was Marg Helgenberger, who plays Catherine on the original series.) All of the staff was really friendly with the customers and especially friendly with each other. On the other hand, there was a kind of creepy, sleazy older man that kept talking to us about where he lived, picking up women, and other things that we all felt was rather disturbing. But, as Theresa said, people in New Orleans wear their freak on their sleeve. So, I suppose at least you don't have to worry if the nice guy you're talking to is actually a closet pervert.

After several hours, we decided that it was time to head back to the Frenchmen street area for some dinner. We got to Adolfo's, where we got some escargot as appetizers. There's something about melted butter and garlic that just makes my mouth so happy. After the appetizer came the first course of angel hair pasta with a marinara sauce. My entree was pounded veal (I know! I had veal for the first time... apparently food > ethical issues) covered with their Ocean sauce, which I think was cream, seafood broth, a bit of tomato, and some kind of white wine. One veal cutlet was covered with the sauce and shrimp and crawfish. The other cutlet was covered with crab meat and capers. J got a flounder fillet stuffed with various seafood, including shrimp and crawfish. (It was a very shrimpy and crawfishy day, not that I minded in the least.) We both got some house wines with the meal as well, pinot grigio and a cabernet sauvignon, which were fairly decent.

 After dinner, we strolled around some more... We eventually got back to the hotel, which serves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, hot chocolate, and other snacks and beverages from 10 to 11pm. We grabbed some hot chocolate and milk and I also got an apple and then headed back to the room. We were definitely tired from walking, but not sleepy yet, so we watched the very exciting end of the Fiesta Bowl. (Boise State, undefeated but in a mid-major conference, defeated Oklahoma in overtime after dominating them pretty much the whole game. Oklahoma, despite a decent comeback from 18 points down, couldn't stop a beautiful lateral play that BSU pulled off in the last 7 seconds for a touchdown to tie for the overtime. BSU then went for a double-fake two-point conversion instead of a field goal after their touchdown in overtime to seal their win. Beautiful!) After the game, we just went to bed. Good night!