Just Three More NOLA Posts!

I can't believe I'm still blogging about my trip! In my defense, my office has looked like the file room exploded in it almost every day since I've been back.

So on October 24th we slept in after our night of carousing and had a late breakfast at Cafe Beignet. It seems to be a local chain; I came across at least two others while we were walking around. This one was just down the street from our hotel, with a very charming interior and courtyard. I ordered Cajun hashed potatoes, served with french style scrambled eggs and a baguette portion. Eddie had a french omelette with mushrooms and cheese. Both of us had cafe au laits.

This is Cafe Cat. He never moved from his spot despite all the people around him and the enticing smell of their food.
After breakfast we met up with my parents for another tour. This time we headed out to see the Oak Alley Plantation.

The front walkway is flanked by the alley of trees. According to our hoop-skirted tour guide, the trees are what attracted the original owners to the location.

We entered through the side. The large green field in the background is sugar cane.

A movie that is slated to air on Lifetime in the spring happened to be shooting on location. Due to this, some parts of the plantation had faux debris scattered around. Alas, neither Faye Dunaway nor Jerry O'Connell were to be seen around.

The grounds were quite substantial. This was taken as we walked toward the tour's meeting point, the back of the house.

Photography was not allowed indoors. Because our group was fairly small, I couldn't even think about sneaking any. I didn't want to risk the wrath of an angry southern belle. The interior was a little bit disappointing. Everything was meticulously and beautifully restored, but the house just felt so much smaller on the inside than it appeared. I think that is partly due to the thickness of all the walls, which were intentionally designed to help control the climate in the living quarters. We were allowed out on to the veranda in order to fully admire the alley of oaks.
There was also a blacksmith shop that we could visit. They also sold mint juleps on site. Mint juleps are a great sipping drink for a warm afternoon. :-)
The plantation was approximately an hour away from the French Quarter. Since the tour ran through lunch, we decided to have an early dinner. We ended up at Mr. B's Bistro, primarily because it was just across the street from our hotel. Plus it's dinner hours had just started, so we didn't have any wait despite it being a Friday night. From the outside it looked like a small, casual neighborhood joint. The interior revealed something a little more upscale. I started with a vidalia onion and goat cheese tart. No photo, because I'm reluctant to use flash in restaurants and the photo came out so.very.dark. But I broke my rule to take a photo of my entree, trout amandine. For dessert I ordered a traditional bread pudding. It lost points with me because it had raisins. Blech. Eddie's dessert in the background, a warm white chocolate brownie, was phenomenal. A more accurate description would be a chocolate chip blondie, but the darn thing really tasted like a dense, chewy chocolate chip cookie. And y'all know I'm a cookie monster.

The rest of the evening is better forgotten, at least by me. I was pretty cranky that night; I think the fatigue got to me. College football fans descended on the city for the LSU/UGA game the next day. They were everywhere. All I really wanted to do was have a drink at the rotating bar in our hotel, the aptly named Carousel Bar, but it was standing room (on solid ground) only. We decided to check out Bourbon St. for a while instead, which was a madhouse in comparison to all the other nights we were there. We ended up back at John Lafitte's and while we were able to easily get a drink and find a table, a different piano player was performing. She was atrocious. She sounded like a tortured animal. Not.good.at.all. We finished our drinks and left, then happened to run into Emcee and her husband as we walked back to our hotel. After a bit of chatting and people watching we parted ways. Even though a few hours had passed and it was almost 1am, the Carousel Bar was still packed. To quote Dunc, balls!