DukeEngage | Duke Center for Civic Engagement

Restaurant Reviews (Parte Deux)

Somehow my blog has become an amalgamation of random asides, overly flowery observational writing, anecdotal recording and summer intern guidebook/tourism propoganda.  This post will do nothing to change any of that.

How about this time we start downtown and head uptown?  OK?  Sound good?  I thought so.

Cafe du Monde: I made an egregious oversight in not mentioning this New Orleans institution this first time around.  In my defense, it's not so much a restaurant as a coffee shop but when one of the city's most famous foods is produced someplace, it probably deserves a mention.  Here is the entire story on Cafe du Monde:

Go there.  Eat beignets.  Don't wear black.

I have rarely put something more delicious in my mouth than those ridiculous pieces of fried dough.  The coffee is pretty good too.

Tujagues: This is the second oldest restaurant in New Orleans.  The bar (like the actual wood) and the mirror behind it are even older and got shipped over from France or some such nonsense.  It features a fixed menu d'hotel which includes salad, bread, soup, brisket, main dish, bread pudding and coffee.

The bread was a little stale.  The seafood pasta didn't exactly make me believe in higher powers.  There was an actual crab leg in my gumbo which while a ringing endorsement for authenticity, was a little trick to negotiate in my soup.

THAT SAID, the brisket was amazing.  The meat just fell apart at the touch of the fork and was so good.  It made one want to never, ever, ever become a vegetarian because the despair of never eating such meat again would be too overwhelming.  I am exaggerating only slightly.

The bread pudding also made me immensely happy-- it was all rich and yummy and the rum sauce was excellent and best of all they brought and extra for Ask Allison! which we (by which I mean "I") got to eat.  It was good enough to make one be ok with being "shape challenged."

Landry's Seafood: This place in on Decatur (which makes me think of Sufjan every time), at the center of the river front tourism area and therefore does not scream "CATERS TO NATIVES."  We tend to avoid such places because we like to think that "summer interns" are at least one step above "tourists." Maybe my disdain is just a deeply ingrained Florida thing.  There's just something inherently annoying about knowing that the fanny-packed masses are responsible for your area's continued fiscal well-being.

That said, Landry's is delicious.  The service was particularly awesome-- Lauren, Margaret and I left feeling like some sort of VIPs.  There was free salad.  The bread was warm and just tender enough without being soft.  Our pasta was delicious (GRILLED SEAFOOD PASTA.  DO IT.)  Margaret's hamburger looked yummy, her steak fries and onion rings tasted yummy.  Did we mention that our waiter was excellent?  And the entire restaurant is decorated to feel like you are outside-- plants everywhere, the bar looks like the exterior of a building, faux-finishes, glass windows everywhere-- without having to BE outside-- where it it hot and muggy and there are bugs and you don't want to eat, just guzzle down water and reach AC.  Therefore Landry's is in fact amazing.

I never ate at Palace Cafe or Reconcile Cafe.  Next trip!

Food Court in 201 St. Charles (aka my building): I have been spoiled by the fact my building has an extensive food court on the second floor.  It means I could eat something different evryday of the summer without ever having to hit the sidewalks.  I mostly brought lunch anyway but when I didn't I enjoyed the hamburger place's cheeseburger, the Mexican's place's taco salad and the healthy place's peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich.  We were all very happy together.

FredRicks: When I did decide to leave the building, this deli down the street was an excellent choice.  I ordered a roast beef po-boy, because I enjoy roast beef approximately three times a year.  Maybe less.  Upon arriving back at the office I began to regret this choice when I opened the wrapper to find not a neat, orderly sandwich but rather a mess of meat, bread, gravy, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomatoes.  I spent a good deal of time analyzing how to even get the food out of the gravy soaked wrapper, eventually deciding to just get my hands dirty and clea up before continuing to work.  A fork and knife was also involved.  And once I got the food into my mouth it was great.  I recommend that should you find yourself on St. Charles and in need of lunch that you stop by.  (Joel would be so pleased by this.)

Welty's: I discussed this in my last post, but just to reiterate: yum.

Five Happiness: Actually in Mid City, but since it's located just lakeside of Canal, we'll throw it in here.  If the phrase "the best Chinese food in New Orleans" gives you pause, you aren't alone.  Even if you account for the large, restaurant-running Asian population of the city, they're mostly Vietnamese.  So the "best Vietnamese in New Orleans" might mean something.

The food is yummy though.  We had it for our education symposium and I ate a lot of it.  Not too greasy and take-out feeling, the cashew chicken won the night for me.  I bet they do good eggrolls.  If I really felt any urge to eat Chinese food in the land of red beans and rice I would get it here.

Juan's Flying Burrito: Not as good as Cosmic.

Nacho Mama's: ALSO not as good as Cosmic.

OK, so these two Mexican/creole/whatever places on magazine are both good.  The burritos at Juan's are humongous and filled with good things.  Their (over-priced) guacamole is delicious and when you eat it with your (not free) chips it will make you pleased with the world.  I enjoyed my mexican egg rolls at Nacho Mama's as well, though I enjoyed watching Nicole attempt to choke herself on soup more. 

(What does one do if one's dining companion chokes on soup?  There's nothing to Heimlich out!  Maybe CPR?  I don't know that either.  Do not have a medical emergency near me people.  You will die.)

The problem with both of these places is that I spent the entire time sitting there wishing I was at Cosmic having my mini burrito.  That's not their fault of course but simply means that I will drive into Durham on August 12 and proceed directly to Cosmic before going to my apartment.  Which is blissfully located 0.39 miles from my apartment.  It shall be a good year.

Oh, back on the topic of, you know, New Orleans, I prefer Juan's to Nacho Mama's, but they won't split checks, so if that is a concern it might be easier to head to Mama's.  Also, dude, punny names!  Loves it!

Slice: Pizza!  They do big, New York style slices with fun, boutique toppings and a bunch based on a tomato-less pesto type thing.  The salad is also divine.  While it's a full restaurant with lots of moderately priced Italian specialties, you can do dinner for under ten if you limit yourself to a half salad and a slice of pizza.  It's plenty of food and delicious.

Maybe you might want to not use the outside table like we did.  While it did allow us to be a bit loud, we essentially ate dinner with several members of the NOPD, a couple of crazy people and a homeless guy. YMMV.

Sucre: A "sweet boutique" on Magazine.  They do amazing specialty deserts-- delicate chocolates and candies, French macaroons, a sparkly purple Tiffany's mousse (no, it seriously looks like a five year old's shiny purple dance costume bodice).  We got the gelatto and it was delicious-- each flavor was incredibly rich and distinct and the "kid's cup" is more than enough for your average non-kid, especially if it's acting as a follow-up to dinner.  The entire ambiance is very cute and quirky, two very big thumbs way up.

Trolley Stop Cafe: Skip it, head to one of the 80 other (better) diners in the area.  There is a LOT of food on these plates but dude, they were OUT OF BISCUITS!

La Madeleine: So this chain which, people have been quick to tell us, is based in Texas, is pretty fun and cool actually.  The food is yum and the croissants are some of the best I've had in any sort of commercial environment.  I think we already all miss the chicken salad sandwich and tomato soup.  I really sincerely hope that they will soon spread their commercial influence to the Traingle area because I totally had more things I wanted to try and oh the deserts... happiness.

Magnolia Gril: Magnolia Grill is internationally famous.  It's bar style-- you walk in and sit the counter and order right up.  We got hamburgers (par normal) and laughed at our server who was... interesting, to say the least.  At many times the line for Magnolia Grill can go out the door and around the block so I strongly suggest going at an unusal time-- I think we hit it up on a Sunday night and we walked right in. 

Magnolia is also mentioned by name in the Preppy Handbook so you KNOW it MUST be good.

Rue de la Course: Super cute local coffee shop, though Carla complained that it's over priced.  I enjoyed the coffee and the ambiance is great-- they take great older buildings and retrofit them as coffee bars.  Free wi-fi (score!) and cuteness... we spent some major quality time hanging out on the sidewalk outside of this place (and the Starbucks on Magazine) wiling away the hours...

Jaques-Imos: Oh dear.  It took us entirely to long to go to this place.  You get to its location on Oak Street and the front entrance borders on sketchy-- tiny shopfront, barely looks like a restaurant, man out front playing checkers... then you go inside and if you're very lucky (or early) you don't have to wait and walk through the kitchen en route to the dining rooms, which are covered in gorgeous murals of New Orleans-y type things. 

Then your server brings you a plate of cornbread and YOU DIE AND GO TO HEAVEN.  It's all warm and sweet and covered in sweet butter and it amazing and yummy.

The food is a little pricy but split the entre and you're good to go.  The chicken isn't my FAVORITE fried chicken ever but it's pretty darn good and the mashed potatos are completely delicious.  We severely, severely enjoyed our dinner here and I wish we'd managed to go again before we left.

This morning I awoke to find a highly menacing line of clouds swooping down along St. Charles, promising torrential rain.  I dressed accordingly-- heels and carpis to minimize sopping hemlines-- and threw on my UF rain pullover and trudged outside into the deluge.

Now it is 10AM and the rain has stopped.  The clouds still linger over the city but the overall effect is more like daybreak than midday.  The river reflects as tempered gold as barges move on their long voyages and the entire cityscape seems bathed in the dawnish glow

Good mornin' New Orleans indeed.

I have three days left in the city and while I am ready to go-- life is itching to begin again and I'm less than two weeks from Durham where that can happen-- I will be sad to leave.  I will miss the architecture and the colors and the streetcars and the beignets and the food, oh the food, and having the opportunity to see live music everyday of the week and just the hustle and bustle of life in a metropolis.

I will miss mornings like this morning like this morning where the city is surpassingly lovely.  But at the moment all that is in the future and all I can do is twitch with the anticipation of heading home for the briefest of stays before returning to Duke, my actual favorite place in the world, where I will get to decorate my new room and play with Board during FAC training and welcome the newest class of froshlings and fondly remember my own disOrientation week and then start classes and begin living my life again.

New Orleans today is a dream.  But I'm ready to wake up.

(Corrction: My brother and mother would like for me to point out that in a prior post I called the St. Johns river the St. Charles, clearly subconsciously substituting the name for the street I spend hours on every day for the river I lived ten minutes from for three years. Ooooooops...)

(They would also like to point out that in addition to experiencing several major hurricanes, I also survived living on what is basically an island that got hit by THE Perfect Storm.  Nor'Easters are no fun either.  Living for a few days with the causeway washed out would have been greatly improved by the presence of George Clooney, but alas, no such luck.)

(And shoutout to Yan who I need to call about her references. Yes, I am going to be someones reference. Yes, I think that its very funny.)

(And Ben, you are probably not reading this any time soon due to your imminent departure to Vietnam but when you do read this, know that you are very mean and I don't like you one bit. But I expect souvenirs anyway.)

And now, without further ado...

A STANDARD DAY IN THE LIFE OF A (FEMALE) DUKE ENGAGE IN NOLA INTERN

7:20 AM

Alarm. Stagger over to cell phone on my desk to turn it off. Make poor decision to hit snooze and bring cell phone with me to bed.

7:25

Snooze. Justify by telling myself that I am planning the rest of my morning. While lying down. With my eyes closed.

7:30

Snooze. Justify by telling myself that I am deciding what to wear. While curling up with my pillow. And being asleep.

7:35

Finally get out of bed. Hair looks like a bird nested in it. Entire self does not un-resemble a crack whore.

7:45

Begin to resemble a human after washing face and working magic on my hair. Try to get dressed.

7:50

Cannot find (shirt/skirt/shoe/bra/cami) necessary to complete planned outfit, despite the fact that my room is small and has no hiding spaces to speak of. Swear. Pledge to do laundry and clean room ASAP.

8:00

Having finally successfully dressed self, head to kitchen to make two biggest decisions of day: what flavor of yogurt to eat for breakfast and what Lean Cuisine to bring in for lunch.

(Take moment to despair of graduating and having this be my actual life. Cry on the inside.)

8:05

Attempt to fit these items plus a bottle of water plus a cardigan plus my power cord into my bag. Curse.

8:10

Leave dorm. Put on giant sunglasses so it is less apparent to world that I am only 85% functional.

8:15

See streetcar pass on St. Charles while walking down Calhoun. Curse.

8:25

Board streetcar. Attempt to not trip and wipe out while climbing step and flashing metro pass. Pray for own seat next to window. Sit down, put in earbuds and zone out.

8:35

Realize I have forgotten (lunch/key card/cell phone/snack/water/power cord). Curse.

8:45

Awkwardly ignore mentally ill person sitting in close proximity to me. Feel like a bad person.

8:50

Reach stop. Stand waiting on streetcar for entire light cycle because they won’t let us off ten feet short of the actual corner.

8:51

Resist Mrs. Fields muffins that are placed diabolically next to the entrance. Promise self one on last day.

9:00

Arrive in office. Set up laptop and papers on my couch.

9:05

Get coffee. Immediately become a much more pleasant and coherent human being.

9:15-12:00

Work. Drink coffee. Periodically check weather out the window.

(Today was exciting because of both the oil spill that was can see on the river which has shut down nearly 30 miles of the Mississippi and the outer bands ofDolly brining some impressive rain and lightening in the middle of the morning,)

12:00 PM

Lunch break. Conduct international gchats with Jinsoo and Amanda. Bother Danielle about our fall break plans (NYC OR BUST BABY!). Message Ashley with life update and daily annoyances. Skim morning posts on Jezebel.

12:30-5:00

Work. Drink a lot of water. Form alliances with Britney to make fun of Joe.

5:00

Peace out of the office for the day.

5:05

Walk out of building exactly as streetcar is rolling by. Sprint down the block as fast as heels and laptop will allow, praying that the light cycles on St. Charles will allow catching it at the next stop down the block.

5:15

Appreciate how pretty St. Charles is in the late afternoon light.

(MAJOR ASIDE: I have tried to read Confederacy of Dunces, once this summer, when I thought my love of New Orleans and happy familiarity with it would make it more appealing.

It didn’t. I have come to terms with the fact that I simply am not the type of reader who appreciates books about casts of unpleasant characters doing awkward and bizarre things (see also, And Then We Came to the End and Zorba the Greek).

That said, I did discover this passage the second time around which I love very muchly:

Patrolman Mancuso inhaled the scent of the moldy oaks and thought, in a romantic aside, that St. Charles Avenue must be the loveliest place in the world. From time to time he passed slow moving streetcars that seemed to be leisurely moving toward no specific destination, following their route through the old mansions on either side of the avenue. Everything looked so calm, so prosperous, so unsuspicious.

St. Charles Avenue, the Garden District and the Audubon/University district are beautifully summed up thusly.

Even better, the concept of la beauté d’entropie is captured in the next paragraph:

He reached a block of houses built in the 1880s and ‘90s, wooden Gothic and Guilded Age relics that dripped carving and scrollwork, Boss Tweed suburban stereotypes separated by alleys so narrow that a yardstick could almost bridge them and fenced in by iron pikes and low walls of crumbling brick. The larger houses had become impromptu apartment buildings, their porches converted into additional rooms. …It was a neighborhood that had degenerated from Victorian to nothing in particular, a block that had moved carelessly into the 20th century carelessly and uncaringly—and with very limited funds.

It’s possible that New Orleans-sickness might move me to read the rest, if only to skim for similarly apt descriptions but I seriously don’t get it.)

So yeah, St. Charles= pretty. Do not grow tired of staring at houses that have been viewed twice a day for two months.

5:25

Roll eyes at obvious tourists for thinking the same thing. Perfect disdainful look at their loud cell phone conversations as they tell friends that they’re just going to ride the streetcar around. Ponder the silliness of using a tourist attraction as ones daily mode of transport.

5:40

Reach Loyola. Attempt to not be run by overly eager commuters over while crossing street to campus.

5:50

Arrive at dorm and begin negotiations for what time we will leave for dinner, aka “how long can I be at the gym.”

5:55

Attempt to find (clean socks/gym shorts/t-shirt). Fail. Swear to clean and do laundry ASAP.

6:00-6:45

Elliptical while formulating possible outfits and plans for world domination.

6:50

Return to find the boys making their suite smell gross by conducting an exercise power hour. It is exactly as insane as it seems.

7:00

Shower. Forget to put in hair product, perpetuating the cycle of crazy-hair.

7:15

Spend ridiculous amount of time deciding what to wear considering I am going to dinner with people who have seen me in my pajamas at 7 AM and therefore cannot be fooled into thinking I always naturally look this good.

Cannot find (shorts/tank top/belt/earrings) among (pile of clothes on bed/mountain of clothes in laundry basket/sprawl of stuff on dresser). Swear to clean and do laundry ASAP.

7:30

Leave for dinner one of a number of moderately priced restaurants in uptown. Yes we are too lazy to go anywhere else. We’re going to try to get to Algiers in the next two weeks. If they get their water back. Hope that tire will not be flat again.

7:45

Laugh while Carla once again does not order anything while explaining to waiter that she already ate, as if the waiter should be expected to already know that.

8:00

Scarf down food.

8:30

Spend ungodly amount of time figuring out how to split check. Finally cobble together a solution of recouped debts and predetermined charges that will supply sufficient funds.

9:00

Get coffee or run errands. New Orleans has really good coffee, I believe I’ve mentioned something about it before?

9:30

Decide plans for the rest of evening.

They in no way include doing laundry or cleaning my room.

10 PM

Enact plans for rest of the evening. ☺

Anywhere between 11 PM and 1 AM

Eat nightly bowl of cereal. Get teased.

Ten minutes after that

Go to sleep, eagerly anticipating a new and exciting day in one of the world’s coolest cities.

I need to begin this post by apologizing to the city of New Orleans.

You see, the current up tick in temperature is completely my fault.  For the past month I have been running around bragging about how its not THAT hot and how I'm from Florida and I'm from a swamp and I can handle the heat and blah blah I am a force of nature.  I wrote the beginning of a blog post proclaiming how the heat in New Orleans is "not that bad" and how everyone else in our group was a bunch of pansies.

And now, I swear, it has gotten ten degrees hotter, overnight.  I am a victim of some major karmic retribution here.  And I'm taking you all with me.

(Ah, the egocentrism of a blogger. So charming, yes?)

In any case, shout-outs for this post to Amanda Catalaaaaaaaaaani who came for a super fun weekend at Essence Music Festival and running around the Quarter and who told me she was reading my "blog thing."  The further adventures of Meg and Amanda in NOLA will not be fleshed out too extensively (Hi Mommy!) but rest assured, they were awesome.  And also to my other Amanda who I left out of the last one because I'm pretty sure she's not reading because she's much too busy running around Spain and Europe being very chic and super fun.

SO ONTO ACTUAL WRITING.

(One more digression: I'm also sorry for the minor lag in posting, I've been doing a lot of writing at my incredibly stimulating internship and then after work the last dregs of my writerly urges have been expended on tapping away at something else and I'm sure you've all missed my long winded ramblings just EVER SO MUCH.  OK, writing!)

Most people have heard about that whole "flood" thing that happened in New Orleans and that a lot of the city lies below sea level and they have some sense that some overwhelmingly black areas caught the brunt of it and they know that this was all caused by levees breaking (an event commemorated forever in the dozens of t-shirts that proclaim "I drove my Chevy to the Levee but the Levee was Gone").

But majority of people (aka all of you) don't understand how this all really works.  For instance, most people don't seem to grasp that this isn't bloody Holland, with a ten-foot wall holding back the sea.  The areas of the city that lie below sea level also lie inland.  If they didn't, New Orleans would be an island, not a periodic swimming pool.  And now we must deal with one of those weird things about New Orleans.

Most cities lie on rivers.  This is because people need fresh water to live.  It is easier to access this water if you build your city next to it.  Beyond these "duh" statements, consider the examples: Boston on the Charles, New York on the Husdon, Jacksonville on the St. Charles (which is one of the four rivers in the world to flow north), Chicago on the not-particularly-creatively-named Chicago River. 

While these cities all also conveniently lie at the mouths of these rivers, where they open into even bigger bodies of water, the river and the transportation it affords make the rivers the centers of their cities.  Ports built near them and then businesses built near the ports and everyone built houses around the cities and then, boom, suddenly you have yourself a thriving metropolis.  (This process is, of course, exactly as simple as that and takes about five minutes, give or take a few centuries.)

New Orleans doesn't initially seem that different.  There is a river here, you might have heard of it, this "Mississippi River" thing?  The "Mighty Mississippi," as we call it at my house?  We are big fans of the Mississippi because it might be the coolest river in America-- the river that Mark Twain plumbed along, back when he was still Samuel Clemens, running from Minneapolis-St. Paul through Nashville and St. Louis right before it winds its way down here to the Big Easy.

The river made New Orleans, which operated as the last stop of the river, directing the many river's many passengers and cargos on their way to the rest of the world.  Barges still float by everyday, ports and warehouses still edge the riverfront. But the Mississippi is not the only body of water and, when it came to Katrina, the Mississippi was not the problem.

New Orleans is not a city that subscribes to the compass rose.  North, south, east and west mean absolutely nothing.  Anyone will tell you that the city does not do "grid systems" and that you navigate by saying uptown and downtown, riverside and lakeside.  Which brings us to the Lake.

Lake Pontchartrain is a really big lake.  It runs roughly along the north boundary of the city, its eastern edge feeding into a Bay which feeds into the Gulf, while the river wiggles its way along what become the south boundary before fracturing into the famous but rapidly disintegrating Mississippi Delta.  Go look at a map.  It'll be really cool looking, I swear, since the delta shows up as runs of dramatic color bleeding out into the azul blue of the Gulf.  I'll wait.

The areas of land bordering the Lake and River are clearly above sea level.  These areas and other high lying ridges were built on by the earliest residents of the city and still contain the city's oldest and most splendid homes.  But in order to expand once that land was used up, swampy low-lying land had to be drained and then eventually stuff that was really underwater was drained using the very, very, super-important canals.

These canals cross the city just like roads that no one can drive on, allowing boats to cut from Lake to River, dividing neighborhood from neighborhood, and most importantly, keeping the city dry.

So along comes Katrina, Sunday night's most unfortunate visitor, and storm surged up from the Gulf into the Lake and up the canals.  And for a few hours all was as it should be, the walls of the canal keeping back the dark rising waters.  And then the walls broke.  And then the deluge.

I've lived through my share of Hurricanes.  I experienced a tropical storm rolling through Orlando on a trip to Disney World, the monorail stopping due to rain or wind, while I was flipping out next to the rain-beaten window.  A few years later I remember driving with my mother through torrential rain to pick up Durham Pizza as Hurricane Fran stormed (ha, pun) up I-40.  As she darted across the parking lot, I could only see her for a few feet before she became engulfed

More clearly, I remember being at school for pre-planning, the August of my junior year, and hearing the announcement that the school was closing due to the oncoming tropical storm.  As I drove home, the bands of clouds were distinct in the sky, their swirls leading to the yet-unseen center of the vortex.  That was the fall that Florida had four hurricanes and I missed a week of school because falling tree limbs had wrecked all the power lines in town and my boonie high school took an extra day to get electricity back.  During our unexpected free time my brother and I would drive around our neighborhood and look at the damage.  Two houses in our neighborhoods flat-out had trees fall on them.  Considering that you cannot see our house for the trees half the time, this was a little disconcerting.

Hurricanes begin with spotty rain showers that fly through but increasingly get more and more frequent.  Hours pass and my Dad insists on doing dumb things like climbing on the roof or going running and Matt moves everything that can fly in wind into the garage or into the corner of the porch and you keep thinking about things like the bird feeders, which you really would not want flying through the sliding glass doors and I sit around and get paranoid and watch the cute guy on the weather channel. 

If the hurricane comes at night it's best because you set up candles in all the rooms in the house and Mommy sets up the radio and you take anything out the fridge that you can and cook up anything super-perishable for dinner.  Then you go to sleep and sleep until you wake up because by the next morning your alarm clock won't have power.  Sometimes its still raining then and the entire house is dusky and dark even though its noon and you're more bored than frightened, though every bump on the roof makes you jump and you think you can hear the trees in the yard creaking as they bend in the wind.  Sometimes you wake up and its bright and muggy and the yard is full of branches and twigs and the house is already starting to swelter.

For the next few days you listen hopefully for the sound of power trucks on your block (which you sometimes hear before the wind has even died down, the power companies start work the second power goes down, mounting cherry pickers among the gales) and sit around cursing Haile and their damn buried power lines and how you know they only lost power for three hours and they're going to brag about it the first day you get back to school.  We always got power back in a couple of days but people in the sticks have to wait weeks usually and often find friends in town to crash with.  The week junior year was the worst because three weeks into the school year you don't even have homework to keep you occupied and everything fun in town is closed because NO ONE has power and you're not even supposed to drive to friend's houses because there are wires down all over town and some areas still have flooded streets and you need to conserve gas but you do sometimes and its the first AC you've felt in days and its amazing and basically you go out of your mind from the boredom and the heat.

So when I heard that the DukeEngage hurricane plan was "get them the hell out of town at the first hint that a hurricane might come anywhere near New Orleans," I rolled my eyes because my hurricanes have been more inconveniences and sweltering heat than the specter of danger that the uninitiated imagine them to be.

But I've never had to deal with water.

In New Orleans, the water came not from the river-- the "sliver by the river" being the lucky strip of the French Quarter and the Central Business District and the Garden District and Uptown that saw no flooding-- and not even really from the Lake-- one lakeshore community that lies twenty feet from the Lake survived with only wind damage-- but from the canals, the amphibious tracts that cut exactly through the areas most prone to flooding.

The walls broke from strain and disrepair (investigations would later find that money earmarked for repairing and upgrading the levees was diverted to the war in Iraq.  People were understandably just a BIT upset by this) and the water poured in and filled the basin of the city.  The infamous Ninth Ward (inspiration for my v. exciting new t-shirt), which I can see from the window, is sandwiched between lake and river and was filled to the brim by the break in the Industrial Canal.  It had to be pumped out, but only once the walls were rebuilt. 

The 9th Ward's character is hard to explain and I'm not sure I really understand it myself.  It is a poor area and I wouldn't walk around the neighborhood by myself but to think of it as some urban or suburban ghetto would be inaccurate.  Before the storm, something like 60% of the homes in the neighborhood were owned by their residents, who have lived in the neighborhood for for generations, the plot bought dirt cheap and built on and invested in.  When we had dinner with Allison Plyer (of <A href="http://www.gnocdc.org/C_tech-assist.cfm">Ask Allison</A>!) she had a quote from a woman who remembered her family carving a path out of their swampy swath of land to build their house when they first bought the property.  She further explained that people stayed because they had roots there.

(Of course, the reason they could buy the property for so little was because it was below sea level and no sane person would really trust the federal government enough to protect them from an entire lake.)

(And none of this bodes well for what is going to happen in South Florida, the land of infill, the next time a hurricane rams through the peninsula.  The problem isn't as dramatic as it is in New Orleans but large areas that were swamp aren't anymore because they've become suburban lawns and that seems like a bad idea in the long run.)

The people of the Lower 9th Ward were black and low-income but they were also property owners and invested citizens of New Orleans.  Thus the big fuss when suddenly those houses were under nine feet of water.  And thus the movement to use programs like Road Home to help these people renovate and return to those houses.

But the flooding wasn't limited to this one neighborhood.  A staggering majority of the metro area received some flooding and this includes nicer neighborhoods and dingier ones alike.  And while a lot has been rebuilt, the levees are still in a major state of disrepair. 

And that's why everyone in New Orleans doesn't worry about crime, or education, or health care, or they do, but its secondary to the most pressing of fears: another Big One.

America seems ready to rebuild New Orleans once (though as we learned from our overly detailed Ghost Tour guide, this is hardly the first rebuilding of New Orleans.  Like every other American city, New Orleans seems to have burned down about 80 times before the age of electricity).  But people worry that they won't rebuild it twice and that even if they were willing to, no one would want them too.  Another Big One in the foreseeable future would be the death knell for New Orleans.

The city's oldest residents remember rebuilding after the last Big One in the sixties.  But third time is the charm and next time who knows what will remain to be recovered.  I wouldn't want to live through a hurricane in New Orleans, fearing not the winds or the rains, but the possibility of dark water spilling under the door and climbing from my feet to my ankles to my knees to my chest and keeps rising as the city becomes Lake George once again.

In honor of the midpoint of the DukeEngage in NOLA calendar, I am going to write an entry that is actually entirely dedicated to NOLA rather than allowing my experiences to spark long, nostalgic tangents into my bygone, misspent childhood.

When people talk about the New Orleans, the first thing they talk about is the food. Since I’m an odd human being, it’s going to be the approximately fiftieth thing I write about. But here we have a guide to NOLA dining, as filtered through four weeks of generally stipend-dictated spending.

In order to keep my head kind of straight the list starts uptown and roughly heads downtown from there. No, we don’t really eat anywhere that isn’t a couple of blocks from St. Charles, we’re lazy and its not like there aren’t enough restaurants.

Sushi Restaurant on Oak, Whose Name Escapes Me: We went here a few weeks ago and it was one of the weaker restaurants we’ve been to. The restaurant is located in a renovated house, a bar downstairs and the dining room on the second floor.

In order to manage the flow all the waiters wear those toolish headset things but that did not save them from failing to inform us clearly that we must wait downstairs in the oddly smelling bar area or risk being sat at two different tables immediately upon arriving on the second floor.

That said, the food itself was actually pretty decent. It wasn’t the best sushi I’d ever had but I doubt there are many other places in the world where you can get crawfish or Cajun shrimp sushi. The other table said the noodle dishes were pretty legit as well. But I think we’ve sated our sushi urges for the moment.

The Boot: I believe that I have sufficiently captured the general ambiance of the Boot in my earlier post. (Recap: dark, dirty, but not nearly as gross as Shooters.) I believe that I even mentioned that they serve food. Well I had the opportunity to eat the food at the boot last weekend. They’re pizza is actually quite delicious, the large flat slices that get good and greasy. I’m not kidding, it was very enjoyable.

It actually reminded me of Leo’s at home but I was able to enjoy it without bitterness at the travesty that is the new-not-nearly as good roll recipe at Leo’s. So that was nice.

Reginelli’s: The closest thing we’ve done to classic Italian, this place is much more the modern pizza joint. We had it for Reflection Thursday the first week and it was decent. (Decent enough for me to eat 3.5 slices.) It has good crust, which is one of my big things (and the reason that Mellow Mushroom is the shiz despite being desperately overpriced). They have some fun unique toppings. But I wasn’t overwhelmed.

The pizza is TEN TIMES better when fresh.

We went with the baby Robertsons our third week and the chicken/feta pizza that Lauren got was delicious. The pasta and sandwiches aren’t bad either, though both times I’ve had the tortellini I’ve been disappointed to find that some of the pieces were rather dry/over baked.

Superior Grill: We love Superior Grill. It’s the first place we ate by ourselves when Lauren, Mad and myself made our way there for dinner our second night. The second they placed the chips and salsa on the table we were hooked (though Margaret is right, they do require some extra salt). The idea of a crawfish quesadilla might strike one as a bit odd at first but they are absolutely delicious.

(Crawfish in anything is actually delicious, it’s a shame that we showed up right at the end of the season.)

Second time around Mad and I downed another basket of chips each before splitting the Uptown Enchilada platter. The spinach enchilada was my favorite, the shrimp seemed a bit out of place and I swear you can taste the difference between the local, in-season crawfish and whatever they’re serving now.

The third time we went to Superior we knew exactly what we were getting when we walked in and it was not Mexican. We’d all become convinced that the seafood-rich, red-meat poor diet that typifies both NOLA cuisine and the diets of too-lazy-to-cook college students had lead to us all going majorly anemic so all we wanted was the giant Superior burger and some fries. Four of us ordered the exact same thing and it was goooooood.

Theo’s: We went here on our third night after driving up and down Magazine looking for a place for dinner. It looked decent. We found out afterwards that its pizza is widely renowned, famous people eat there all the time; the t-shirts are all over town. We were very proud of ourselves for discovering a local hotspot all by ourselves.

The pizza is good stuff, nice crust, really good sauce and cheese, yummy veggies, hippie-inspired specialty pizzas, good chicken. We need to go again before we leave.

Slim Goodies: So the funny story of Slim Goodies.

For two weeks Mad had been telling us we had to get brunch at the great place on Magazine called “Slim Jim’s.” I’ve found that Duke students as a group really enjoy breakfast food after noon, and our subset is no exception, so we were all systems go for Father’s Day. After we dispensed of our filial duties by calling our fathers to wish them our best and give them our love, we took off in Lauren’s car.

After driving towards near the end of the commercial stretch of Magazine, we spot a place called “Slim Goodies.” It seemed brunchy and hopping so we parked and made our way over, all ready to accept that Mad got the name a little wrong.

Well, all except Mad, who said that this place looked good TOO and set about texting the girl who made the original recommendation. The girl texted back that “Slim Goodies is pure heaven. Slim Jims are dried beef.”

I still don’t think Mad has totally accepted that there is no diner called Slim Jim’s on Magazine. But that is why we love her.

Of course, I am rarely pleased when someone does not agree with me/listen to me/submit to my iron sense of will and opinion. But even I might cave on the name of the breakfast place.

Especially when the breakfast place is as good as Slim Goodies. The diner is like Elmo’s hipster little brother, with much more limited hours. The walls are covered with prints of local folk-paintings, with homages to Johnny Cash and “The queen of white trash culture.” We’ve spent a lot of our time there trying to make sense of the giant word (poem?) paintings that non sequitor out of control.

The menu features every breakfast food you can think of (except, oddly, French toast) and more, since I don’t think I ever though that eggs rancheros, avocado slices and fried plantains were quintessential breakfast foods but I now know better. I keep getting the number two, which means two pancakes, two eggs, and bacon or sausage for six bucks. But I really need to get the sweet potato pancakes before we go. And possibly a t-shirt.

Byblos: We went here the first week. It’s Greek/Mediterranean, which I always like. They didn’t have gyros, which was a little surprising and disappointing because I as much as I love Sati’s gyros, I was excited about the idea of one that wasn’t a little soggy from sitting in a box waiting for delivery.

(An aside: did everyone here that Francesca’s closed? What’s up with that? Where am going to order hugely unhealthy tins of penne a la vodka from now?)

I got a pretty decent chicken salad, Mad did the sampler plate, and Lauren got some thing involving eggplant and crabs, which I didn’t understand but tasted good.

Joey K’s: Oh, I liked this place. It was recommended by Lauren and Ryan’s boss, the infamous Lance, whose characterization on their blogs is priceless, both in that it is great and in that it does not cost money to read them.

Antway, Joey K is like Slim Goodies in that it’s walls are covered in boldly colored, folkish paintings that remind you at every turn exactly where you are. The food is delicious. They have a five dollar hamburger that we no doubt will need to go consume sometime, but I got the Friday night special, jambalaya, which wasn’t quite as good as Mrs. Rye’s, but was still yummy. The pasta dishes were also good from the bites I had and as was Margaret’s enormous children’s fried chicken plate.

We definitely need to be back, I might have to take ACatalani this weekend.

Wendy’s on St. C: Yes, the chain. Everyone should try their new strawberry milkshakes, they are yummy.

Copeland’s Cheesecake Bistro: Oh dear god, SO GOOD. Please just get the crawfish ravioli and your life WILL be complete. Though you may want to split it because the servings are not messing around.

Imagine, if you will, cheese ravioli. Now bread and deep-fry it because this is the South and you can deep-fry anything. Now pour a delicious, creamy sauce with crawfish over the whole thing. And then gorge yourself.

So, so good. Also good: the chocolate praline cheesecake. Praline anything is very high on my list of things that make the world good and this cheesecake warrants a particularly big gold star.

Copeland’s is what Cheesecake Factory wishes it could be when it grows up but it will never be this good. Simply not possible.

Mothers: So, Mothers is one of those quintessential NO places and locals will whine about how it’s all overpriced and touristy now. And all that might be true but it doesn’t matter. Mothers is DELICIOUS and they fill yo’ plate right up.
The Mothers experience begins by waiting in line outside, baking in the afternoon sun. Eventually you make your way to the ramp and there you meet Elvis.

I do not know his real name and when he first introduces himself you will be bemused because “Elvis” at sixty-something bears absolutely no resemblance to the young looker in Blue Hawaii. But if you play along he’ll flip open his wallet and prove that once-upon a time he did bear a striking resemblance to the King and you will suddenly lend credence to his claim that he can sing just like him too. When Elvis begins to croon under his breath and give his hips a little wiggle you suddenly decide that this old dude is GREAT and you need a picture of him and he will oblige you kindly.

Then he will explain the rules: line up to the left, single file and be ready to ORDER, NOW.

You then enter the blessed AC to wait in a new line, this time entertained by the signed pictures of famous figures as well as their autographed plates, which overcrowd the brightly painted walls. Servers bustle by, they really mean the single file bit, everything smells amazing, you change your order many times while looking at the other diners’ meals.

Once you order you sit and wait for your waitress to call your name and cart out a boatload of food. Then you dig in.

The roast beef really is amazing, the breakfast foods are delicious, the biscuits are divine. Skip the brownie: it’s the size of a brick but unfortunately also the consistency of one. Try the bread pudding instead; word is that it’s delicious.

NO School of Cooking: This was the very first place where we ate in New Orleans. We watched Ann cook out entire dinner from scratch as she explained the history of every cultural group to arrive in the city as well as making very clear the difference between CREOLE and CAJUN, mainly that Creole is classic New Orleans and Cajun is what Erin’s cousins in Southwest LA do with all those crazy spices. No one worried about Cajun in New Orleans until the 70s when some dude showed up, started a restaurant where he transformed blackened red fish from redneck chow into high culture cuisine.

As Ann was telling us all of this, in a voice strongly shaded by the fronted vowels and drawls that typify the native New Orleans voice, she was darkening roux and sautéing the trinity and the pope, and calling Mad an “oriole” which it took us a second to get and a further minute to decide how we felt about it (we decided not to be offended).

She prepared fresh sausage gumbo and creamy crawfish etouffee and warm, melt-in-your-mouth pralines. She sent us home with recipes so I can try to replicate these in my much-anticipated kitchen on Central but I doubt it’ll ever be quite the same.

Oh and seriously the prah-leeeeeeens? So good. I will make pralines until my arteries clog and I sugar rush into a wall because my god, so good.

Café Maspero: Mad, Margaret and I spent the better part of an hour wandering around the Quarter searching for this place, where Margaret ate during Mardi Gras in February, convinced with every step that we would be mugged at any second (not an unreasonable fear to be sure, but since we were sober and it was still totally light out, we probably could have been a smidge less paranoid).

We finally found the elusive “Café M-something” and it was totally worth it. Giant plate of calamari for eight bucks, huge fried shrimp sandwiches and plates for about the same. The restaurant itself is rather dark and tavern like and not at all what the word “café” evokes. But there are a number of cafes throughout the Quarter due to the infusion of Italian immigrants who moved in a couple hundred years ago, once the French had moved out and on.

But Café Maspero is definitely worth another trip. Get the fried shrimp sandwich not platter if you only need a moderate pile of fried shrimp rather than a massive pile. This place could defeat even Ashley’s stomach. It’s like the Torero’s of Creole cuisine.

Café Giovanni: If Café Maspero isn’t exactly one expects from a “café” then Café Giovanni is EXACTLY what one expects and more. It’s elegant and luscious, with just a hint of quirk in the sparkling stars that embellish the walls.

The food is in the same vein—classic and sumptuous but each dish features a special touch that makes it distinctive. I got the Absolute Pasta, which was in fact absolutely delicious—cream sauce with jumbo shrimp and delicate scallops all over angel hair. Everyone else’s dishes were equally yummy. And DukeEngage paid for the whole thing! Stellllllllllar.

(See Mad, stellar is totally happening!)