Saturday, January 13th 2007

We played tourists today around the French Quarter. Scott is a great guy for this. He loves to see things and doesn’t mind taking the reins and making everything happen. I swear he must have a GPS chip embedded in his wrist or something. Today was a home game for the New Orleans Saints and the Philly Eagles. All day we saw locals sporting Fleur De Lys decals on their faces and clothes sipping god-knows-what from outlandish oversized plastic cups. At about 4 it started to clear out and the swelling excitement subsided… for the time being.

We ate at a restaurant of Scott’s choice, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in the French Quarter. It was really good and very rich. I remembered the feeling of impending internal rupture from the night before and took it easy this time around. I had a prosciutto, basil and ricotta cheese stuffed pork chop with fondant potatoes and perfectly steamed veggies. Scott ordered a blackened fillet with the classic mash and vegetable sides done to perfection. To begin, fried rabbit tenderloin with honey mustard reminded me of a chicken tender I had while playing pool the week before. A Gigondas accompanied us through our edible journey through K-Paul’s Kitchen. Half way through we were visited by a 4 man band playing some authentic Creole tunes. Unfortunately, due to a lot of city living my first reaction was annoyance because I did not feel like being asked for money. The restaurant didn’t seem the type to allow that sort of intrusion, but you never know so I listened and tapped my foot quietly while they played.

At the end of the set they thanked us for dining there and explained that the chef put some of his profits back into the community by feeding the men and women who came here to help rebuild the city. That made a very big difference to me.

We took a stroll on Bourbon St after dinner when the last play in the game was made to put the Saints into a close but victorious win. The level of excitement surged like an inebriated buzz with “Who Dat” chanted over and over again. It is some local expression relating to some football thing. I saw some guy earlier that day wearing a shirt with that saying and just thought he was illiterate. I had no idea it was a cultural thing.

This entry was posted by Johnny on Saturday, January 13th, 2007 at 10:28 PM and is filed under Food & Wine, Out & About, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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