Back from the Big Easy . . .

Every year near our wedding anniversary we travel to New Orleans and stay in the French Quarter.  We try to stay at the Monteleon Hotel but could not get a room there this year.  We stay around the corner in the Hyatt French Quarter.  That was a mistake not of our choosing, the Hyatt is not a bad hotel, but the Monteleon is a great hotel.

We had learned not to arrive there on a Monday, all the good restaurants are closed Monday.  So we arrived on a Tuesday, we stay over night en route at the camp on False River.  WE ate at Not Your Mama's in Livonia as all the good restaurants in New Roads are also closed on Monday.

We noted the lake is down at least two feet, maybe a bit more.  This is a biologist pipe dream of rejuvenating the lake.  I think it is a large waste of time.  However the dredging to be conducted in the flats at each end sounds like a great idea.  I understand they will just the dredge materials to build two islands, one at each end of the lake.  The spoil from the dredging is to be used to create the islands.  The dredging is to deepen the ends of the lake that have filled in from farm field run off over the many years.  All this is said to bring life back into the lake.

We trolled around in Baton Rouge a bit, visited LSU, stopped at the book store and bought a few things.  We also ate lunch at the Piccadilly Cafeteria out on Essen Lane.  That was yum, but we did not over do it as New Orleans was calling us.

The first night we ate at our traditional place, Galitore's.  As usual, it was outstanding and great service.  The second night we ate at Antoine's, we had been trying to get there for some time.  Unfortunately, while the food was adequate, it was not as good as Galitore's.  We were disappointed.  In fact we ranked the place behind the Red Fish Grill and ranked Galitore's as the best of the best in the French Quarter.

He ate breakfast every day at Café DuMonde - benguies and coffee for me, coke for Judie.  As usual the coffee and benguies are unchanged but I recall the pouring of coffee and mill from two pots into your cup, a practice long gone.  We also trolled through French Market and had our blacked catfish po boy for lunch.  And then we visited Aunt Sallies and bought pralines.  Naturally we partook of the samples.

It was sad driving out of New Orleans, in the rain, heading home again.  But we made it back in one piece and racked up another visit to the Big Easy.