Yesterday in our pursuit of lunch I was disappointed to see that the Napoleon House was so busy the wait line was backed up into the sidewalk. Today, however, we lucked out by showing up at 11:30, before the rush. we sat in the sunshine-soaked courtyard and admired the small fountain that had a charming greenman spout. Hans tried his first Po' Boy with pastrami. Like me, he found that they're good, but a little too much bread for one sitting. I had the shrimp remoulade-stuffed avocado. It was so wonderful. When I get home I'm going to try to learn how to make it. To wash it all down, Hans had a locally-made Dixie Blackened Voodoo lager, and I tried their Pimm's Cup cocktail. The lager was good, nothing spectacular. I really liked the Pimm's Cup, and I think my mom's description fits pretty well: "Like iced tea". Though I thought it was good, I don't think I'll be purchasing an entire bottle of the gin-based liquor it's made with. Leave it to the English to make even iced-tea alcoholic.
After lunch, we visited the Cabildo museum, which is one of my favorite (and one of the cheapest) places to visit. It is the site of the signing of the Louisiana Purchase, served as a federal courthouse and jail at one point, and now is a state museum dedicated to New Orleans. I liked the display about some of the cultural influences on local cuisine from the American Indians, Africans, French, and Spanish.
We tried to get to the Riverwalk at one point, but accidentally stumbled on a movie set that had closed off a portion of Decatur Street. They were filming some sort of car wreck, as there was a lot of auto carnage and a huge green screen. After a short detour, we made it to the river, where we saw the Natchez river boat and a guy feeding ravenous seagulls bits of bread.
Next, we went to the aquarium, which was a lot more impressive than I thought it would be. One of the main attractions was a giant tank you can walk under, that had dozens of flapping stingrays that seemed to like skimming their bodies along the tunnel. Because of the way their mouths are shaped they always seem to be smiling. There were, of course, sharks, turtles, penguins, sea otters, alligators, catfish, barracudas, sea horses, and jellyfish, and much more. The exhibit about Mississippi wildlife was really neat. The one about Amazon rain forests felt a little out of place, but was still interesting.
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a wonderfully-smelling candy store and bought freshly-made pralines, lemon meringue fudge (!), hand-made salt water taffy, and some French Market coffee. Back at the hotel we rested a bit and got ready for dinner.
Dinner at Arnaud's was excellent. Since our reservations were later in the evening, we arrived just as the dinner rush was ending, and the intimately-decorated dining room began to empty.
Hans started with a surprisingly woody pinot grigio, and I had a champagne cocktail called French 75. For starters, Hans had some yummy baked mushroom caps, and I had half a dozen raw oysters with cocktail sauce just like my mom makes it. After shrimp creole / baked trout entrees, our deserts were almost too much: Caramel flan and bread pudding. And of course the Birthday Boy had a glass of port.
A couple of hours later, Hans and I found our way back to Bourbon street, and sat on the patio at Pat O's for a few rounds. Hans: Hurricane, Skylab, New Orleans Gin Fizz. Me: Zombie, Rusty Nail, champagne. And free popcorn!
At the end of the evening we stopped at Cafe du Monde for cafe au laits and beignets. Poor Hans wound up with powdered sugar all over his tan-colored shorts.
We went to bed very full and very happy.
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